Any GM has made mistakes, however what separates the successful GMs from the crappy ones is the GRAVITY of their hits and misses. Spurs for example probably missed out by wasting a roster spot on Blake Ahearn in 2009, I doubt anybody in SA's crying over him though. Ariza, Dorsey and Miller are easily forgettable misses. Its not really the end of the world that we wasted capspace on Miller and Ariza, and wasted a 2nd pick on Dorsey. However his "wins" aren't exactly Miller-lite. Trading Alston, V-span, Tmac, Brooks and Landry so far have given us a ton of good players such as KM, Lowry, Scola and Dragic, all of whom are undoubtedly better than the players they were traded for. Plus, you gotta admit having a GM who makes a ton of trades is great for the bbs, it gives us something to talk about, and something to laugh about later on when DM proves half the board wrong. If our GM was someone who kept the roster the same all year long this board would be as dead as doornails.
or that you are adjusting to a dynamic and volatile environment. there are 29 other teams making moves too. building a team is not like shopping at wal-mart. thanks for the tip, captain obvious. your wisdom has brought new insight to this thread. you'll never get an answer to that question. what i learned on clutchfans - rockets should tank every year until they have a starting lineup of top-5 draft picks, or les should hand over his wallet and car to morey so he can drive down to wal-mart and buy a starting lineup of max-contract superstars. anything else is failure and an insult to the fans by a snake-oil salesman gm and cheap owner who supports slavery.
How would the team be? It is a conundrum, sometimes it is better to sit tight and let the core grow together, sometimes it is time to blow it up, we have done neither fully. I think Morey has done a good job overall, but his ability to build a contending team, or get us a star player is still in question. I know that I will be cheering for him like crazy though and not upset if ANY player is moved in order to bring in that top dog. DD
And your lack or wit, charm, or class has also been noted....you sir are on the list... THE LIST !!!! DD
Clutchfans: Where trading away AB, David Andersen, Trevor Ariza, and Brad Miller are questionable moves.
I have my doubts that you can build a contender like this also, but like others have said, that’s Leslie’s mandate. I don’t know how you can question Morey’s dedication and work ethic when you see some of the trades he’s pulled off and hear about he’s always on the phone trying to do more. And look at how we get steals in the draft year after year, obviously because of the research Morey and his staff put in. What more can this large team of people running the Rockets do, in your eyes, when one person sets the parameters they can work under? I do agree that Leslie should just give Morey the freedom to rebuild the way he wants. Since Morey says tanking is "the easy way" (a.k.a. more likely to work way), he should just be given the green light to carry out his vision.
morey's talent and value is doing what he is doing right now. that's the reason les hired him. his mandate IS his job. if les was going to tank and roll the dice with draft picks, then he wouldn't have needed morey.
We have not really shuffled that much. Moves you think are alot arent. its just not true. Tmac was gonna go because of injury. Yao retired. Brad Miller had to go. Battier had his contract coming up. So did Brooks and it looked like he was unhappy here and might leave anyways. Courtney Lee for Ariza was the only move that was done for the sake of cost cutting and to make a move. Landry got you Kevin Martin. It is team building. Shuffling would be moves that make no sense constantly and just for the sake of doing them. This is not that. Each move has a purpose.
The core was T-Mac and Yao. The Rockets tried to make it work for years with futility. Those 2 players had to go. Everybody else was just a roleplayer. The Lakers had Kobe and Shaq. Spurs had Duncan, Ginobili and parker. All guys that can play more than 70 games a season.
Nearly everyone here is clinging to the notion that under Morey this organization has assembled a nice "core" of young and talented players on the rise. I am not so sure. While I can understand the limitations that Morey has been operating under and the sorry roster he inherited, I still don't see him bringing players who can be honestly considered to be difference makers. The players he's brought in are largely role players and guys named Herb. Outside of Martin against whom opposing teams have to beware of his lean-in to draw fouls, exactly what player acquired by Morey strikes any fear in the hearts of opposing teams? Or what player (or players) on this roster cause opposing teams to game plan against them? In this sense, what Morey is doing or has done is essentially the same thing that was prominent during the CD years. The team is still shuffling though body after body after body looking for that elusive "star" player. The difference I see is that Morey actually knows how to draft guys who can play basketball while CD couldn't find a player in the draft if he was locked in a closet with him (Yao doesn't count). But the results on the court from both GMs have been somewhat consistent. Going back 11 years you see the following won-loss records: 2000-2001: 45-37. No playoffs 2001-2002: 28-54. No playoffs but they get Yao in 2002 draft (yayyyy!) 2002-2003: 43-43. No playoffs 2003-2004: 45-37. JVG is the HC, make playoffs & lose to LA in 1st round 2004-2005: 51-31. TMac is here, make playoffs & lose to Dallas in 1st round 2005-2006: 34-48. Yao & Tmac hurt & in NBA lotto once again 2006-2007: 52-30. Another 1st round playoff loss to Utah. JVG is fired 2007-2008: 55-27. Yao hurt, Rockets lose to Jazz in 1st round...again 2008-2009: 53-29. Tmac/Yao hurt. Rox make it to 2nd round, lose to LA 2009-2010: 42-40. Yao hurt again. NBA lotto again 2010-2011: 43-39. See 2009-2010 season results. RA is fired By my count that's 6 times in the NBA lottery over the past 11 years. And out of those 6 appearances, only Yao could be considered to be a star player (the book has yet to be written on Morris, Patterson). But all of this wheeling and dealing by Morey doesn't appear to have done much by the way of improvement so far as to their standing in the Western Conference and this latest episode with Morey, McHale and the Boyz doesn't exactly fill me with optimism that things will be changing anytime soon. But that may just be because I am deeply cynical about this organization's competence and also because I tend to place more weight on results than others on this board.
