I guess I'll hold judgement on Morey til I see his plan for post-Yao reconstruction. Like Almu said in the other thread, I feel similar in terms of just not being satisfied with the Rockets post Artest. I didn't particularly like the Ariza move, and wished they would've pushed harder to make something happen in the past summer's free agent market. With the new wind in the league of 2-3 star players going to big markets, growing the disparity between upper echelon teams and bottom feeders, playing the middle is an ever bigger losing battle then before because not only do you now have a harder time competing against the top hoping for an upset in the playoffs, but you lose out on draft picks from not being near the bottom. Seems like last few years Rockets have been swapping bad contracts and average talent for good contracts and average talent, while losing out on big name FA's with all the money saved with good contracts. The Rockets IMO are in NBA hell, and that's disappointing for a franchise that has usually always stayed active in the trade talks, been a nice summer home for players as well as inviting destination for free agents. I guess I'm waiting for Morey to pull off a deal that puts them back in contention, in what will become an even weaker western conference (with the pending decline of Spurs due to age, Jazz due to D.Will leaving in free agency possibly to NYK/NJN, and same possible departure of CP3 to NYK/NJN). I don't think Kevin Martin is a #1 or can lead a team to a championship. Which then leaves the question, if he's not your centerpiece, and the rest of ur squad is role players, when will you ever climb out of mediocrity? Seems better just to free up space, aim for good young draft talent, and look forward to 3-4 yrs down the line. Frankly I'd much rather have that then be stuck in perpetual 8th-10th place with no hope of climbing or falling.
Daryl Morey has had no chance from the start. He took over a team that was basically Yao and Tracy + a bunch of scrubs and he never had a full season with both of them healthy. He's had his hands tied behind his back from the start, and honestly, I think he's done a pretty damn good job under the circumstances. The only real move I can look back on and say "that was a mistake" was the Rudy Gay for Shane Battier thing. But hindsight is always 20/20 when it comes to stuff like that.
yup, every GM would take choice B. but I thought our GM was a genius. He could know that TMAC was a proven loser and Yao was not that good actually after looking at them closely.
Walsh vs Morey Walsh vs Morey I remember how after last years deadline everyone here including myself were making fun of Donnie and talking about how morey has him in his pocket.. funny thing is since then Walsh has gotten two superstars and GREAT assets in between.. all we got from them is Hill and picks.. neither of which we've used yet.. I know all about it takes time and NY>HOUSTON and all that but how can we say Morey is better than Walsh while being serious anymore? This is not knee jerk in any way but I've got to tip my hat to Donnie but im afraid I can't do the same for Morey.. looking at what they've done in the same time is crazy.. sure Morey has made some good moves and picks but where are we? I know about the Yao injury but what has Morey done? He went all in and treated our team like a nother poker game and got all ppl to surround yao.. well.. yeah u know.. all im tryna say is we've gotten worse and so has moreys rank in my eyes.. say all u want about Donnie but he's a better GM in my eyes..
Morey has achieved a few good trades (Kevin Martin and Courtne Lee, for example) and pulled off some decent drafts (Brooks, Budinger and Landry), but he has had some incredible luck (Scola) thanks to Ginobli and Ferry, as well. However, I have never forgiven him for the Rudy Gay trade, which guaranteed mediocrity for the Rockets, then and now.
You think Walsh gave up all of those players, picks, and money because he wanted to? No, he was forced to by their owner.
It's not hard for Walsh to trade for Carmelo, when Carmelo is the one that is forcing a trade to only one team. Walsh has nothing to do with the trade, its all Carmelo. That doesnt make him a better GM, just a more desirable location.
