I agree that Mauri talent evaluation is vastly over-rated. Letting alone his history of first round busts in the 10-20 range, he keeps getting us these scrubs from nowhere I called that Kostas Papscrub a certified scrub from day 1 and yet delusional fools started knighting this scrub just because Murray acquired him and cited his all round skill set Where is this Euro scrub? I heard even the pathetic Nuggets didn't have a role for him
Joey (Rey Lewis) Dorsey was the 33rd player chosen by Portland for the Rockets and Daryl Morey in the 2008 NBA draft, Mario Chalmers was chosen 34th, DeAndre Jordan was chosen 35th and a guy by the name of Omer Asik was chosen 36th just to jar everyone's memories LOL.
GM's have total control of the roster BECAUSE THEY'RE HIRED TO HAVE TOTAL CONTROL. Coaches leveraging their way to total control has never worked in the NBA. They still want it because it's human nature for our reach to exceed our grasp. Doesn't mean it's the smart way to go. Coaches need to coach, and GM's need to manage the roster. Morey would do well to hire a coach that can act autonomously and take his stats or leave them--in fact, that's how the Rockets have functioned best in the past decade. But it doesn't mean that all of a sudden there are better GM options out there, because I'm pretty sure there aren't.
Oh, God, don't mis-type "job". Because when I see it as you typed it---"Job", with a big "J"---that's how last season felt for all of us! I do think the whole thing imploded a bit with how they coddled Harden. When Curry showed up for the 2015-16 season, he walked into the GS offices wearing shades; someone on the staff gently but firmly admonished him for acting the star and he never did it again. In Houston? Don't alienate the star, he can leave us in 2018. If I question Morey on certain things, it's how he sometimes makes trades just to make trades. Seemingly. Good-bye, Canaan, hello McDaniels whom the coaching staff will never play.....but his re-signing will take forever, hamstring other moves, and (directly or indirectly) force Josh Smith to seek employment elsewhere. Why not keep Canaan in the first place? "Well, when he plays defense, blah blah." The old chestnut. Except, NO ONE on this team plays much defense, if at all. Lawson flat-out quit rather than try, Harden's ego and ankle got in his way to start the season, Brewer forced the action when he got a contract he didn't deserve and so looked like a "ferret on 10 espressos" (Adam Clanton), other players showed decline, Howard wanted out and played like it.....and, above all, no real coach and the specter of chasing Durant this off-season made this season into an afterthought that couldn't be salvaged for the sake of pride. How much of the blame falls on Morey is questionable. Some posters are throwing it all on him. Quoting "A Bug's Life" movie: Grasshopper Leader (Kevin's Spacey's voice): "Oh, I see. Under new management." New Ant Queen (Julia Louis-Dreyfus' voice): "I didn't know, it's not my fault...." Grasshopper: "Uh-uh-uh. First rule of leadership.....EVERYTHING is your fault." (Except Morey isn't "new", but you get the idea.) Whether he deserves all the blame I highly doubt. Too many posters piling on with their I-told-you-so's. Maybe he merits a second chance, you know? If he insists on staying the course 100%, well, perhaps that'll be the end. And he would have a new GM job very quickly.
Great post. Look at LAC - they always seem to be just 1 year too late to adapt, and that's predominantly due to the GM not being able to analyze the shortcomings until he actually sees them on the court for a full year. It's very difficult for a Coach/GM combo to adapt quickly, and I think JVG after being out of coaching for sooooo long would be an AWFUL choice to play this hand with.
A straight up firing I could never see. Les himself said weeks ago that Morey is coming back but pretty much everyone that isn't him or Harden might be left in the dust. That's just the way I took it. However I will say this... There are going to be comprises the Rockets will have to make to get a JVG back, or even get Vogel. Those compromises could be something Morey will not agree to and Les and him may butt heads. I'm thinking a Hinkie/Sixers situation lite. But when it comes to JVG, a big reason that he and the Rockets have been able to mend their relationship over the years is JVG's close relationship with Morey himself. I don't think for a second JVG would take the job if he was reporting straight up to Les. JVG would want Morey to work in lock step with him in his coach/mgmt dual role. If Morey is getting canned it's because of what Morey will not agree to. He's not perfect but for what the Rockets need to do this Summer there is no higher qualified GM out there available. No way Les set out this summer to part ways with him and no way it would be a straight up firing. And I'm sure Clutch would hear something about him and Les butting heads.
