Jerome Solomon completely owned Morey about calling players assets.

I think its common to talk about overseas players teams have the rights to -- or other things like cash, trade exceptions, draft picks -- as assets. In most of those quotes, Morey is using the word "asset" in a more a generic way -- not really referring to players on the roster in particular.

But, yeah, to say claim he never used the words assets to describe players -- he either had a momentary memory lapse, or he's being disingenuous.

 

The fact that the Queen called Fran "my man" reaffirms my hated for his useless commentary. Similar to his failed radio show and Fran's loss of NBA relevancy.

 

Solomon has never liked Morey. Then again, at the time everyone was praising Morey so he had to take the other side to be controversial.

 

Whether Morey calls our layers "assets" or not, they are still assets. Every team is composed of assets, some more valuable than others. I don't see what is so wrong about it.

 

I love how he continues to use the completely arbitrary division finish to constantly highlight how the Rockets are a "last place team."

 

what's arbitrary about it?

we play in a division with other teams.

we finished last amongst those teams.

that's pretty objective data. if we had won the division, people would be lauding it.

 

It's arbitrary because everyone knows it doesn't matter if you finish last in your division. And yes, first in the division is pretty arbitrary as well (a little less so because it at least guarantees you a top four seed even if you don't have a top four record). But in general, all that really matters is where you finish in conference rankings.

 

It's arbitrary because everyone knows it doesn't matter if you finish last in your division. And yes, first in the division is pretty arbitrary as well (less so because it at least guarantees you a top four seed even if you don't have a top four record). But in general, all that really matters is where you finish in conference rankings.

 

We are last place relative to our division, and divisions really don't mean anything in the NBA. Who cares where we rank relative to other teams in our geographic vicinity?

We were 9th place in a conference of 15 teams. We were in the top half of teams, league wide. Those rankings are more meaningful than last place in division.

 

did every team in our division have a better record than us? objectively, yes. there is NOTHING subjective about that at all. add up each team in our division's wins...add up ours...we finished last. you play teams in division with greater frequency.

no one is arguing that they finished 9th out of 15th. we shouldn't be celebrating that, either.

 

Haha I like the drama. It's a long off season do we need a little entertainment.

 

So basically you're saying finishing 9 out of 15th is pretty arbitrary, right? Still tells you more about a team's standing than where they finished in their division.

Phoenix is a second place team by the way.

 

Players are assets. You just have to deal with the fact you are not a good enough winning team to complain about your job security. Its not like your the Celtics and even on the Celtics Kendrick Perkins got traded. So the pansy players have to get over and so do fans who think this is a big deal. They dont want to be talked about as trade peices? Win games then and stop whining. Thats what it is. Whining about getting traded because your not good enough a team to make a championship run. I have zero sympathy for them and Morey is 100% correct in what he is doing unless he starts to make bad moves.

 

Then he has the nerve to go around calling 610 sports radio HOMERS.

ahahahahahahaha this guy seriously needs to get out of sports writing.

 

The Jerome [insert insult here] himself knows this is just a cheap shot.

That should prove enough to silence MadMax.

 

Yes! Just do right thing ! It's not just to do sth which everyone like

 

Not true. We played 16 games against SW division teams, 18 against Pacific division, and 18 against NW division.

If you want to call it "objective", fine. We could also ring up our record against teams that have been around since before 1980 and call it "objective", but that doesn't make it meaningful. Its crystal clear what is the agenda of people that use such a statistic. Its definitely not about giving an accurate assessment of where we are as a team and how far we are from being really good.

Not saying we should be celebrating our record, not at all. Bu to continually go on about "we're a last place team" is totally misleading, without also making the point that every other team in our division is better than every single team in the East that doesn't have home court advantage in the 1st round. When has that ever happened in the history of this league?

 

He wrote an entire blog about THIS? Really? Over a thousand words to prove that Morey has infact said the word "asset" at some point in his life? And then at the end he even admits that it's completely irrelevant that he has said it in the past? Im all for holding people accountable for what they say, but geez, that was a real waste of time proving THAT. Is it really worth a blog post correcting any little statement that isn't 100% correct?

 

And no one is arguing that Houston didn't finish in last place in its division, either.

I can appreciate where you're coming from. You're trying to retain some fairness by fans of the job that Morey has performed. And calling the comment arbitrary seems like maybe calling it false for some, or at best subjective.

The problem is that Solomon's argument against the Rockets' finishing last place in its division IS arbitrary, and that arbitrary has more than one strict definition. In this case it means "based on preference, bias, prejudice, or convenience rather than on reason or fact."

Solomon has a history of bashing the Rocket's front office, in particular Morey. His preference is that Morey looks bad. He is biased against Morey. And it is convenient to point out a fact about the Rockets' placing within its geographical division if it helps makes his case against Morey.

We all agree that Houston finished last in the Southwest Division. And so there is no value in proving that we did. No one claims that it was a subjective placing.

What those of us that disagree with him about is the pertinence of his position that the Rockets finished in last place. In the NBA, divisions determine two 'major' things: number of games played against similar geographic teams, and whether a team is awarded a top four seed in the conference playoffs without having a higher record than four seeds below it.

Therefore, a team's position at the TOP of a division matters in a discussion about how well a team finished. A team's position from 2nd to last place in its division has little to no affect on playoff seeding, what is vastly accepted by NBA fans and professionals as the standard of regular season success.

Saying that the Rockets are a terrible team because they finished in last place in their division is equivalent to saying that Oklahoma City is a terrible team because it finished last among the top four seeded teams in the Western Conference. Sure, the teams finished in those respective positions, but by removing it from proper context, we are making an arbitrary statement to help build our biased position.

Solomon's repeated stand that Houston finished last is entirely useless in determining the team's success this season.

If he instead repeatedly mentioned that we failed to make the playoffs two seasons in a row, he'd have a foot to stand on regarding Morey's success with the team. But he isn't. (And even if he did, there would still be sound arguments supporting the GM's success)