Goran Dragic on if the Rockets ever had a chance to keep him

If you look at Harden's advanced stats from 11'-12' that might clear things up for you as to why Morey didn't think Harden was a gamble.

 

No, that's dumb. Morey wanted MAXIMUM flexibility. Wasting 7.5 million on a guy who is not a star is not worth it.

And a contract with a player option isn't easy to trade.

 

I could care less about this guy because he's not on the rockets. this current rox team blows any rox team in years, especially the one lowry or dragic was on.

 

Harden turned down a contract from the Thunder that would be $6mil less than max. So yes, he would get max offers on the market. You may be correct that no team other than Morey would offer Harden the max AND fork over 3 1st round pick(two lottery), a high 2nd rounder, and a solid rotation player for Harden.

Dragic had no such issue. He was a FA. Not a RFA one year away from his payday. But simply a FA.

 

And you can look at Goran's actual stats (besides his advanced ones) in the 2nd half of the 11/12 season, (when he got his 1st chance to run a team as a starter) and reach the same conclusion.

Talking about advanced stats though,…
Harden, AS starter this year, currently has a 21.35 PER, while Goran on the other hand, is sporting a wopping 22.80 PER. Not an All Star though, not an All Star.

 

Dragic and Lowry are putting up nice stats while on teams with sad-looking rosters. Even DeMar DeRozan is an all-star.

Dragic's player option makes him a no-brainer for Morey to not sign him. If he exercises the option, Rockets could lose their point guard while courting another star during the FA period. If he has a bad 2015 and doesn't opt out, the Rockets would lose flexibility for 2nd/3rd star/max contract, depending on how much they give Parsons and others.

 

lol what? when do you ever hear a player reminisce about his old team and bring up the president or GM?

 

The James Harden trade was one of the greatest ever because:

1). Harden was 23 and still on a rookie deal. 23-year-old All-stars are almost never available. Guys like LeBron, Melo, CP3 are usually available only after their 1st contract extension.

2). Harden is an all-star in the league's weakest position: shooting guard. No other shooting guard besides Harden made the Western Conference all-star team this year. Wade, DeMar DeRozan and Joe Johnson(LOL) were all-stars on the East team. Daryl Morey would've had a very tough time acquiring a decent shooting guard.

3). The fact that Harden was even available despite 1). and 2). made it hard to believe. Giving up only an expiring contract and not one top 10 draft pick made it even more incredible.

 

We did have KMart...he was a pretty decent SG.

 

Are people forgetting that the 4 th year of Dragic's contract is players option. that means he can opt out in the final year if he plays well, and then Phoenix will have to pay a lot more to keep him. Or if he plays crap, Houston would have been stuck wi him. So saying his contract and Lin's are comparable is inaccurate. 4th year player options for semi-unproven players are risks.

Let's not revise history, as Lin was not even signed when Dragic walked. It's easy to look back and say they made a mistake, but at the time, I think Morey was right not to offer the extra year as a players option. It sets a precedence which he did not want to set. This impacts all future negotiations.

Morey thought he could have had Lin at lower (I think he had 4yr, $28m in mind) rate but ended up paying more when Ny looked to matched and he was stuck without a point guard. He gambled, and as unbias view, I think Morey lost the gamble. But let's see what happens after this year when the contracts finish to see who was the winner, ok?

 

Excellent post Bima!

I think that there are quite a few of us who share your viewpoint about Lin, as a player, and a person. It's sad , however that there are those who only see him as some sort of basketball demigod, or the Antichrist who is hellbent on destroying the Rockets.

The only thing that I would add to your comment is that as much as I like JLin, I love the ROCKETS more, and any decision made about his role on the team has to be made for the benefit of the team and not the benefit of JLin! I'm sure we both agree on this as well.
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Dragic is playing on Linsanity level right now, which was how he played with the Rockets after Lowry was out.

But the interesting thing is, he was very mediocre last season as a first time full-time starter. In fact, I remember that he was not playing exceptionally well at the beginning of this season.

I've always been intrigued by the parallel between him and Lin. Both had an insane (or Linsane) stretch of games right after they were given an opportunity to start. Both struggled in the full season as a starter.

Now the parallel is no more. Dragic is blossoming. Lin is still inconsistent. Dragic has been given the rein of his team. Lin is coming off the bench.

 

That's a myth. We've already seen Bargnani and Rudy Gay get traded this season. We've also seen Andris Biedrinš exercising the last year of his contract and turn into a $9 mil expiring, which made him a desirable target for the tanking Jazz. If Dragić was playing like crap and Morey had to trade him by all costs until summer 2015 to clear cap room, he would have done it. Just like he traded away $5 million (Thomas Robinson and Royce White) for picks and overseas players to make room for Dwight this summer, and did it without breaking a sweat.

 

Dragic played great for us and has been even better since going back to PHX. If we had him now instead of Lin we'd prob be 3 games higher in the standings. Prob still underdogs to OKC, Miami, and Indiana, but we'd be very very close.

That being said, letting Dragic go was a reasonable risk by Morey. Dragic is a complimentary player, not a foundation, and any contract over 3 years is so risky for a team needing max flexibility for trades. The basic rule in basketball GM'ing is that you get your star players first. You never ever ever want to be in a situation where you can't sign your star because your complimentary player makes too much money. That issue is exactly why we were able to get Harden (see Kendrick Perkins).

 

The market for Bargnani and Gay was very very thin. In return for Gay, Toronto got back two role players with little upside (PatPat, Vasquez), an overpaid multiyear contract (Chuck Hayes - sorry but it's true), and a washed up veteran (Salmons). With Bargnani, Toronto had to throw in a first rounder and two second rounders just to get NY to take him. It's really not that easy to dump contracts anymore.

Robinson was a wash because he still has potential. But to get rid of White we had to pay his entire salary and throw in a prospect, and White's salary was chump change.

 

Though similar style of plays, Lin and Draigc are in vastly different situation. A team's first option and a 6th man who is the team's 5th option. From FG% I don't think Lin is inconsistent. If you only look at PPG than of course it won't be consistent for Lin because currently he is just a role player, we don't need him to produce consistent PPG because have 4 other guys who we prioritize as offensive weapon over him

I would begin to judge and compare them when both of them are in the same situation.

 

I completely understand, but we're talking about this summer of 2012 nightmare scenario, where the Rockets are in full rebuilding mode, are tanking and looking for the 2015 free agency to find star players. You'll get pennies on a dollar for underperforming players with players options, but that's fine if your objective is to lose games and have flexibility.
Dragić's contract was a risk, but one that Morey was supposed to be willing to take, in that scenario. And that's without factoring in that Goran played great as a starter in Houston, filled in perfectly with the Rockets' style of play, and had a great relationship with McHale. Those were clear signs that he would have succeeded in Houston, but sometimes you have to make compromises and take on that additional year. Morey was going by the book, played it safe and missed out. That's it.

 

Let's also see what happens with both of them through the rest of this season - Dragic is shooting and playing so far above last year and his average that (I'll be lambasted for this I'm sure) it's almost inevitable that he will come back to earth a bit. We shall see.

 

This year Dragic is playing better than James harden. Not saying Dragic is better than Harden, but this year he is playing better than James Harden. I think Morey Screwed up. I don't know why people try to defend Morey so much. Even the best GMs make mistakes.

 

I think someone should pin's Bimathug's post. Wish there was a way to do that.