you're joking, right? it would be easier to provide a list of those who don't as opposed to those who do.
Somewhat disagree. Most teams have a reasonable idea of what they want to emphasize on offense. If you're planning on running a high-post with lots of back door cuts, you don't accumulate a lot of standstill shooters. If you're planning an uptempo transition game, you don't assemble players who don't do well on the fast break (Steve Francis or Battier for example). Conversely, it doesn't make sense to have an all league defensive team that would struggle to score if they were the only 5 on the court. Among my gripes with $Ball is that the Rockets were very late in the process to recognize that height and athleticism should be a factor. Beyond that, quantitative analysis seems to yield players who can play offense or defense but not both.
sign morey for 10 more years... he has done nothing but good while here. few head scratcher's here and there, but he has been nothing short of solid.
Gortat - was a restricted FA. Dallas offered more than the MLE and Orlando matched. Did you want DM to offer him Superstar money?? That would NOT be a DM type signing, but rather a Carroll Dawson signing. Dampier - we went hard after him, but DAMPIER bailed for Miami. Would someone nearing the end of his career really wanna come play for a mediocre Rockets team, or a championship contender Miami team? hmm...this seems like a very difficult decision R Lewis - we didnt have the cap space to sign him. We tried to get him, but we didnt have the money to sign him. I dont think we'd wanna make a trade for him now simply cuz he's getting paid SUPERSTAR money (more than $45mil over the next 2 years) without the superstar production. No offense, but your arguments here have FAIL written all over it.
Gortat was a restricted free agent. As soon as the Rockets made him an offer that was not full-MLE, it was a done deal that he could not come to Houston because Orlando was going to match the deal. Instead, he decided to sign the a larger offer because it was clear he was going to stay in Orlando regardless.
But we made hard pushes at all of them..and failed in signing any. Gortat: I dont fault Dampier for not choosing Houston....I dont even think he's that good. But we made a push for him, and with literally no one else on the horizon, he refused. I remember the Rashard Lewis ordeal. Sure, he got paid way more than we were going to offer him. But once again, its a situation of a targeted free agent that we didnt sign. We had a bus full of fans drive down to see Bosh in Miami, but he wasnt even there. It may not be Morey's fault, but if he really thought that the Rockets had a solid chance at landing Bosh, then he made a major miscalculation. Name a single free agent of consequence that's been signed under Morey. That's all I'm saying. Ariza and Miller are the only names that come to mind, and Ariza was a terrible move....getting Lee for him was a steal.
I'm glad Morey doesn't do what you are asking. Say we did push in and pay Lewis near max money to sign him... Then what? We have a few weeks of excitement and still no closer to winning anything. Same with Dampier and Gortat. What exactly would overpaying for any of those guys have done to make us contenders? Those are the types of moves the Rockets used to make post-championship; do whatever it takes to make a temporary splash, and then have your salary cap regret it for years to come. Build for the long term and aim for championships, not for moves that will barely put you in the playoffs with minimal chance of improvement with contracts that you will have to trade picks to get other teams to take off your hands down the road.
Seriously, anyone blaming DM for this season needs to see a psychiatrist. We lost our two starters 5 games into the season. And to the Kyle Lowry should start over Aaron Brooks bandwagon, I laugh at you. Sure he had a couple nice games getting us back to .500, but he's looking more like Rafer Alston with muscles more and more everyday. Lowry is a bench player for a reason...he's not good enough to hang with real starting point guards, but he's an All-Star second unit player. Not too difficult to dominate the Earl Watsons, Luke Ridnours, or Chris Duhons of the league.
1) I'm not 'asking him' to do anything. I didnt say to offer Lewis near max money. Nor did I ask him to get Dampier or Gortat. Thats not the argument at all. 2) The entire point is that he tried to get them and failed. Regardless of the circumstances, he was unable to convince players he felt strongly enough about to go out and recruit to sign with us. 3) I'm not arguing that he should have made any temporary splashes. I'm simply saying that since Morey has been GM of this team, our free agent activity has been restricted to retaining the players on this team and not much else.