Second-hand anger at Les losing a few mil, lulz? Is he your uncle or something that you would care about him losing a few mil on sub-par players? Or are you one of the many unknowledgable CFs who look at every transaction at face value instead of the overall big picture?
In the sense that we have some plus young players who will get better, yes, many people correctly perceive this. I have yet to see anyone on this board who thinks we've got all the talent we need and we just need to wait for it to develop, OKC-style. Everyone from Morey on down says the team needs to be upgraded. Well, it depends on how you evaluate results and how realistic your expectations are. What do you call an employee who fails six times out of ten? Well, if that employee happens to be a designated hitter, you call him 'MVP.' If you think that employee stinks because he fails over half the time, well, you're more than welcome to trade him, but don't be surprised if the .500 hitter you want doesn't materialize. So. You're not happy with the results, indicating you think Morey is worse than other GMs we might employ instead. Can you point out to me these other GMs that have had more success with fewer resources (owner spending, lotto picks, desirable cities) than Morey has?
Dorsey was not a mistake, for where he was picked. He's still in the NBA, which is pretty good for a very late 1st. Ariza? Getting him cost nothing, in that we gave him the MLE. He turned into Lee. OK, maybe Ariza wasn't worth what we paid him, arguably. So what? I can't see how we were hurt. And, don't mention Artest - we dropped him because of Artest, not because of Ariza.
You see not shuffling does not mean he has done his job in getting us a center or star player though. These are two different concepts. First he hasnt done enough to get those two things. So he may need to do even more trades to get them. At the same point he has not shuffled alot of players around for nothing. He has gotten rid of what he needs to for young players and to get rid of injured players and contracts. What he has not done is gotten what we really need. No he has not shuffled. Yes he does do assets and team building. But also no he hasnt gotten the star or center we need while he is building and gaining assets.
Interesting take because if I look the events that have occurred since the end of the season: the dismissal of a proven coach in Adelman, the hiring of the unproven (and failed GM) Kevin McHale and the addition of questionable players like Flynn to go along with the likes of Thabeet, Williams and Hill, I come away with the impression that Morey intends to wait for his "assets" to develop and so he assembled the current coaching staff with that goal in mind. I honestly feel that they are going to try to grow these guys into serious NBA players. Forget about the PR pronouncements about "winning now without rebuilding" because that's merely smoke and mirrors for the true believers. This is what I see them doing for the next 3 years. I am not sure this is a plan I can believe in because I don't see the upside in these guys. To me, it's not so much a question of whether or not Morey is better or worse that his fellow GMs but rather a question of what plans and direction he has in mind for his franchise going forward. One of the failings of the previous regime was the constant lack of direction and absence of a realistic plan to achieve success on the court. The flawed execution of the Tmac/Yao plan is exhibit one. If Morey can be critisized for anything, it's because he continued to follow said plan even after it was obviously shown to be unworkable instead of coming up with his own. As for the less than optimal conditions he operates under, well Mr. Morey walked into the job with both eyes open and he simply cannot to continue pleading poverty as an excuse after 4 years on the job. The name of the game is results and under Morey, those results are still lacking - that's what the record states. Unfortunately, that is also the name of the game - just ask Rudy T, JVG and Rick Adlelman. Now, if the coaches can get judged by results shouldn't the GM be judged the same way? P.S. Still don't like the Artest deal. In hindsight, I hate it even more.
So many interesting and thoughtful posts from many of my favorite posters. Some of you are especially defensive. Others understand what I am after. This is not a Morey bashing thread. I don't see one man as responsible for the success or failure of the Rockets. My issue is as the title suggests: what's the plan? Can you discern one. Of course, it is not like going to Wal Mart. It is a very complex and complicated business/game. Luck is certainly a factor. What concerns me is that I don't discern design which may have many causes. I don't have inside information. Of course the public relations mantra is "we are just trying to get better." But how? For example is step one to firm up the guard positions (check), then acquire a boatload of forwards (check), sort them out, get rid of some, then get several center prospects, try them out, and so on. Is our superstar target a center? And so on. What is the plan? On the outside looking in it often appears that we are just shuffling the deck. Did we have a plan that failed (besides the Yao/TMac era)? Are we in to plan B? Or what?
I so totally agree. I was really attached to Landry, I loved his explosiveness. I really liked AB, still think he is going to be much better than Lowry. I am worried that my next favorite player will be moved soon, Scola. If the Rockets don't settle on a group of players the team can never have an identity. We are almost a pick up team.
Yankees fanbase does this yearly. They keep one or two guys long term and then shuffle everyone else. Same with Patriots.
