By most accounts, at least a couple years ago, Morey was considered a boy genius GM. Was it Les Alexander's supreme confidence in his abilities to work magic that led him to direct Morey to rebuild without tanking when our two superstars fell out of the picture? What if we had had a Les competent GM, or at least one that wasn't surrounded by so much hype/buzz? Do you think Les would have let the guy tank for some high picks to start over? Does Morey's perceived superiority hinder us in the long run? P.S. INb4LIN
DUDE, shutoff your computer off & run. The Morey Gestapo is coming & all hell is about to break loose on you. Don't ever do this again because in ain't worth it!
Only big names like Buford, Petrie, etc would get freedom. Else they would be in the same situation as Morey. Regardless we could do A LOT worse than Morey. At least Morey is competent, anybody remember CD? Morey is one of the better GMs in the league.
This isn't a cleverly disguised anti-Morey post. Check my history, if anything I've always been pro-Morey. I just remembered reading somewhere that the wisdom around the league dictated that when it comes to rebuilding, you have to be bad before you can be good. So why then did Les insist on reloading on the fly? It's not even like we had a proven championship roster like the LAL, SAS or BOS where we are trying to squeeze out any last chance at a trophy. Didn't Morey allude to the notion that what we were trying to do was somewhat unprecedented? That would be the definition of a high stakes gamble if we were to lose years treading water in purgatory. The only logical answers I can come up with are that either A) Les cared more about avoiding the expected slump in revenue streams or B) Les really believed that if anyone could make it happen, Morey could. All I'm saying is, given how much of a gamble this whole reloading on the fly business is, how much of this risk taking can we attribute to Les' belief in Morey and his staff, unfounded or not?
If that is, in fact, true, then hell, things can't get a whole lot worse than they are now, what with our 29th in league-wide attendance rankings. I assume we'll try to finish the season strong and make the playoffs, even if it is the 8th seed, but the Rockets as currently constructed are just fodder for the elite squads. This is not an entertaining team to watch. We now seem to be putting all our eggs in the free agency basket, but what if that doesn't work out? Another season of mediocre basketball? How long until Morey feels his skills are being wasted with his hands tied behind his back? Smart guy like him won't want to spend his career in a situation where he has nothing but mediocrity to look back on. I know I would get burnt out eventually.
I dont think Les would let anyone intentionally tank - its jus not in his makeup and I applaud him for that. I think without DM we would not have performed as well as we have during his tenure. It kills me to say it, because I've always been a big DM supporter, but at this point we'd be prob be building on Rudy Gay and Batum - which is a better situation than we are presently in....
Depends on how worse a GM we had. I don't think Les would have let any GM tank on purpose. Perhaps he changes his mind in the future? If we had a worse GM, then we might be in the lottery due to being bad, not due to tanking on purpose, and stuck with a bunch of bad contracts right about now. Then you are depending on that worse GM to make the right picks in the lottery. It's possible that bad GM's dip into the lottery would have gotten us a good player, but would we really be contenders if we had John Wall or Kyrie Irving instead of Lowry? So far none of the 2010 or 2011 draft picks have established themselves as super star level players, and you would be depending on that bad GM to fill in the holes around that lottery pick before that star rookie decided to leave the team ala Lebron.
Les will never admit to tanking, no team wiil. I seem to recall a rumor that there was a disconnect between the front office and JVG when he didn't tank some games at the end in the year they drafted Gay. Lately, even Bill, Clyde, and Bull have been giving strong hints the Rockets will make future looking moves soon.
I know a lot of people want to believe Morey needs no approval from Les and just does his own thing, but, as the owner, Les has to be the one behind the big picture decisions. He decides if the GM is going to blow it up and tank or try to keep winning, while rebuilding. So the question is, what if Les had ordered Morey to blow it up, tank, go for picks, etc.?
Or what if Stern never veto'ed the deal and we end up with Gasol and a good chance with Nene (or at worst, Dalembert). We also keep Lin and Hayes in the process. Morey has his faults, but the management ran into the worse lucks this season. One nixed trade, and we lose our key players in Hayes and a solid backup in Lin.
There IS no morey gestapo that worships DM. What you have are a lot rational posters who see that he is doing a good job, and its hard to pinpoint major things that he did to screw the franchise up. What you do have are a bunch of irrational r****ds who do nothing but complain about having no superstar and blame it all on Morey. Case in point: The rockets let Jeremy Lin go, now he's screwing us out of the Knicks lottery pick Rational DM supporter: Well DM cut him to make room for Dalembert. Sure in hindsight Morey should have waived Flynn instead, but then again at the time how are you going to rationalize paying 4M (Flynn's salary+Lin) for a 3rd string pg? DM did the same thing last year by cutting Ish the dish smith, and while everyone thought it was a waste of good talent,nobody raised hell about it. Also everyone seems to gloss over the fact that had Stern not screwed us we'd have Gasol, Hayes and Lin right now. Irrational CF ranter: OMG Morey let Lin go how stupid is he?!?! Fire him now how long do we have to tread the waters of mediocrity?! We have no Howard, Durant, Griffin all we have are a bunch of assets that nobody wants!?!?!??!?!?!??!
^^^IIRC, there was more hell raised here over letting Ish go than Lin...it just goes to show Lin's talent wasn't as evident, at least not here, like some claim.
(a) It's worth noting that this is really the FIRST year post-Yao. Even last year we had the big fella on the roster and before the season began (and for something like 5 games of the actual season) (b) I doubt Les would let anyone tank. It's not his style - he believes in rebuilding other ways. (c) Worth noting that even the most succesful 'tank artists' take about 5 years AFTER the tanking season to get to the point where they might possible be a contender. Les wants to follow the other path of bringing in a big time FA or swinging a trade for one. Houston has a history of bringing in big names through trades under Les' ownership, so one can understand why he prefers that route rather than the 'lose money for 5 years' option.
Keep Morey! He has enscounced the team safely in the middle of the NBA herd. Morey and Mediocrity -- may they long reign!
I know you're on the Morey hate train, it's kind of obvious when every thread related to Morey you would sarcastically defend him. It'd be nice if you started adding to the discussion instead of going in every thread saying "Oh no, you dissed Morey the worshippers are going to get you now! Oh no you didn't!"
