Lewis: Rockets Go Way Beyond 'Moneyball' A's In Terms Of IP

I have been advocating that for 5 years now, we need to build a TEAM not a collection of star players. This year is the closest we have been to having a great team with good role players at every position. Morey has my full support and confidence that he can build a championship caliber team.

 

Sorry meant to say, sounds you like you are justifying analyzing stats after you criticized analyzing them.

 

I think morey has done a good job, but like someone mentioned landry. If you moved up to get him, you must have felt good about him. If that's the case, why not give him the paul milsap type of 3yr deal? They couldve given landry a 3 yr contract at about 700k with increases. They couldve used their mle money this summer on other players.

 

You gotta think a few of the very recent acquisitions like Lowry and Artest might be among them. Maybe not the top 5 or 6 undervalued guys, but probably significantly undervalued.

I think Artest is one because he plays both ends of the floor (even though he also takes bad shots) and due to his contract value-- both last year's and probable price for the next few years. I think Morey is betting on Ron being underpaid again due to (1) economcy, (2) 2010 superstar FAs, and (3) people are scared of him.

Lowry is another because he is a good defender., is good at drawing fouls, and is young enough to develop further. Morey loves FTs and believes that it's the most efficient way to score.


Among guys not on the Rockets, I'd think Steve Nash is one. We heard Rockets tried to go after him, if so, then it would seem they think he's worth more than the $13 million he makes now, even at his age and despite his lack of D.

 

You're right. They must have thought that Landry would be close to a non-factor his first year. I know I did, by the early goings. He did not have a good summer league, and his preseason wasn't too hot either. As I recall, a lot of people here believed he was on the bubble to get cut. Paul Millsap, on the other hand, had a fantastic summer league. Maybe those things make a difference.

 

So overall, Health wasn't accounted enough in huge contracts and was over-compensated in skimpy deals?

It's not like a 1 million-ish deal for Landry for 3 years would make or break the Rockets.

 

With Yao and Tracy occupying a good sized chunk of the payroll, there are limits on how much can be spent on the rest of the roster.

Ron has been a combination of a <i>Test Drive</i> and a <i>Rental</i> for this past season. Even though he had some injury issues, he probably had a bigger impact on the team than Bobby Jackson would have.

Morey probably has plenty of <i>Freedom</i> when making decisions like plucking White from the Developmental League and drafting players like Landry and Brooks.

Only a guess, but any roster change that would involve trading Tracy or Yao would be under strong review from Les and that brings in other factors beyond <i>Money Ball</i>.

 

They could keep him with crappy contract, 2 year + team option type deal, since they saw some potential. Since Landry didn't stand out at first, he would in all likelihood be happy just to make the team.

 

Yes. I think Morey overestimated what the stars would give the team over the course of the season and playoffs (hence, health wasn't accounted enough), and he underestimated what he'd get from Landry, a second-round pick (as a result, health became the bigger factor).

 

As long as Morey is the GM of this team I have full confidence in the Rockets having a solid team every year now. You know he won't overpay for talent and so the team won't get stuck salary cap hell. Before, eh, not so much.

 

Yao and McGrady were also Rockets before Morey was a Rocket. So, the only decision he could have made with respect to their injury problems is deciding whether to trade them. I doubt there were trades available for better players or equally-good players who are less risky on the injury front. Sometimes, maybe the injury warts are just want you gotta live with.

Did Yao's contract extension come during the Morey era? If so, perhaps he should have considered injury when deciding to spend that money.. but again, were there better alternatives?


And yes, there are certainly factors to consider other than "moneyball" or even "basketball." Does Les want to get paid by, say, Anta to have their scorer table ads aired all over China instead being paid by Mattress Mac at local TV scorer table ad rate?

 

Maybe. I don't know what the negotiations were like between Morey and Landry's agent. What you say could very well be true. Or, maybe the Rockets offered that crappy 2-year deal behind the scenes, and the agent said he'd rather just take the 1-year deal. Not saying I believe that's what happened, but I guess its one possible scenario.

 

I dont follow baseball that closesly, but i'm guessing if you're comparing them to us then they also lost their Yao and tmac to injuries all the time?

there's a middle ground for this....you can't just rely on scouting and you can't just rely on stats analysis....for all you know those guys have some formulas of their own as well, just fewer of them. those two guys you mentioned are probably the only two Gm in this league who have been almost flwaless since they took over, it doesn't happen all over the league and it sure isn't like Morey is on the other end of the list, opposite these guys..

 

What math equation was used when the Rockets signed 37 yr old Barry to a 2 yr deal? Also, what was the quantitative approach when drafting Joey Dorsey?

 

2x + 2x = 5x (doh!)

 

Lol...funny stuff.

 

When talking about health issues, you can't just look at contracts with certain injury-prone players. Some of the contracts are made before they were conceived to be injury-prone. And because these players are injury-prone now, they are valued as such by other GMs and thereby hard to deal. (e.g. How much talent can you get for trading an injured McGrady if his contract wasn't expiring?)

What I think Morey should do (and believe he is doing), without having a crystal ball of what will happen to every player (can you predict a gun shot wound to Carl Landry?), is building the team in a way that can absorb injuries to the key players. Artest, for example, is brought in to shoulder a lot of the load should T-Mac or Yao go down. (Unfortunately, BOTH T-Mac AND Yao went down.)

In conventional language, it is called depth. But it is more than depth. It is acquiring players who can plug holes in case there are holes due to injuries. Artest can plug the T-Mac hole (somewhat) on offense. He can plug a Battier hole on defense should Shane get injured. I think Hayes, Landry, Lowry, Mutombo, and Barry are all this kind of plugs.

Look at the overall result. We lost our best two players and our back up center. We were still competitive with the best team in the West. I think that's what Morey has done about probabilities of injury.

 

I'm just curious. What is it about Morey's job that you don't approve of? The way I see it, he constructed a team that despite 37 million (estimate) of its salary missing in Yao and McGrady was able to take the Lakers to 7.

How many other teams can have half of their paying roster taken away and still take the Lakers to 7? How many other teams can do it with a full roster?

You'll believe one day

 

It's a good point, which is why I think the chief problem with the Rockets isn't so much the players we put around the stars, but rather the stars themselves. The last 2 years, the role players have done their job as best as can be reasonably expected. Performance and/or durability of the stars is what's held us back more than anything.

People may want to consider the following. Suppose we removed the two "best" players (however you wish to define it) from every team in the league, and then we hold a 30-team tournament to see who's the best. In essence, it's a tournament to see which team has the most competitive group of non-star players on their roster. Who would be the favorite to win such a tournament? I like the Rockets chances as well as anybody's.

 

I don't know anyone can think the comparison with Beane in Oakland was a bad thing. For one thing, there are only 8 playoff spots in MLB, so making the playoffs is automatically "2nd round" by NBA standard. And Boston fully demonstrated just what the Moneyball philosophy and the funding to back it up can do.