So what you're saying is you'd rather have DM use the same logic that Carroll Dawson used...sign scrub players to 6yr $60mil contracts and set us back for 10+ years? Sorry, i'll take my chances with Mr. MIT
Also.. if you havent noticed... $$$ speaks louder than words. And $$$ is something we havent had since CD put is salary cap hell that DM has cleaned up.
Your argument makes no sense....You designate guys 'Mr. MIT' felt strongly about and lobbied as scrub players, but then blame CD for being unable to sign any of them. I dont understand the logic. Its as if your unwilling to acknowledge any fault with Moreys transactions up till now. And I dont understand the defensiveness. I'm not saying the guy sucks as a GM.....it seems like all the reaction is motivated from me highlighting 3 points that I feel the Rockets management has not done well in over the past few years. You're free to disagree with those points. But you cant honestly believe that every single move up till now has been the right move, can you? That there's no areas of improvement? That we have the single best management in the NBA?
1) Your examples were all of players that Morey made the right choice in not over paying for.... No GM in the world was going to get those players to come to the Rockets without over paying, so how is that a bad thing? 2) He wanted all those players, but set a maximum value that he choose not to exceed. Considering none of those players are close to franchise players, that is a good trait to have in your GM. It avoids situations like Kelvin Cato and Moochie Norris's contracts from happening. 3) Again what moves should he have made that he didn't? We all want the Rockets to make a trade for a franchise player, but there has to be a franchise player available for that to happen. So what franchise players do you think would a different GM have brought to the team that Morey failed to get? I think there are a hand full of other GM's that are equal to Morey's ability, but I think fans are really short sighted sometimes and want to make trades just for the sake of change without looking at the long term consequences. Sometimes the best trades are the ones you don't make.
Dude WTF are you smoking??? SA got Tim Duncan because they won the lottery, not because they were competing for him. In fact they tanked that season to try to get a high draft pick You must be a teenager.
#3 is the entire point. I'm not talking trades...I actually think Morey has done very well with the trades he's made. And I agree with you, he's one of the best GM's in the league. I was talking free agency and getting free agents to help this team. Ariza and Miller are the only two names that come to mind as players we've signed with him as the GM. We scored more points on offense when Ariza wasnt on the court and allowed fewer points defensively. The Ariza signing was a mistake, plain and simple. Simply put, in his tenure he has yet to work the free agent market and get players of consequence. I'll put an example out there: This past offseason, he made a push for Bosh and didnt land him. Why didnt he make a similar push for Boozer?
I think it is more of a philosophy than failure of fitting players' games to the team. I agree that Morey seems to value smart, fundamental skills over size and athleticism (if he has to choose between the two). Personally, I don't have problem with this philosophy. But it could go to extreme and end up with a bunch of Battier, Scola, and Hayes. I think the ideal is balance. Perhaps Morey is learning the lesson now.
The problem is that CD would have been able to sign them and would have brought them here... AT ALL COST. Even if it meant setting the franchise back for 10+ years, which is what you're seeing now. All of the mistakes that CD made, DM is having to clean it up and fix it. You're right in the sense where I certainly DONT agree with all the moves that Morey has made, but not a single move of his has hurt us for the future. I would say more than 75% of his moves have been LOW-RISK/HIGH-REWARD - whether through trade or FA. We've been over the salary cap for God knows how long, and next year, we'll be WAY UNDER the salary cap. If we stay pat, and not make any moves before the trade deadline, we're only responsible for $36mil in guaranteed contracts next year (before resigning AB, etc) - and assuming the new cap will be at around $55mil - that gives us close to $20mil to spend - I would love to see what DM can pull out of his hat with some cap space.
No GM is going to be 100% right on every move they make. I just think that complaining about our GM is kind of silly at this point. If we changed GM's there is a lot better chance that the replacement would be worse than rather than better.
