Denver,portlan,and Utah has fared pretty well. In fact,utah lost 2 hof guys, rebuilt the team, and rebulit it again. Morey can find solid,low bustable,low upside guys all through the draft, thats his best attribute. Problem is, drafting these guys with limited upside only yields solid players. Even when trying to trade, other teams look at upside of players even if they havent produced at a high level. Josh smith and his contract can yield more than anything on the rockets roster. Look where he was drafted. Al jefferson got kg. Cortney lee couldnt even get omar asik. What could any of the young rocket players get? I highly doubt they could bring a all star caliber vet. Until the risk vs reward is higher,the rockets will be a team without difference makers as young guys. Other than that, he's been solid.
I would agree if we were picking regularly in the Lottery and missing on superstars, but Morey has a much better than average track record in the draft as far as getting quality NBA players in relation to where our draft picks have been. They aren't drafting superstars because superstars don't generally fall that far, and I can't think of any that we have missed. Some fans want Morey to take more risks in his picks, but what they really mean is they want him to take more risks AND expect those risks to result in stars rather than busts. If we had several more "high potential" busts on the team that he had drafted, I doubt his ability to take more risks would be considered a postive. The 09'er experiment basicly has been the same thing, in taking a risk in hopes the potential pays out, yet many of the fans who want him to take more risks also condemn him for those trades. I think the biggest battle is getting the star to want to come to your team, which is mostly predicated on you having a star for them to come team up with. Once a star wants to come to your team, he can use the threat of walking away with nothing given up to drastically boost the bargaining position of the team that he wants to go to. It's not like all these stars have been begging to come to Houston, but Morey isn't able to broker a deal the other team wants, and there is no reason to think any other GM would have a drastically better group of "assets" or a superstar here either. Perhaps Morey could have given up the farm to get one of the stars who had no intention of signing an extension here, but he certainly wouldn't have the leverage that a GM who would get the star as a free agent without giving up anything in the offseason would have. It has taken the Knicks ~ a decade to get where they are now, and they are still just a .500 team, who if they didn't get extremely lucky with Lin, would still be closer to the lottery than contending right now. The Clippers have been down and out even longer, and while they are in the mix to contend, I wouldn't consider them favorites at this point. Morey has aknowledged that the Lottery is the easiest way to rebuild, but fans also have to realise the team is going to go a lot further away from contending than they currently are, likely for a much longer period than they have been, before they get a sniff at just getting back to where the current Rockets record wise are if they went that route. I suspect the majority of fans who want to tank now, would also be calling for the coach and GM's job in year 3 of the tanking experiment. I think fans quote things he said a year or further back, more so than him actually using the word "assets" on a regular basis any time recently. Can anyone even quote the last time he used it, as opposed to the last time someone brought it up here? I wouldn't be against him going with the GM standard response; "we don't have any moves planned, but we are always looking to improve the team.", but in most lines of work being considered an asset for your company would be a compliment. I don't think superstar players even think about this, since they are not going to be traded as "assets" anyway. It isn't like he has been passing on Kevin Garnett, Karl Malone and Pau Gasol to take the forwards he has drafted, and the power forward position under Morey is probably the strongest it has been since Barkley was here. Recognizing that size needs to factor more into his evaluations is a postive, it means he is willing to improve and adapt. It is Morey's first stint as a GM, I am sure most of us have done things when we first started a job that we changed after getting some experience. Every GM in the league is going to have draft picks that didn't work out and players they missed on, which only increases the lower your draft picks are. Disagreeing with the plan Les has set for the team's rebuilding is reasonable, but I rate Morey based on the job he has done with the instructions he has been given by his boss. Les would give the same directions to any other GM as well, so I judge Morey's execution of that plan relative to what I think anyone else attempting to do the same plan would do. In that light I think Morey is doing a good job, even if the plan Les has given him may not work out in the end. Replacing him with someone else who is going to follow the same plan isn't likely to have any better results, and could easily be much worse. I don't really think anyone is satisfied with where the team is. I just think that most people who support the job Morey has done, realise that it is possible to do a good under bad circumstances, and still not be where you want the team to get to. If you want to replace Morey for that then you need to have a good arguement as to why you think a different GM would have us contending right now given that Les doesn't want to do a complete rebuild thru the lottery. If your point is merely that he isn't the greatest GM to ever have walked the earth, then I agree with you, but it is possible to do a great job in a bad situation, which is what most people who support Morey are saying.
