I remember Bucher saying it was a done deal for Webber to leave Sacramento for New York to play with Spreewell and 13 other scrubs. After that I put him on "Joke status"
This thread is almost as cute as picturing Ronny sipping on a mango lassi in an Indian shop in the ghandi district.
This is an embarrassingly naive response but I know the GARM isn't exactly a who's who of people who GET it. Morey was stabbing in the dark for 4 straight years. He blew one chance after another in the name of accumulating assets that would have gotten him a Josh Smith or Pau Gasol at best. Weren't you embarrassed when news of the proposed Gasol deal came out? That scrub was his answer to not going after high lottery picks and building a foundation? He was clueless and relying too heavily on stats - which resulted in one stab in the dark after the other. His answer was to keep tinkering with the squad and leak out word that everyone was an asset like he was playing fantasy basketball. Like you... he just, didn't, get it. 14th pick. 14th pick. 14th pick. Make no mistake - with all the time he had, no matter what he did, he would have had some "assets" to throw in a trade. There were no masterstrokes of genius or shrewd scouting involved. Compared to the other GM's in the league - he was between failure and getting by. Nowhere near succeeding. Luckily, Harden fell into his lap and all was forgiven. In this league you just need one stroke of luck and you can run with it. I'm fine with him as GM now, he's been given a player to build around and that suits his trial and error style. But the emotional bias a lot of you have for him needs to be pointed out by rocks like Ric and myself (and several other league officials who wish to remain anonymous). Fruit shakes keep my body hydrated in the summer (when I am having excess amounts of sex and losing body fluids at an alarming rate). Mango, kiwi and watermelon are my favorites.
Sometimes I think its just pointless to argue about performance of front offices. It's so easy to spin a particular move that turns out good or bad as a matter of luck or as a matter of skill. Until there are clear, real results (playoff success), the proper evaluation for a team that is just meeting expectations is "jury is still out". And that's basically where Morey is at right now. To me, Morey is doing OK but the hardest thing for an organization to do is go from "pretty good" to "great".
Ahhh, you got me. I thought you were a serious poster. I see the character you are trying to play now. "Excess amounts of sex"...well played. Unfortunately I gotta put you on ignore so that I don't mistakenly take you serious.
You're right, he didn't "luck" into him. I meant that he was lucky enough that Harden finally became available. He was shrewd enough to seize the opportunity and win the sweepstakes.
Certainly not in more recent years. I feel Morey has changed his opinion over the years. When Yao first went down, he felt he could accumulate talent and then trade for that star or high draft pick. And he was wrong. Bosh, Melo, DWill were all failures. Then Morey tried to get 2nd rate stars in Gasol and Nene. After basketball reasons, he then sort of just gave up and decided to just start anew. The Dwight Howard thing wasn't really a change in philosophy, more of a "nice if we get him and not a big deal if we don't" type of thing. Ironically, of all the players we had a shot at over the years, Harden may turn out to be the best going forward. Because of Harden, I can pretty much forgive Morey for all the 14th picks we've accumulated. Because if we tried to tank from the onset, and got Harden 3 years later, I'd be okay with that haul.
Ok, Bucher got a point, ONLY because *I THINK* he is trying to point out the role media favoritism has played in our judgement. But comparing Kahn to Morey is a bit overreached. Kahn's negative media relation is due to his own course. He went on interview with Chris Webb and compare Darko, the manna of heaven, to Webb and Divac. He went on radio show and talked about Beasley's smoking problem. What kind GM with right mind do this kind thing? Can Bucher name one that has done similar things and has not been qualified as bad GM? On the other hand, Morey knows when to talk, how to talk, and that's the most important skill almost for every profession that is dealing with customers (aka fans in this case). I thought a media guy should know this better, right? Ric.
Wow four years is a large time to build a contender? Why don't you tell that to the Pistons, Sacramento, Raptors and just about every other rebuilding team in the league? Luck plays a part in it too but if he didn't accumulate assets then he'd never have gotten Harden. What do you mean no shrewd drafting, anyway at this point anybody who says Morey isn't a great drafter is just a troll or just monumentally stupid.
