why do we care what they are paid? our tickets don't generally cost more because we signed brad miller, lowry, and scola have been signed, les is the only one who legitimately feels any repercussions from these signings
glad i actually read your post. after reading the thread title, even as president of the 'Morey is a mortal' club, i felt inclined to defend him against claims re his sanity. agreed, for better or its alternative, the Rockets have decided the time is now. nice post, i enjoyed the read!
Chill out man.... this is 2010, not 1998. Players are getting paid a lot more. Hell, even if we go back to 2001 when we signed MOOCHIE freakin NORRIS to a 4 year 20 mil contract or better yet Kelvin Cato's 50+ mil contract. Now that's over paying and those deals were done almost 10 years ago, so relax! Paying Lowry that money is totally worth it. There's no free agent PGs on the market that would be able to take his place. We wouldve ended up having to trade for a PG who's making about the same amount he is plus give up one of our assets at the same time. So what would you do? Pay the guy 5-6 mil which is nothing for a successful team who saved like 30 mil last year on insurance protection from Tmac/Yao last year? Or would you rather trade some guys and still pay that player 3-5 mil? Same thought process goes for Scola. Chill out people
Lowry is worth the contract. Scola's is a bit longer than expected for a 30-year-old non-star player. (But I guess since Scola has been very durable and is not athletic, Morey figured Scola would still have at least 4 productive years left.) I feel that Miller probably wouldn't have commended so much money in normal market condition. The last season production usually has a lot of bearing on a FA's perceived worth. He didn't do very well last year. BTW, I have a feeling that a lot of posters just reacted to the thread title without actually reading the opening post.
One more thing. I think Morey has earned Les's trust in his first two years as GM. Or else, Les wouldn't have given him the spending power. Perhaps Les is shrewder than we think. Did he time it back in 2007 to hire Morey so Morey would have a couple of years to prove himself worthy of handling the much anticipated Summer 2010?
What's the big Deal? Miller's deal is basically 2 years and $11million? $5.5 Million for a reliable 7 footer off the bench? Run the tape of 6'4 - one legged Chuck Hayes getting owned inside last year & tell me it isn't worth it! Lowry's deal is SLIGHTLY inflated & can be over in 3years and traded after one, and Scola's deal is not even half of Bosh's deal & can be done in 4years. And This means Morey's lost his mind? YOU GUYS ARE NUTS! BOTTOM LINE YOU HAVE TO PAY TO COMPETE AND BESIDES ITS LES'S MONEY! RELAX & HOPE THIS TEAM GETS IT DONE!
I'm not so sure this was meant as a joke or not, but people don't really live forever. Maybe this is dawning on Les.
LOL. And George Steinbrenner might just placed the final in the coffin. Steinbrenner passed away on July 13th, Lowry's contract is matched on 14th.
With LeChoke and Bosh deciding to follow Wade in Miami, the Rockets picked a horrible season to go All In. This team, as constructed, can make the playoffs, but the odds are stacked way against them making the Finals, and the Miami Asterisk will have enough talent around Wade, Robin 1, and Robin 2 to be the favorites to win it all. Les and Morey have painted themselves into a corner, with these moves, and we're still not a lock to even make the playoffs. It's not that I'm against any of these moves individually, but collectively they don't look great on paper. What we have is a team that must acquire a second star player through trade, and not gut the roster to do it. And we still don't have an athletic shot blocker. And we still lack height at the point.
I don't think Morey would make stupid moves, he is crafty GM knows the whole business, and if he didn't offer B Miller this contract we could've said good bye to him.
He hasn't lost his mind, he's just exposing himself to be the moron I always knew he was. There are a couple of ways to win championships. One way is to underpay elite players by signing them to max contracts. Legit max players are always worth more than they get paid. The other way, which Morey was trying to do, is to assemble a team of mediocre underpaid players and win with depth. That way probably wouldn't have worked, because the window you can underpay a player is shorter than the window you need to assemble a championship team from marginal players. So now Morey finally had to deal with the reality of the windows on several players closing, and rather than sticking to the strategy, he flipped out and overpaid marginal players. Now we have no chance at all to win a title in the next few years. You can't win a title paying marginal players market value or slightly above. Every team in the league can overpay marginal players if it wants to.
I feel like we got market value for Scola. Lowry was overpaid, but his salary might be worth it 2 or 3 years down the line. Especially if Brooks gets packaged in a trade for something greater. Brad Miller I felt was overpaid, but given the injury history of Yao, I see it as a premium the team pays for insurance in case Yao is injured again.
I didn't mind the Scola-Lowry signing, but imo, I think the Brad Miller signing to that nasty contract was just to not feel like they left the summer empty handed.
I think Morey is paying market rates for these players, and that's just what it is. I think he'd come to the conclusion that free agency is not going to yield much success for building a contender - he made his run at Bosh, and creating cap room ala New York, NJ and others is a fool's strategy. He's a decisive strategy and Morey should be given kudos for being one step ahead of conventional wisdom. Come the trading deadline, he's going to have a lot of guys he can move - expiring plus talent plus draft picks. Morey the squirrel - stockpiling all those nuts for the winter so when the spring comes around he won't be hungry and can feed those that are starving. On the other hand, he really didn't have much choice. Who would you replace Lowry with? And Scola - who would you replace him with? And you definitely need a Brad Miller in there because Yao needs a legitimate back-up - something we haven't had since Deke's career ended.
I think he paid them according to their value to this team. Scola and Landry are known commodities. We know how they fit into this system. We know exactly what they bring to this team, on the floor and in the locker room. They weren't taking a chance with another player who may be talented but was still a question mark as a Rocket. It's kind of the same situation with Brad Miller. Obviously, Adelman is comfortable with him and how he'll fit into the Rockets' system. So in terms of their value to the Rockets, they may not have been overpaid.
Morey "lowballed" Landry last year. And Landry was almost as productive as Scola. This year's signings seem to be totally different from Morey's style in the past. Thus the question, "Has Morey lost his mind?"
