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

I have been worrying that with all the press Morey (and Battier) is getting, our "secret" of winning would be copied and we would lose our edge. Now, after giving more thoughts, I think as long as Morey's system is sophisticated and secretive enough, he will always be one step ahead of the crowd.

GMs will be watching Morey and see what players he is targeting. Morey, as smart as he is, will use some smoke screens and diversions to cover up his intentions. The other teams will be too late when he gets what he wants. At that time, they will know which players have been undervalued. But they will not know how Morey found that out.

That said, the edge we will be losing is that teams will begin to hire people like Morey. The traditional GMs from "real" basketball background will gradually become outdated. Some teams will eventually find people who are as smart or smarter than Morey and build better systems for talent evaluation. They will invest a lot more resources in these things. That's when we will lose our edge.

 

Here is one factor I think you have to give some credit to, Morey may not get to make all the decisions. Les may make some.

Things like the Steve Francis resigning??? I also think that Yao may be evaluated differently by Morey but Les is not going to let Yao go. Anyway, I don't think Morey is where the buck stops in all cases.

 

Usually you can find undervalued players from these areas:

1)who are shorter at his position(Brooks,Lowry)
2)older(scola as an old rookie couple years ago)
3)oversea players(what do fans think of yao/scola before they come?)
4)Injury history but could be recovered(Landry)
5)Little to no offense but great defense and rebounding and hustle(Hayes, Battier)
6)Behavior issue but can be controlled(Birdman, Ron Artest)

To be frank, there are things smart GMs would look at even if they don't rely heavily on stats. Morey did a good job, but there are good or great GMs in the league elsewhere. I'm just glad we have one of the good ones.

 

Your take is really quite interesting. By the way, Boston too did not get anywhere when Morey was still there. But in this case, Morey may not have been given enough room and authority to fully utilize his formulas. Nevertheless, Boston got KG and RA when Morey was no longer there and the rest is history.

 

They got KG by giving up assets collected while Morey was there. One of the things Boston had going for them is they stockpiled young talent.

 

Or the Kevin McHale/Danny Ainge connection perhaps?

 

Bingo! Watch for Ainge to return the favor. May not happen in the next year or two, but even I don't think KMac is that stupid.