A nice pick late in the round is an incredible success. You can't fault Morey for not finding an all star in the 2nd round if there isn't one. That's the whole concept of the draft, the best players get picked first and the trash gets picked later on in the bargain bin. For example, C-bud would have been undrafted if the Rox didn't get him at pick 64 or something. A couple of years later he was traded for the 18th pick. That's an incredible success by any standard. Your assessment is not critical at all, by your own logic the Cavs have the best drafting front office because they drafted Lebron and Kyrie Irving, one guy who is a sure fire HOF and another who's looking like a multiple all star.
The amount a GM can do is a +10/-50% type deal, sure they can do great, but doing great generally requires factors beyond your control. A zero sum gain would be basically taking the best player at the right pick. Pat Riley may have orchestrated the space for Lebron and Bosh (by selling everything for 2 cents to the dollar), but it was Wade who did the ground work and set the stage. Presti? Durant was a self selection, Westbrook was the third best player from his draft, taken at #4, Harden was #2 taken at #3, in effect he's taken the player that should have been selected 1 spot earlier. Ibaka was his jewel pick and the Perkins trade continues to be **** (granted they screwed Boston with an undisclosed injury trade). The one team that's pulled way more value than it deserved was San Antonio and that's because they were ahead of the curve on international players and reaped the benefit of it. But what does that show? Presti did as well as he could have possibly done, but it still didn't equate to that much, however if you were the likes of Kahn, you can monumentally **** **** up. In this, the good ones can prey on the bad ones. There's just no way that 3 years into a non tanking rebuild (3 years ago, our best functioning player was Aaron Brooks, followed by Trevor Ariza....) that Houston should be comparable to Minnesota who started with Love, Jefferson and a load of high lottery picks. And while I'd agree Stern may have saved him from himself with Gasol, that's very much a hindsight thing, since he was finally allowed to dump the whole roster then lucked into the best young shooting guard in the nba in the type of trade that simply never happens, however that Washington had turned it down is a perfect of example of how a good gms best hope is to prey on the decisions of bad gms. It isn't Morey vs the world, it's Morey vs 29 other guys, where at least 9 of them are really good (and are likely never to get fleeced), about 10 are average and about 10 are pretty damn ****.
Flynn at 6, Wes Johnson at 4, Derrek Williams at 2 were pretty bad by themselves. Now you want put Morey's pick into comparison? ok, you got it: 2010 draft: Wayne Ellington at 28 Chase Budinger at 44 Result: Budinger, before his injure, is taking Ellington's job 2011 draft: Wes Johnson at 4 Pat Patterson at 14 Result: Patterson is a ok starter, Johnson can't crack rotation 2012 draft: Derreck Williams at 2 Macus Morris at 14 Result: Morris is a bench player who can contributes, Williams is a bench player who can contribute, but #2 and #14 are not same ocean.
Fuyck Royce White. I wish the NBA was a non guaranteed contracts just like the NFL had. Maybe when he realizes he won't make any paycheck he will give up his immature phobia of getting on an airplane. He's an immature twit.
Kahn is the same chap who tried to sign Batum while over the cap, and which the league had to veto. That's right, Opie. You definitely suck.
Morey is a solid GM. He just picked the wrong sport. Moneyball only works in baseball or football, where you can build a collection of lower tier talent and still win the trophy. In basketball, you need the best player to win and that's never going to change. Maybe Harden will become that player for the Rockets, I hope so. But we won't win anything unless he does become that player.
I don't think Moneyball is all that good in baseball, it was basically a case of "Foreignball" that San Antonio run. First adopters got an advantage, but no real advantage 5 years later. Because baseball is so isolated, a game of 1v1's, there's few advanced stats worth much (you could draw some data from hitting zones, pitching efficiency etc, but it wouldn't yield a great deal), so basically anyone can look at basic stats and gm a baseball moneyball team with reasonable efficiency.