I think he's refreshed and rejuvenated. He's had a chance to sit back and actually enjoy the game all while seeing what works and what doesn't. What players he thinks may or may not be good and what ideas to implement for his next opportunity. I know we all like to make jabs at him for signing over the hill ex Knicks while he was here but there won't be any more of that since there's no emotional ties, feelings of obligation, familiarity etc. Bonus for the fact that all the former Knicks and Rockets he coached are long retired. His extended time off should pay of well but it's time to get back to work.
Not sure if this is true... <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jeff Van Gundy looking for a GM/Coaching role similar to his brother Stan. Very intriguing to him <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/nba?src=hash">#nba</a></p>— Phil Strae (@straenba) <a href="https://twitter.com/straenba/status/729313493699076096">May 8, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I don't know how you can blame morey for that. Last season was a 2 seed, fun team with the runner up for mvp on it, and they still didn't have crowds. It's really strange, but Houston just isn't a good basketball town. The rockets over their history have been so much better than the Texans, but the Texans will always have more support. No gm or coach will ever change that, it would take a steph curry or Lebron type player on this team to get big support
Nobody you mentioned other than Josh Smith, D-Mo, and Lawson could ever get off the bench. And each of those three performed poorly, for the most part, when they did. "That is 9 that were here and gone" but it is an irrelevant 9 players, a bevy of 12th men. Changing around your 12th man (or worse) isn't really changing your roster. I wish everyone would include the caveat "but nobody saw this coming" in every post about last season's Rockets. Because nobody did. We were all stoked to bring back last year's team (minus Smith which was later corrected) and add Lawson and everybody thought it would work. It's ironic how you're trying to make the point that Morey upended the roster last year when it was the only year in his tenure where he basically stuck with the guys he had.
Outside of swapping Smith for Lawson none of the rotation players from last year were changed. And everyone applauded Morey for keeping the core intact.
This is the same account that posted something about Morey being gone after this thread was made and he has retweeted CF before Not an insider
The only reason that Morey has not got fired is because of Leslie Alexander's proud. Morey is the one he hired 10 years ago and nobody saw Morey as a NBA GM. Les wants to prove that he made right decision, which isn't. Who knows, all we could do is just to wait out of this mess.
Yeah, bad teams give their coaches control over the roster. Give me an example of an autocratic coach in today's NBA that's having success. The closest you can give me are the Pat Riley teams, and he hasn't actually coached a team in a decade.
Morey needs to feel heat and pressure from Les. And a new balance needs to be struck between Morey & the new coach. Basically Morey needs to be knocked down a peg or two. Use analytics to compliment the coach's gameplan, no longer the other way around with Morey being so overbearing on the coaching. But that all said, I still think firing Morey at this juncture would be a mistake for a number of reasons. Morey has us poised really nicely this offseason with the ability to add two max FA's to go with Harden, and still have room left to flesh out the rest of the roster. Credit all to him. He's orchestrated a lot for this very moment. This is the Kevin Durant FA offseason. He has planned for this. Let him swing for the fences. Also this is crazy cap increase offseason. Morey is best suited to fill out our needs without having us dropping our pants. The money that will be thrown around as we all know is going to be nuts. And we got a real turd in Brewer to trade that we need some value back in exchange. Need some Morey magic for that, especially since Morey created that mess. This isn't the offseason to get hot headed and fire Morey. It would be terrible timing, regardless of whether or not it's deserved.
Good point, I also wonder how much Riley had on the influence of Spolestra's coaching though. I mean did he still make the coach run those crazy pre-season practices like he used to do? Hehe, I mean sure Spolestra was the coach but I sometimes got the impression Riley was still running everything in the background. Obviously the franchise spun it differently but it was the same thing when he took over for Stan, I have a feeling if in year 2 things didn’t go correctly for the big 3 in Miami, Riley would have come out of the stands and put Spolestra back as a video coordinator. But regardless, you're absolutely right on the coach/gm thing. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out for the Pistons and Wolves.
