I remember 2 years ago, when the sports pundits were dogging Morey's draft picks. Chad Ford(ESPN) thought the Rockets had the worst draft and gave us the lowest grade, D+. Here's a friendly reminder to ignore what the sportswriters have to say about Jermaine Taylor, Budinger, and Llull. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ESPN http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draf...ns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=draftgrades Houston Rockets Grade: D+ Round 1: Aaron Brooks (26) Round 2: Carl Landry (31), Brad Newley (54) Analysis: New Houston GM Daryl Morey might be the resident Rocket scientist, but I don’t get this draft. Brooks is an undersized point guard who’s really more of a 2-guard in the Earl Boykins mode. Landry is tough and physical, which fits a need in Houston, but I don’t think he’s as good as Glen Davis, who was available. Newley has talent, but does he really want to be a role player for the Rockets? If not, he can just stay in Australia and be a star. Morey is smart, and he might make me look very stupid in a few years for saying this, but I think the Rockets’ draft was one of the worst of the night. ---------------------------------------------------------- DraftExpress http://www.draftexpress.com/article/2007-NBA-Draft-Report-Card-2156/ Houston Rockets Picks: Aaron Brooks (#26), traded future 2nd-round pick and cash to Seattle for Carl Landry (#31), Brad Newley (#54) D First off, this pick reeks of a trade, because it obviously makes very little sense. The Rockets have three capable point guards on their roster already in Rafer Alston, Mike James and John Lucas, so it’s not quite clear where Brooks fits in. If the Rockets end up trading this pick on July 15th (maybe to Sacramento in a package for Ron Artest?) then ignore this grade and analysis altogether. If they took Brooks with the intention of keeping him, though, then we’re pretty stumped. Brooks is a player who clearly could have been had in the second round, besides the fact that he doesn’t fill any kind of need for a team that needs to win right now. The Rockets don’t have any power forwards on their roster at the moment (Chuck Hayes is a free agent), and there were a few players here that could have had value at this slot. Nick Fazekas, Josh McRoberts, Glen Davis, and especially Tiago Splitter come to mind. When Splitter comes over to San Antonio next year and starts contributing big minutes right away, people in Houston will almost certainly be smacking their foreheads for passing him up. Daryl Morey has been criticized for only being a “Moneyball” or “stat guy” by various sources, but Brooks doesn’t grade out particularly well on the sabermetrics scales. Carl Landry on the other hand, certainly does. He also fills a bit of the void we spoke about at the power forward position above, even though he can’t do it by himself obviously. Landry comes game-ready, though, at age 23, which is good considering how much they’ll need him right away if they don’t make a big move in free agency. Still, it’s hard not to come away thinking that the Rockets reached once again here. -------------------------------------------------------------- Sports Illustrated http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/marty_burns/06/29/draft.grades/index.html Aaron Brooks (26); traded future second-round pick and cash to Sonics for Carl Landry (31); Brad Newley (54) C Houston Rockets Give new GM Daryl Morey credit for taking a chance. The jet-quick Brooks led the Pac-10 in scoring, but his size (6-1) makes him a defensive question mark. They seemed to need a power forward more, especially since they had already acquired Mike James in a trade. --------------------------------------------------------- DimeMag http://dimemag.com/2007/06/dimes-draft-report-card/ Houston Rockets (D) – Why does a team that already has Rafer Alston, Mike James and John Lucas III need a point guard in the first round? Why does a team that already has T-Mac, Luther Head, Kirk Snyder and Bonzi Wells need a two-guard with their next pick? And why does a team that needs to get a tough big guy to play next to Yao Ming only come away from the draft with an undersized power forward in Carl Landry?
If you can dig up some old post, you will find out how ignorance some of our fans are here too. Stop crying on Amare, Richard Jefferson, Vince Carter's Dead Body, ppl!
