Grantland - The Best Way to Understand Daryl Morey

I'm starting to think Morey is too stubborn because up until this point his approach of building a super team with at least 3 stars has failed and in the mean time that 2-3 year window is dwindling for the team. I felt when Bosh kept farting around about needing to wait on Lebron before he took a max contract from the Rox, the Rox should have moved on and maybe they would be in a better position right now. I don't know. I do know the Rox have had a horrible off season at the worse time. I hope it can somehow be salvaged in time before Howard AND Harden throw the deuces at the Rox when its time for them to opt out of their contracts.

 

Missing out on Bosh wasn't the risky move that hurt us. Lin and Asik were gone either way. It was declining Parsons' option that blew up in our face and set us back.

 

Its ok, the one thing we still have is hope. Parsons would have closed that door for us with his greed, he's young he needs to make his money I understand Im glad thats over with. Time to move on.

 

If we get Rondo we will apparently have a team of assholes.

 

Yeah, I didn't get that allusion to no one wants to play with Howard or Harden. I think the Bosh to Miami was more about money and him being comfortable in Miami.

LBJ couldn't have left Miami for anywhere OTHER than Cleveland or he would have been SLAUGHTERED.

And Melo not wanting to come here was about STRAIGHT money, or what did he say "All I want to do is win", so he went back to NY. Riiiiiight!!!!

 

If the Rockets can put together some actual playoff success, all the "no one wants to play with Dwight/Harden" stuff will disappear fast. As near as I can tell, the only player in the league who truly repels teammates is Kobe.

 

I am 100% ready to accept the role of NBA villain. The Bad Boys still won titles regardless of their perception.

Regarding the article, I feel like Sharp did a great job in summarizing why Morey is successful and why he fails. However, like others, I had a problem with his depiction/knowledge of some details.

One in particular, I feel like it is stupid to write off what a Nene-Gasol frontcourt could accomplish in the NBA. Would I prefer it to Harden-Howard? Of course not. But Nene is balling right now and Gasol is a champion; anything is possible.

 

We have a brand new team than three years ago. A much better team with two superstars. No complaints here. Nobody is perfect.

 

This pretty much sums up why I'm okay with what Daryl Morey did. I'm not ok with the result at the moment, but he was a 5 year 118 million dollar hail marry from Miami away from putting together the best starting 5 in all of basketball. Howard/Harden/Parsons was not a championship team. I would have been ok with him keeping that core and adding another really good player to it either at PG or PF, but he went for the homerun and struck out. I'll judge him more on the moves that he does from here to salvage the situation.

 

Most teams go through a certain cycle as they try to build toward being a contender. Sometimes they get rid of most of their players, sometimes just some of them, but once they think they are within reach, they shoot for the moon, and bring on some expensive FAs with bad contracts. This might help them, but a lot of times it doesn't get them very far, and then they're screwed for years, until they can clear their space again.

Morey takes his shots, but he doesn't let himself get boxed in. We won 54 games last year, and will probably win the same this year, more or less. Not re-signing Parsons at the last minute was amazing. In doing that, he made himself look much worse than if he had re-signed him.

To be sure, it guarantees that the best we can possibly do is lose in the third round, probably in the second. If he had signed Parsons, maybe we could have gone a little farther, but we weren't going to win it all, and it would have boxed us in for the future.

I really, really wish that we had traded Parsons earlier for Love or Rondo, instead of insisting we were going to keep him. I don't know why we didn't do that, but if you watch Morey year after year, he's going to get where he's going sooner or later.

 

Haha this

 

Totally agree...

T_Man

 

Huh? If anything he praised DM and ended the article by saying 90% of teams would love to have a GM like him. Maybe you need to read it again lol.

IMHO he hits it spot on with the thing about effort. Morey's like that dude who tried to block LBJ and got posterized. Yes you laugh at the dude now but thinking about it trying to go for the block and failing is much better than shying away from contact so you won't get embarrassed. The rox tried to go hard for a superstar and got embarrassed, and even then they did the right thing by not matching Parsons and using our $$$ on someone else who isn't overpaid.

 

This was a real faceplant of an offseason, but I'm not mad at Morey. He took a gamble and lost. Now he's laid down his chips for next offseason. And while what he's done completely failed, I don't blame him because I think even in hindsight he made the right choice. Going for a big fish was the right choice (though I disagree with targetting Melo). Offering Bosh the max was the right choice.

Even declining the option on Parsons was the right choice, especially in retrospect. At the end of the season, whether we've won a championship or not, whether we've signed a Big Fish player or not, a team like Dallas comes to him with a max offer and says you'll be part of our big 3, while Houston doesn't believe you're good enough to be a Big 3 player for them. We get one more year out of him, but he's gone at that point, again with nothing in return.

The only thing I would quibble with is actually executing on the trades of Lin and Asik for cap space despite knowing Bosh wasn't coming. I have to think they could have reworked those deals to take back salary and thereby get back a bit more talent, but contracts that either expire or else tradeable for cap space next offseason.

 

we traded Asik for a high first, and trade exceptions. we essentially traded Lin (cap space) and a low first for Ariza. both are good moves.

having missed on Bosh, not matching the mavs offer was absolutely the right thing to do.

the only questionable, and in retrospect indefensible, move morey made was declining the team option on Parsons, making him a RFA.

 

Fair criticism and many relevant points.
I found it intersting that he mentions not liking
Daryl Moreys way of doing things but finished by
Stating that he thinks that probably 90% of the
Fan bases would still rather have him as their GM.