Denver, Portland, and Utah are in the same place as the Rockets right now. Good enough to get a 0.500 record or above, not good enough to have any real chance of winning a championship. Morey has not had very high draft picks. Each draft usually only produces 1-2 All-Star caliber players, concentrated in the top few picks. Most players in the draft end up as average. And most teams will not trade away a proven All-Star for some unproven kid. The Minnetsota/Boston trade was acknowledged as lopsided. Kevin McHale handed an All-Star to the team he used to play for. Look at all the teams that don't trade up for All-Stars (the vast majority of them), who end up stuck with some crappy but athletic player they drafted.
Is Denver, Portland or Utah really any closer than the Rockets to contending? Certainly they don't have any championships or even trips to the Finals to show for their efforts, and don't look any more likely than the Rockets of doing so this year. They also had the benefit of lottery picks to rebuild their team, which the Rockets have not. Having to trade a completely healthy superstar like Carmello or Deron Williams hurts, but it's still better in regards to what you get back than losing one to injury or trading one who is injured like Yao and Tracy. You can certainly make a good arguement that dipping into the lottery is a very good way to get your team back into contention, but based on what we know that isn't a direction Les is willing to explore, and I find it highly unlikely that the decision would change with a different GM.
I wish all the Morey-bashers would post their rebuilding plans for taking this team to championship contention in the year 2012. Under the same constraints that Morey has had to work with. That means no tanking, because Les will literally fire you for defying his orders. That means no preying on woeful teams like the Hornets, because David Stern will literally veto your trade. What draft picks and trades would you have made? Remember, the big criticism right now is that Morey has "only" made this team above-average, one year removed from Yao's early retirement. You will need to do better than that. And if the team falls well below 0.500 for the season, YOU'RE FIRED.
How does Morey get by with taking credit for finding Lowry as a Diamond in the rough player who was a third string PG, but now wants to play stupid like no one could have known Lin had talent. No one could have known? Morey, that was your job and you didn't do it. Furthermore, it makes everything else you have done, including trading for Kyle Lowry, look like luck.
Luck is always part of it, and Morey doesn't have some special ability to spot talent. I think he's good at looking at players in an objective way, and perhaps more thorough than most when it comes to assigning a value to a player based on his (and/or his staff's) projections of what that player can be. His approach has served him well in finding many players that were overlooked by other teams. But perhaps one could also argue that part of talent evaluation is "feel", and his approach is too rigid, too disciplined. The case of Jeremy Lin doesn't really demonstrate that, however, because there's no counter-example of a team that actually believed in Lin enough to offer him a contract with 3 other players at his position under contract.
Would u rather have utah,portland,denver, or houston roster going forward? Would u rather compete now with canter and favors on the bench or compete now with patterson and chase on the bench? What about competing in denver with a load of cap room? Who on the rockets is as good as alridge or wallace? Those teams are similar except their young players are either better or have more upside.
Hes a failure for not finding David Stern and kicking him in the balls for destroying our sweet deal... I just shed a tear imagining Nene, Gasol, and Hayes in red... Damn you Stern, damn you...
best thing to happen to the rockets since the championship is yao, tracy mcgrady and daryl...and not necessarily in that order
None of us know what guidelines and limitations Morey has to work within. All I can say is that Team Rockets composed of a myriad of staff members including Morey and Les for that matter seems to run out of ideas. Stern's cancellation of the Gasol deal was a killer. Martin and Scola don't look like the same players. I think the proposed trade cut them to the heart, they viewed themselves as the foundation of the franchise and they were shocked and deeply hurt.
Those teams are similar...so I assume their fans are clamoring for them to dismantle and tank then? And one of the players you mentioned as having "upside" has played less than 15 mpg in all of 19 games in his career so far. Really, that's your argument, which consists of putting high hopes on a bunch of unknowns and declaring them to be head and shoulders above the Rockets.
I'm saying they signed and traded boozer and got jefferson for 0. They traded williams and got the #2 pick in the draft and canter who was top 5. All the while they signed milsap to replace boozer. They're competing for the playoff like the rockets,but they have 2 talented bigs waiting. Now,maybe they turn out to be bums,who knows,but morey has been trying,or reportley trying to get top 5 for years. Utah got it 2 times in back to back years.