I remember Chad Ford said something like "Daryl Morey is a smart man, and he might make me seem stupid for saying this..." then started to bust our draft. Well he got at least the first sentence right
well, the grade may be wrong, but their analysis is spot on. brooks isnt a good defender and is an sg in a pg's body as they said. also, the comment that brooks could have been taken at the 2nd round intrigues me. if he fell to the 2nd round, could we have drafted someone else who was still available, and then traded with the team who picks him up and offer them john lucas (did we cut him?) who played great during the summer games. or it might have been possible brooks doesnt get drafted at all and we couldve picked him as an undrafted player and traded our pick for a future one plus cash? anybody know who was still available when we picked up brooks? the analysis on landry was also spot on. we picked him up to get athletic at pf and you might argue that glen davis was better than him. when garnett went down, the kid flourished. not to mention he couldve probably played a bit of center.
Honestly, we've been given this grade because initially we had zero picks. I think most of us can agree that 3 picks is better than none. These writers are just too lazy to grade us, so they give us a good grade for any sort of gain at all.
Did anybody read this part? Sure, wrong year and players, but out of everybody in the NBA he picks Artest to be traded to the Rockets.
LOL how can the analysis be right when the grade is wrong? You base your grade on the analysis, right? Unless you make a habit of saying a player is great but gives a team that drafted him a D Obviously, Chad Ford and co. didn't think much of AB's talent level, they probably had him pegged as Earl Boykins light. If they thought he would eventually be capable of scoring 20+ on the Lakers in his 2nd year then obviously they wouldn't have given such a low grade. Brooks couldn't be had in the 2nd round because PHX was pretty high on him at the time. I'm too lazy to dig up old threads in the garm but souces were saying PHX might have taken a flyer on the kid. It might have been just smokescreen but if I was DM no way would I take the chance just to save a couple more thousand on the kid's contract. AB was definitely the bpa in the draft, nobody taken after him even came close. Landry and Davis are both pretty equal IMHO. Davis is a hybrid PF/C but he's undersized as well, and we have a dude with more or less his build in Chuck Hayes. Landry is a better fit because he's a pf/sf hybrid, and before Artest and Wafer came to town we were thin at that spot as well.
Not just that writers criticized D Morey but a lot of people on this board also did that... I remember sea of threads criticizing Aaron Brooks and Carl Landry. Two years later you see they were all wrong. Even I thought that Mike James or VSpan were going to be valuable for Rockets that year.
Well it is a gain from absolutely nothing after all. Progressing from 0 to 1 is infinite gain, so we actually became infinitely better
Hindsight is 20/20. They graded the picks based on needs at the time of th draft, and the rockets had plenty of point guards then. They did not grade based on player potential at all. If they do, the top 8 would always get A's. The grades they gave us made perfect sense at the time.
Agreed, I love the guys right now but on draft night, I along with most of the people in the chat room were like 'Aaron Brooks? A trade must be in the mix'.... But I don't think the 'experts' were taking into account that this was Adelmans 1st year, 1st draft w/ the Rox and he was re-tooling the Rockets to fit his O. Plus I don't like this 'grading the pick' crap immediately after the guy is picked..That is no more than popularity picks...These immediate grades don't mean anything. Grade the draft after a player has 3 years experience(Brooks and Landry 3rd years coming up). THEN you can grade each teams draft.
I try not to get to wound up over the draft. It basically comes down to nothing more than a "educated guess". Sometimes you pick the right guys sometimes you don't. Most of the time all the so called analysis are wrong. A player can be skilled, have the right body size, but just doesn't have the heart. You never know until you throw them in with the big dogs. Personally I've come to trust Morey and his decisions. My grade for Morey this year A+
Not to diss the post above, but the A's and A+'s Morey's been getting from the media for this year's draft seems due more to his growing reputation as a Moneyball guru than an actual analysis of the players drafted. Personally, I'm intrigued by the picks, and especially like how Morey again saw a "low risk, high reward" opportunity and made the most of it. But I guess that's why he's the so-called guru.
The rumor was that the year we picked Brooks, Phoenix was going to pounce on him with the next pick. Brooks would have never lasted into the 2nd round. Kinda reminds of all the so-called experts who said that the Texans reached on Duane Brown and could have had them in the 2nd, but after a few days passed there were reports that San Diego was going to scoop him up with there pick that was shortly after ours. It's unfortunate that these talking heads don't retract or regrade after all the info is in.
well the way i see it. Taylor is pick to put pressure on Wafer, ala Dorsey last year. Llull is going to be stash at the Euro League till a later time. Chase come with a huge reputation, and could be use for as trade bait ala Greene last year.
