There seems to be a lot of talk of moneyball or moreyball. The oakland A's had to employ moneyball because they had a 40 mil payroll and the yankees had a 200mil payroll. Ultimately the As get crushed in the playoffs, because the yankees can go spend 20-30 mil on pitchers. We love to praise morey for all the high value players, but ultimately he must acquire stars 1. Los Angeles Lakers $91,377,313 2. Dallas Mavericks $87,214,774 3. Utah Jazz $85,111,807 4. Boston Celtics $84,678,579 5. New York Knicks $85,962,554 6. San Antonio Spurs $80,671,324 7. Orlando Magic $80,532,126 8. Cleveland Cavaliers $79,975,195 9. Washington Wizards $79,179,646 10. Miami Heat $75,118,837 11. Denver Nuggets $74,860,031 12. New Orleans Hornets $74,541,430 The best team in the league is lakers and they have the highest payroll. Orlando and the Cavs are 7th and 8th and they met in the conf finals. The nuggets are 11th and they made it to the conf finals. Having a high payroll does not guarantee success but not having one pretty much guarantees you won't be successful. Therefore if morey puts too much emphasis on money ball and not getting stars we are doomed to mediocrity. The only real championship contenders this year are the lakers, celts, magic, and cavs and you can see where their payrolls are at and how they were constructed. It remains to be seen if moneyball can win it all.
Beane did what he could while his hands were tied financially. Les Alexander hasn't shown any tendency to not spend money or allow his GM to. It's a totally different situation than Beane and the A's. Sure they both lean heavily on stats, but the A's never shell out money because the owner doesn't allow it.
The Rockets, unlike the A's, don't get outspend by any team at a 5 to 1 clip. The Rockets don't have to sell off their stars before they are eligible for free agency. Daryl Morey isn't working with the same kind of disadvantages taht Billy Bean won. In fact, I believe that Theo Epstein was a "moneyball practitioner" as well, and look what he's won with a team that doesn't have a $40 million budget cap. Btw, A's didn't lose because they "weren't build for the playoffs." They had a good team and bad luck.
This is a transition year for the Rockets. When the time is right, they will aggressively pursue a star player. They are a bit constrained right now, because McGrady is difficult to trade.
Actually you are correct Theo runs a money ball technique. Moneyball is basically a system design to maxiumize the your talent at an afordible price. It also allows you to go after big name players if needed be if the system shows that the player can do multiple things that are in the system. Basketball is a betterleague to run money ball because you have diffrent things you can look at to at towards the system. As far as the Lakers are concern the reason they are contenders because a team thought wanted to dump Gasol salary so they traded him for Kwame Brown.
Didn't we have the 2nd or 3rd highest payroll last season? We were up there. It's not like we're not spending the money. And we're over the cap. It's not like we can just go out and spend more money. This is a really flawed argument.
I would say the man most responsible for NBA trades is Mark Cuban. He is the guy who really started the trading of contracts for junk.
I am guessing the Rockets will trade him rather than letting him expire. Most likely scenario is that the team is angling for a bigger fish than what's currently on the table now. Those bigger fish show up later in the season when teams lose hope or fall into turmoil.
I hate the misconception that moneyball is somehow tied to payroll. All it is is getting the best value from players which inclues superstars. And it's not like Morey isn't trying to get superstars (see Ricky Rubio), we're just handcuffed for a bit. Which wouldn't be enough unless you want more role players.
I know we like to repress their memory, but the Spurs did pretty well dominating the league with a budget restrained by a mid-size market.
The point was Morey was willing to do a high-risk trade to get Rubio because he has the potential to be a superstar.
No doubt, Morey has done a great job thus far. However, he still hasn't brought in the proven all-start/superstar that puts the Rockets over the top. It has only been players with potential and nothing else (albeit he was exceptional in bringing in the right low risk players). I will reserve judgment on Morey until he brings in a proven big name player. Hopefully that is sooner than later.
To be quite blunt, Air, what the heck is up with your plethora of r****ded threads lately? Moneyball is nothing more than using stats to get good players out of nothing. Have we gotten a star yet? No, we've gotten good players, and this team has had a massive turnaround from when we didn't have Morey and this team did jack without Yao and T-Mac. Give Morey time to work with things, and he'll produce results, as he hasn't failed us yet (unless you're going to go WE HAVEN'T WON WITH HIM HURR HURR at which the proper response is )
How many championships would the Oakland Athletics have won without Billy Beane? Being a perennial contender is much better than being the Clippers.
The Rockets are $25 million over the cap right now. McGrady's contract is for $22 million. Next year the cap is going down. That means that if we let McGrady's contract expire we will still be over the cap and we won't be able to sign a high dollar free agent to a max deal. Trading McGrady is our only option to acquire talent.