 

The worst thing he could have done was panic and did something to jeopardize the future financial situation of the team. The thing that makes Morey so good at what he does is that he's able to fall back on the countless contingencies he has when things don't go as planned, and emotions are easily mingled into decision making. It hurt him just as much as it did us when Bosh backed out at the final possible moment, but he knew he had other plans in place that he could turn to in case this happened. Not matching Parsons was an unfortunate side-effect to this plan, but paying him $46M over the next 3 years would have literally been the worst contract in the NBA, and he's worked his ass off to ensure that the Rockets NEVER have one of those deals if the team isn't a powerhouse. It was a crappy weekend for everybody, but this team is still poised to make moves going forward. Being hamstrung by bad deals is far worse than being in the situation we are in.

 

Yes. EXACTLY.

Can anyone name a GM who has done more with less? It's easy to forget that when DM finally took over for CD, it was right before the 2007-2008 season. Yao, season ending injury. The next year, TMac, season ending injury,though he still hedged his bets and picked up MWP, and the team made the second round, but then lost Yao again to a full season injury... of which Yao never returned.

You can basically write off everything through the 2010/2011 season, Yao's official last season though he only played 5 games.

If you think about the assets he had to work with and the handcuffs he was working against - 2 star players on big contracts always perpetually injured... plus the strong rumors that Les at that time absolutely was NOT willing to go into deep suckitude... DM has done amazingly.

When he finally got Les ready to go into deep suckitude, his asset accumulation plan, which again really wasn't in place all that long, paid off quickly.

It's just when you are compared to teams that had the great fortune of picking up 3 ALL-STAR plus players in 1 offseason (Celtics, Heat), teams that were handed great players to go along with existing great players (Gasol, being added to Kobe, Odom and Bynum... all really really good players at that time), or teams that have had the benefit of picking HIGH in the lottery at least once if not more (Clippers, Warriors, Thunder, Pacers, Blazers, Cavs, etc.), and even with teams with owners that are freaking crazy and by virtue of location do have truly unlimited checkbooks (Nets)... well those are mostly things that DM does not have at his disposal.

The only thing you can potentially say is that DM had 1 player pick them that was basically a "free" pickup... that being Dwight. But he wasn't adding an already STACKED team. Dwight is clearly key cog two, not key cog 3. DM has had exactly one draft pick in his tenure higher than 14. The unlimited checkbook approach never seems to work in basketball. It's one thing to say Bosh or Melo might not want to play without superstars... but that seems dubious. Melo chose NYC, money and the Eastern Conference. Bosh chose Miami, money and the Eastern Conference.

If Kevin Love makes it to free agency next year, and chooses to sign with the Lakers, it would be idiotic of fans and analysts to once again say "our superstars can't attract other players, and DM treats players like assets", yada, yada. No... Love loves LA... and its LA. Not complicated.

You can't just grade people without looking at situation.

Situationally, DM has definitely done a LOT more good than bad. Situationally, he's made mistakes for sure. It's VERY VERY easy to say "why did he make Parsons restricted this year. that was dumb." It's much harder to realize that he has made similarly smart decisions in the past that could go either way, and went the right way and got the team in the shape it is currently in. Had Bosh chosen Houston, DM would have matched, and the team would have had a championship caliber starting 5 for a while, with MLE's to build bench depth and still had other assets in the form of young players and potential lotto picks.

Bosh didn't choose Houston. DM's offseason plans backfired.

The only real question to me, on the whole, continues to be, would tanking have been better, given the difficulty of trying to pull off what DM has been trying to do. With the benefit of hindsight, I say probably no. The draft has generally been horrible the last few years, and absent the right player falling to you ... and you picking that right players, you could end up in the long-term position of perpetually being horrible. True, he could have picked up a combo of Oladipo, Lillard, Klay Thomson.... but could have also gotten Derrick Williams, MKG and Cody Zeller.... Moreover, it's not like the Thunder, who have drafted as well as anyone the past decade, have won a title yet either.

Still though, the point remains. Pacers, Spurs, Warriors, Grizzlies, Blazers, Clippers, Bulls, Wizards... all built on the success of one or more real high lotto picks.

Of course we all know DM has been jonesing for one of those picks for ages...

Long story long. DM has done about as good as possible

 

Great article, but the part about firing McHale was spot one. Mchale does not hold his superstars accountable for anything. He's one to play superstars for the sake of playing superstars to keep his own job. Rather than play team ball, they often go to hero ball between Harden and D12. He only holds players not named Harden or Howard accountable and subs them out when a mistake is made.

He never holds Harden accountable for anything. Lack of D, he gets to keep playing, moronic ball decisions with TOs (Harden stays in the game), Harden is shooting 10% (he lets him stay in the game in hopes Harden plays hero ball and saves the day).

If Mchale held Harden responsible the starting lineup last year should have been Harden, Lin, Parsons, D12, Asik. But now that Lin, Parsons and Asik is gone the Rockets have effectively let go 3 of their top 5 players. The only reason Bev had to be in the starting lineup was because of Harden's lack of D and not because Lin can't play D (Lin is an average defender). Bev was definitely Rocket's best wing defender but other than that, Bev is a scrub and shouldn't have been the starter. If Mchale held players responsible on the defensive end, they would have easily reached 2nd round last year. A New Coach is DUE, but might be too late.