Should Morey be demoted or given a different role?

make him the new trainer/ cut man.

 

Morey wants efficiency. He acquired beasley who is a mid range gunner. I think you assume too much about Morey.

 

he should have demoted himself to assistant gm and gotten someone who understands analytics and giving out good contract above him to balance him out.

 

Les wants an uptempo offense...

and Morey wants shots at the rim or from the 3 point line... I believe we took the least amount of midrange shots in the league for the last few years....

so all of that is already decided - before we even have a coach in place or regardless of what our roster looks like...

kinda puttin the cart before the horse....

 

To me, analytics is easy compared to scouting. I'm sure there are tons of people who can do the analytics piece. Scouting takes judgment, and I would think it would help if you've played and competed at the game. What is the state of our scouting now? Is it the reason we don't do great at the draft? I just doubt Morey is cranking out enough analytical insights to compensate for his deficiencies anymore. The hardest part about analytics usually is getting the data. Morey has nothing to do with the improvements in that area

 

back before analytics, it was all "basketball guys" who ran teams. as far as i remember, none of those teams had any chemistry issues or fit issues. ever. just smooth sailing. i don't see why we went away from that.

 

but why would you even have an analytics department if you weren't going to make it part of the on-floor product (i.e. influence the coach)? it's not just 3's and layups, it's lineups that work and knowing your opponent's tendencies. if i give a coach a pile of numbers and he just decides to do the opposite then it kind of defeats the purpose of trying to get an edge.

 

So it took him 9 years to learn what Calvin Murphy has been screaming about, and that Popovich knew already.

PROGRESS !

DD

 

He should just step down. He has been here through various eras. The Tmac and Yao era, the lost in mediocrity era, and now the Harden Dwight era. Lets have a semi rebuild and start it with a different basketball mind as our GM.

 

Sure, Beasley is the only Rocket to ever shoot midrange shots. Sadly, you probably believe that.

 

No, of course, not Harden shoots that step back from the FT line, and the other players have occasional ones.

IMHO, when you eliminate the mid-range or threat of the mid-range you are much easier to guard. Golden State and San Antonio take a lot of midrange shots.

I would prefer we work a system that simply looks for the best shot available, be it a 3, a layup, or a mid-range shot.

Efficiency is when the ball goes in....more often.

DD

 

I think it is not only the most efficient shot outside of driving to the hole....

The game begins with ballhandling, moving the ball well within the team while moving well off the ball.

No more Harden ISOs, dribbling down the clock and lazy TOs that not even kids won't do.

 

Forget occasional midrange, we've had guys that shot a lot more midrange shots than Beasley. McGrady was the king of the long 2 and always shot a high number of his shots from midrange.Yao shot lots of midrange shots Scola shot a huge number of midrange shots. Patterson's first two seasons he was primarily a midrange guy.

Also, efficiency isn't when the ball goes in more often. Efficiency is scoring the most points per shot. I'll give you an example:

The best midrange shooting teams in the league shoot around 48%. The Rockets shoot 34.7% from behind the arc. So for every 100 shots, the midrange team will have 13.3 more shots go in but the 3 point shooting team will score 8.1 more points on those 100 shots.

Would you rather shoot a higher percentage or score more points per shot?

As for your statement about GS shooting lots of midrange shots, you are incorrect. GS has the 28th lowest percentage of their shots taken from midrange. Only Houston and Philladelphia takes a lower percentage of their shots from midrange.

We are #3 in the league in open 3 point shots attempted and we're number 1 in points in the paint so I don't think that we're easy to guard. Getting open shots isn't a problem. Making open shots was an issue this season.

 

You think that midrange is an efficient shot? Why? It's an incredibly inefficient shot. It's not even debatable, all you have to do is to look at the numbers.

The Rockets are more efficient from behind the 3 point line than any NBA team is from midrange. When the shot is worth 50% more than another shot, then the percentages don't have to be close.

The Rockets shooting 34.7% on 3s is equivalent to a team shooting 52% from midrange. No team in the league shoots 52% from midrange.

 

But there are players who do - you have to be diversified...relying only on the 3ball and layups/fouls makes you a much easier team to guard, especially when no one moves as they all watch Harden pound the ball.

DD

 

IMHO an offense needs to have BALANCE, but balanced in favor of Made shots.

You need to take the shots you can HIT and then avoid the bad ones, but if you do, then also you need to MAKE those too, which is why I think Harden is a good player in the role to hit those shots but not a leader.

