Martin to Morey: Treating us like assets gets you nowhere

If he says he likes the team the way it is why will he make trades to change the roster? Also you don't want a GM who is always trying to upgrade?

Not to attack you or any poster here personally, its just that from what I can read on the thread most posters here who agree with CH are actually telling DM he should lie to them about everything. LOL what the heck is up with that?

 

Luis Scola has been a professional athlete for 15+ years. He's likely seen it all, so its easier for him to keep that in perspective. But even he was affected by it last season, hearing the rumors before the deadline he played like crap, but after it was over and Landry traded he was exceptional.

Everyone else on this team (except Yao) has been a professional 7 years or less... and most of them are dealing with their first or second NBA team (Lee being the exception)

The F.O. has to realize that if they are dealing with younger players they need to deal with them in a different way than they would a veteran who's been through all those sorts of changes.

 

I really don't care about normal members feelings or opinions.

The only members who really matter are ones with clutch crew under their usernames and there aren't that many.

 

Okay first, sorry about the triple post...

No I don't want Morey to stop trying to upgrade, I just want him to be more circumspect when he speaks to the media.

He's got a group of people who do their due diligence with every team in the league... what he doesn't need to do is use the media to "talk" to other GMs. Basically, with every interview he does where he says no on is untouchable, he gets other teams to call him with whatever outrageous trade proposals they might have.

What it ends up doing though is effecting performance by his players, thus decreasing their value, and messing up him getting top dollar for his players in trade.

I personally love that Morey has been open, but its hard for people to work hard under those conditions. I learned it the hard way. It's difficult to concentrate on work when you don't know when the axe is going to fall.

 

Not implying that he should lie to them, but he could be a little more tactful when discussing the organization's future. Instead of saying, "we are full of assets and in great position to make a run at a superstar," which translates as, "we could blow the team up at any moment for the right player," he could say this- "we feel like we have some very nice pieces in place and would like to keep it that way," and come up with a canned answer of "we always look to improve but have no intention of dealing any specific player," when asked about rumored deals.

Everyone in the league knew we were looking to deal this trade deadline, and that's a bad thing IMO. It's hard to prevent things from leaking, but there wasn't a peep about the Ken Perkins or D-will deals and many other deals are the same way. Those organizations somehow don't let it get out.

 

I can definitely understand where KMart is coming from. It would really be tough not to know how certain your future is with a team. But, I just don't agree with him.

First of all, forget about basketball. If you make millions of dollars a year, you have to be willing to take some amount of uncertainty. After all, we all do. It's not even like they'll have to worry about finding a new "job", it's just a matter of where they'll get to play. I understand that with a family that can be a very large issue, but I think a lot of us would love to be in that position, uncertainty and all.

Now, let's get to basketball. All of you have mentioned this: it's part of the job. The NBA is more of a business than we know, and the role of the GM is to make the best team possible. There is no way a GM can do their job without fielding as many offers as they can, looking for the best value. It's just the nature of the job, and the players understand that. They know what they're signing up for.

I, for one, find Morey's honesty refreshing. I listen to all of the interviews he does on 610 and watch the pressers he does that they post on rockets.com, and from what I've seen in those, I haven't heard some of the things you guys are mentioning. Things like "no one is untouchable", I just haven't heard from him. Maybe I'm not following closely enough, I don't really know. From what I've listened to/watched, I haven't felt that he was acting like a stiff and not thinking about the families of the players, and what all goes on when someone gets traded (looking for a house, looking for schools, etc.). That's just me though.

The way I see it, Morey is going with the lesser of two evils. He's being honest: this team is not at the position it should be at, or the position we'd like it to be at, and he's working to change that. That, in turn, involves talking with other teams about dealing our players for whatever we need, and listening to offers for all of our players. It's due diligence, we have to at least evaluate offers that we feel might benefit us in the long run. It's not a secret that GMs do this, Morey just admits he does. I dunno about y'all, but I'd rather see a deal coming (like AB being traded this season), rather than a deal coming out of left field (like Boston trading away Perk, which I know Boston fans are extremely upset about).

Maybe Morey could tone it down a bit, and not be as transparent as he has been, but for me personally, I don't mind what he's doing. Then again, I'm not the one making millions, while having to listen to the rumors and speculation.

 

I think it is a little ironic because as much as he tries to wheel-and-deal, he seems to actually hold his own players in pretty high regard and won't trade most guys without a clear advantage.* We saw that with non-trades involving Courtney Lee recently, and McGrady famously before that, and quite a few guys in between. I think it's a relationship management problem more than a trading problem. I also expect he'll learn and get better.

