The Rockets were Golden State not being a dynasty from being the best team a couple of times under Morey. On the .."other negative is that people are so focused on advanced metrics that's all they see - a player who only ever scores an efficient 10 points is better than one who always scores 25+ at a slightly worse efficiency," I think you are either seeing large efficiency differences as slight or there is a massive difference in defense and turnovers or some combo of those. Huge inefficient volume scorers don't become efficient volume scorers (i.e., the guys you want scoring 25 points a night) or highly efficient offball players that often. When it happens, it is great. Even if these guys become great, they tend to be celebrated too soon. If efficient great players didn't exist, inefficient volume scorers would be the great players (though they wouldn't be inefficient because the volume efficient guys no longer exist and the off ball guys would be even more inefficent as on ball guys). The great efficent players exists such that the inefficient volume guys either have to become one or find a way to play around one (which isn't easy).
He is great and has done a great job so far to rebuild our team. He is always playing the long game. Some fans only see one step, whereas a GM is looking 4-5 steps ahead
We didn’t attract Chris Paul as a FA. We traded for him. Howard was the only big FA Morey landed, and it did not go well. I don’t hate the “nerd” aspect of Morey. I just didn’t like how he GM’d. We were a mess when Harden left, in large part, because Morey did not value the draft, so we didn’t have any young, developmental players. We traded away the best player Morey drafted, Capela, in an awful trade, too. I never said Stone is better, but Morey is overrated.
Here are the facts -- Morey has been a GM for 17 years. For nine years, he had a top 3 - 5 player in Harden and only made the conference finals twice. In four years with the Sixers, he's had a top 3 - 5 player in Embiid and hasn't made the conference finals. So, he's been a GM of a team with a top 3 - 5 player for 13 years, has never made the finals, and has only made the conference finals twice. That is not a good track record given the circumstances. This PG13 signing may be his last "big swing." But I also could see it going very poorly. If he ends up with a ring, I'll give him his flowers. For now, he's overrated.
I have never made a secret about Morey being a Top 5 GM in his prime and is still pretty good, but an empathetic human being he was not. A robotic innovator. Presti was emphasizing the human element in the NBA business lately.
Stone's draft picks between 14 -20: Sengun, Eason, Whitmore Morey's draft picks between 14-20: Patrick Patterson, Marcus Morris, Jeremy Lamb, Royce White, Sam Dekker
Please stop. The CP3 wanted to come to Houston and they worked out a S&T so the Rockets could operate as an above the cap team. By your logic Pat Riley didnt attract LeBron either cause he was also also a S&T. History is something that is more than just what you read from transaction records and if you never experienced it yourseld, you should do some research before you proclaim someone else wrong.
So, in other words, we had to send out a ton of assets to land him, including a FRP? Sounds like a trade to me.
I think you underestimate Morey's ability. But yeah, I've always said that Morey is not a good drafter. His defenders keep saying that he didn't have high draft picks. But his mid-first round drafting weren't very successful either. And he probably knows this shortcoming and avoids team building through the draft. Picks are just trade chips for him. My theory is that drafting requires a lot of old fashion scouting of talents. Prospects typically don't have reliable analytic data for him to make decisions. And I think he underrates the human aspects in basketball. The good thing about Morey is that he doesn't let his ego get in the way. When he realizes a mistake, he quickly tries to fix it rather than stubbornly stick to it.
This is a semantics argument. We technically acquired CP3 via trade AFTER he had decided he wanted to come to Houston. He did an opt in and trade scenario to preserve his bird rights and allow the Rockets to operate above the cap that season instead of using cap space to sign him. He was essentially a free agent with an opt in feature and told the Clippers where he wanted to go. I mean he got hurt. They made the WCF but dealt with injuries. Were we? Seems like we were in about as good as shape as you can be for a mid market team that loses its star player. It's not like we had a decade of mediocrity after Morey left. We're 4 years removed from Harden blowing up this roster that's it.
Great post. I'd also add that valuing draft picks didn't fall entirely on him either. He had a mandate from Les Alexander to remain competitive, which meant figuring out how to build a team without doing a group up rebuild as Tillman has allowed Stone to do. I've even seen Morey on record as saying that a ground up rebuild is the best way to go. And we have evidence that he felt that way in that it's exactly what his proteges did when they took over front offices. See Sam Hinkie and Rafael Stone. It's unlikely that they were radically divergent in those kind of philosophies. Hell, he's the guy who said that draft picks are like cigarettes in prison - they are the currency of the NBA. That doesn't sound like a guy who undervalues draft picks to me. He just wasn't ever allowed to build through the draft. I'll always wonder what it would have looked like had he been allowed to do that.
Man, Morey fans sure love excuses. The Westbrook trade wasn't his fault. His constant burning of RFPs wasn't his fault. I'll tell you what it would have been like had he been allowed to build through the draft -- it likely would have been awful. He has an abysmal track record at drafting.
Yeah we traded for him so we could also have the MLE to sign PJ Tucker instead of not being able to sign anyone in free agency.
His draft record was not good, no disputing that. He did not value first round picks and their ability to contribute to the goal of being win now every year so he burned them easily. No doubt about that.
I guess that's my primary point in a nutshell. To me, the ability to draft well is, like, half of a GM's job. Look at the modern powerhouses -- pretty much all of them were built through the draft. And the ability to draft well is only going to get more critical with the second apron.
McCain and Adem Bona are decent picks, the media gave him credit, he could have gotten Knecht but dude was 23 year old looking for minutes. He is not a total failure at drafting as people made him to be, Aaron Brooks was going to be a poor version of Kyrie but injuries and bad slumps happened. I think that the players never developed fully under him rather than him drafting all busts without talent. That would have been the job of a developmental coach which at that time was not a priority. Whatever they did with Dmo they gave up on DMo prematurely and they could have avoided Royce White altogether.
I wouldn't even describe myself as a Morey fan. I just think a lot of people are kind of ridiculous in how they evaluate a GM. It's a weird double standard you guys have. Most around here worship at the altar of Sam Presti, but if he were our general manager you would have NEVER forgiven him for the Harden trade (or the Sengun trade) and would consider him completely incompetent. The reality is that Sam Presti is an amazing general manager that also made those colossal mistakes. The Westbrook trade was the worst trade in Rockets history. No argument here. I do think Morey ultimately receives part of the blame for that because he was the General Manager who executed that trade. However, it is my understanding that Harden demanded that trade and Tillman was quoted saying that he pushed it through when management softened on the idea. So I think it's more than fair to assign a smaller portion of the blame to Morey, or at least put it in context and blame the triumvirate of Morey, Tillman and Harden for that move rather than assigning the entirety of the blame to Morey, who apparently would not have completed that trade if his boss didn't force his hand. The above is all well documented. It's also a well documented fact that he had a mandate to build the team without blowing it up. These aren't excuses. It's called context. And it's important to any conversation, unless you're a guy like Stephen A Smith who loves to shout outrageous **** for the attention, the clicks and doesn't concern yourself with nuance or even being remotely correct. Morey wasn't close to a perfect GM. And I am loving how Stone is doing a very solid job while making less of a spectacle of himself than Morey did. I don't miss Morey. But much like Peter Griffin, I cannot stand idly by when somebody is wrong on the internet.
FWIW: Here’s your stat of the day: This is the third time Daryl Morey has lured a star out of Los Angeles to his team. First, Dwight Howard. Then, Chris Paul. Now, Paul George. Los Angeles is supposed to draw stars, but Morey has found a way to lure them away.