That's not analytics that's just common sense

DD

 

as pointed out, gsw basically takes the same number of mid-range shots we do. the entire league is moving toward 3's and layups and away from mid-range. just because we're slightly more extreme doesn't mean we're just some crazies who came up with an idea no one believes and are stridently holding on to our belief in the face of evidence to the contrary. about the only team that isn't are the spurs, and that's only this year since they acquired lamarcus. they were as big of a 3 point bombing team as there was the past 6 or 7 years and won a championship and made a finals doing it even before kawhi became kawhi and before they signed aldridge.

now that kawhi has developed such a good post-game and they acquired one of the few guys with a mid-range post game in aldridge, they can actually make the case they should be shooting lots of mid-range shots. and even then, they're largely making the case that only primary shot creators should take mid-range shots (like harden does). those make more sense for someone who needs to create off the dribble and may not have 3 point range off the dribble. also, it tends to get easier to get close to the basket when you start in the mid-range.

but for almost anybody who isn't creating their own shot, you shouldn't be shooting mid-range shots. trevor ariza, pat beverley and the rest of the rockets can't make the case they should be spotting up from 18 instead of 23 because they are simply much less efficient from 18 and they don't spread the court as much from there.

 

I don't think people actually appreciate what Morey has been trying to muddle through over the past 9 years.

Since 2006, he has a owner who refuses to ever let this team "tank" to get a high draft pick. As a result, Morey has NEVER had a draft pick better than #12 pick in the 1st round. Despite that, he has never had a team with a losing record and had 6 teams reach the playoffs.

Only 2 other teams can claim that and both those teams have had the luxury of all-time consistently great players better than any player the Rockets have had since the mid 90's run. Problem is they are both in Texas and have won championships in that span.

Morey has done nearly the best he could managing around two snake-bitten superstars. He magicked another player who has recently become a superstar and the shell of the second star, which was a chance that anyone should have taken given the circumstances.

No other team in the league has managed to bring in another true superstar without having some superstar level talent already on the team. On top of that, because of the way he has had to acquire that talent, he has never had a superstar on a "cheap" rookie contract that would have made it easier to acquire talent and build a team.

Does Morey at times seems brash, rub people in the NBA the wrong way, make bad picks/trades, not assess how certain players will jell? Of course he does.

Is he the only GM in the league who makes those mistakes? No.

The main criticism that could be asked would be is he too ingrained in what his initial analytics stated and has he not changed them when proven wrong?

However, that question can only NOW be asked, because before things fell apart this year, when exactly was his philosophy truly "proven wrong" before? T-Mac got hurt. Yao got hurt. Artest left. Martin wasn't a star. Lowry had a falling out. Lin didn't work. Harden had not have enough help at the start. Not to mention in many of those prior years, a few bounces our way results in the Rockets advancing past the Mavericks, Jazz, Lakers, etc.

You don't win every year. You don't make every correct call or assessment every time. Players do not always gel or get along.

Teams were undervaluing the 3 pt before. Teams are no longer doing that. And now we a have a team that has mastered that skill.

Morey now has to adjust and try to find the next most undervalued thing and try again. If he cannot adjust, then you could argue to move on. But given what Morey has done, he has earned the opportunity to adjust and try again.

 

Why do you keep saying that layups and 3s make us easier to guard when we get tons of open shots? If our 3s were contested then you'd have a point but they aren't. We get the 3rd most open 3 point looks in the entire NBA.

Our problem isn't that we aren't getting open shots. Are you under the impression that we are taking a bunch of contested shots?

You're also going with the "watching Harden pound the ball" stuff too. The actual numbers have been posted multiple times, Harden possesses the ball and dribbles the ball less each possession than most any primary ball handler in the league. Why do you keep repeating things that you know to be untrue?

You keep stating things as facts when they aren't.

Who are the players that are more efficient from midrange than the Rockets are from behind the arc? That would mean that the player would have to be shooting over 52% from midrange. Please share who those players are.

EDIT:

BTW Aldridge led the league in midrange attempts for the last 3 seasons (I don't have numbers for this season). In those seasons, he shot 42.9%, 42.2% and 42.1% from midrange. That should give you a baseline. You just need to identify all of those players who are shooting midrange shots at a 10% better efficiency than Aldridge.

 

Not really. The Spurs, Hawks, and GSW all play the efficiency game and all have their own style.