* With a couple of exceptions for players he ditched at a loss just to be rid of them, e.g. Brooks and McGrady.

 

I dont think that's the question that's an issue....it's the talking about trading multiple players for a star. He's basically saying they have several players they can mix and match to form different packages that would be appealing. If player X is available they can package battier, brooks, patterson, but if player Y is available, then for that deal you'd need to trade Martin, Budinger, Lowry...oh but wait, there's talk of player Z, so maybe chuck, lee, and scola would work then...

I know he's not mentioning specific players like that, but that's basically what he's refering to. It's pretty much worst case scenario for a team when it comes to trades. Everyone is being shopped because you're looking for a player thats better than all of them and it almost seems like you're in a rush to pull the trigger. Most of the time you have an idea of what players are on the way out and and which ones aren't, but for this team it wasn't clear. They were all part of trade talk.

 

How were McGrady and Brooks traded at a loss?

 

Or maybe you just be a professional about things. Realize you are being paid millions (for the record - which I believe they deserve, they can't help what we decide to pay to watch them do what they do) to do something you love and take the one possible negative of your career choice that you can't control (team uncertainty) and deal with it.

 

I think Morey understands this. He spoke on this very briefly earlier this year and admitted that it's not good for team to hear it and be out in the media. Now whether or not he'll change those ways, I dont know?(See bolded)

Morey interview

 

You're basically saying they should go against human nature....i think for the most part it's not even a basketball issue, but a family issue. Putting myself in their shoes, going to play elswhere may suck if i'm already comfortable, but it's still basketball. You'll have everything planned out. Where you practice, play, etc. Everything an individual player needs. Problem is, not all players are on their own. When family is involved you start thinking of what school your kids will be going to or if other members of your family are coming with you. That stuff isn't all planned out for you by the NBA, at least i dont think it is. I think regardless of how great or secure your job is you're always going to be affected by issues that keep being brough up like that. I think they actually dealt with it fairly well, considering how many players were affected by it. It was a perfect recipe for a horrible season, but even the first half wasn't close to that.

Also, the point is that they were being affected by it, even if Morey and/or the front office thought players should be ale to deal with it, they should have addressed it more carefully once it was apparently an issue. A different approach alone could have us in the playoffs right now.

 

when youre younger... you just see the money and think it's so important that it overrides all else

then you get older, you make money you dont even have time to spend and it's just not as important anymore. family and friends become paramount. id gladly take a pay cut if it meant spending more time at home.

and WE love basketball.... some basketball players might not even love it and are doing it for the money so that they can do what they want elsewhere.

 

What's that supposed to mean?

 

I dont know about those two though...both had injuries to deal with and had other issues involved. Brooks had a problem with his extension and he was given an answer (not now) early on and that was it. His other issue seemed to be due to being injured and unable to play well during a contract year.

Tmac had a similar situation. Couldn't play due to injury or not being 100%, so he wasn't showcasing himself for a new contract. i think tmac was the one who was pushing that after the rockets had already decided to rest him longer.

 

What attitude? The attitude that the GM will do everything he can to improve the talent level on the roster? Yes, I think I'd play for that team.

You want Morey to call someone on this team untouchable? Nobody is worth that tag. That's the truth -- if it hurts their feelings, I'm sorry.. but the NBA is a business. If Chris Bosh signed with the Rockets, he would be called untouchable. Until we get that star, anyone can be moved for one.

IMO, Morey's done a great job of being active and keeping things behind closed doors. You don't often hear of possible Rockets trades until they happen -- Morey does a good job of keeping that info out of the public eye. There's been several behind-the-scenes issues that the majority of fans don't even know about -- again, because they keep things behind closed doors.

 

Its his job to make them contenders. Not the almost 8th seed playoff team. 8th seed playoff team is still mediocre. They still are not good enough yet.

 

From what I've read the most solid piece of evidence seems to be the quotes coming from the hardest of working players that HayesFan brought up. And I've heard them more than once too.

Players like Landry, Scola, Lowry, and Martin have all come out and complained about this. Not just that , but the relative trend of the rockets after the AS break speaks a lot.

On a side note , the stupid ass we lost the first half of the season because brooks played is the dumbest ****ing excuse I've ever heard. At one point when he was out we were losing really bad. When he came back we were still losing. When he played good last year with a worse roster we had the same record. People need to stop with the BS. Its not on one player. To add to that, some people on here REALLY undervalue Kmart. Comments like "Only super stars can talk" blah blah, Kevin has been playing out of his mind season , by defenition he is not a super star, but I would deff call him part of the upper tier all star calibar players and one of the most efficient SGs, and even players .