What? The # 1 pick we got which landed us Yao was the result of getting lucky and winning the lottery against the odds when we were slotted to pick 5th. His "hard work" resulted in a team that regularly landed in the lottery, and routinely made bad picks. He did pull of the Francis trade which sent Michael Dickerson, Othella Harrington, Antoine Carr and Brent Price, plus first- and second-round picks to the Grizzlies. Of course that opportunity presented itself because Francis refused to go to Vancouver and forced the trade. The closest thing to that Morey has had that the public knows about is Carmello, who obviously was dead set on the Knicks. The Tmac trade was also one of CD's better moves, but again there has to be a player available for any GM to trade for him. With Carmello being the only player available and him only wanting to go to NY, you're kidding yourself if you think changing GM's would change that in any way. Now let's look at that CD draft board one more time and remember the good old days: 1996 2nd rnd 30th Othella Harrington 1996 2nd rnd 42nd Randy Livingston 1996 2nd rnd 50th Terrell Bell 1997 1st rnd 24th Rodrick Rhodes 1997 2nd rnd 29th Serge Zwikker 1998 1st 14th Michael Dickerson 1998 1st rnd 16th Bryce Drew 1998 1st rnd 18th Mirsad Türkcan 1998 2nd rnd 41st Cuttino Mobley 1999 1st 22nd Kenny Thomas 1999 2nd rnd 44th Tyrone Washington 1999 2nd rnd 50th Venson Hamilton 2000 1st 15th Joel Przybilla 2000 2nd 38th Eduardo Najera (traded to Dallas) 2001 1st rnd 13thRichard Jefferson (traded to New Jersey 2001 1st rnd 18th Jason Collins (from Orlando, raded to New Jersey) 2001 1st rnd 23rd Brandon Armstrong (from Orlando, traded to New Jersey) 2002 1st rnd 1st Yao Ming 2002 1st 15th Boštjan Nachbar 2002 2nd 37th Tito Maddox 2003 2nd 44th Malick Badiane 2004 2nd 55th Luis Flores 2005 1st 24th Luther Head 2006 1st rnd 8th Rudy Gay (traded to Memphis) CD was still GM here, despite discussions that seem to blame this pick on Morey. Not to say Morey wouldn't have also done the deal, but ultimately he was assistant GM. 2006 2nd 32nd Steve Novak Ah the good ole days... So CD did the great work of getting Tmac and Yao, one of which was a proven loser and the other not actually that good... but Morey should have been able to trade injured versions of those players for something that would make the current team a championship contender...
http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Rockets_acquire_Battier_in_tra-184447-822.html Do you see Morey being quoted in that article? Or Carroll Dawson? Morey had just joined the Rockets a couple of months before, in a junior role. Do you think he made the final decision on that one? Also, I still think it was the right trade at the time.
[rquoter]After that, Battier will show fans in Houston what he has to offer. "I got all kinds of calls from people in the basketball world who congratulated us on a great pickup because they know want Shane can do for us," Dawson said. "I understood why fans reacted the way they did to the trade, but Shane is going to become a very popular player in Houston for many years to come."[/rquoter] I remember reading or hearing this quote from CD at the time, but I was never able to track it down.
The Rockets might have been bamboozled on that one. A year or two after the trade a sportswriter briefly wrote about how the Memphis front office had purposely leaked and embellished a supposed tantrum Gay threw at a workout.
Okay. At first I thought you just had too high of expectations for Morey. Now I know you're either a troll or do not know basketball. Either way, there's no way I can respond to this.
Morey has done an excellent job. And for saying to trade Yao/Tmac when they were still good.... Anyways who here would actually watch a tanking team? If the tanking process took a considerable amount of time few amounts of people would watch the game, and then what do you know? The Seattle Rockets will spring up.
#1 and #2 picks acquired because of losing are rewards of a GM's work? Who they pick is the GM's work the reward is their skill. They get rewarded for their hard work in wins not losses. CD took over Rockets GM in 1996. Tracy trade was 2004. He had 8 years to acquire Tracy. DM has had 3. Further more if you would like to take a step back and think of the last time the Rockets really mattered it was because of moves made Prior to CD being GM. I don't really like to hate on CD, but it is what it is. DM's body of work is still going we shall see if he is great in another few years.
Yao deserved one last shot to be healthy with out of breaking apart the team last year. Pretty sure those ordered were the will of Mr. Alexander also. Perhaps Morey could have changed his mind, but Yao earned the extra shot with all his hard work.
Ill be honest i have been one of the biggest morey supporters...and I will hold Judgement until the trade deadline…but if there is not a substantial upgrade then morey failed… He tries to do too much, and teams just move on. We should have known we weren’t getting bosh and melo. We should have made a move for favors or cousins last year in the draft…which every indication we could have moved up to phillys spout but just cost a a lot….point is…we missed all that to save assets for bosh and melo…we lost both. We lost gortat because we waited too long…we lost chandler because we wouldn’t out pay the mavs…we lost amare and prob could have got melo had we made that trade… Looking back I no longer view morey as they man… The only thing that can save him for me at this point is making to moves for a sf and C and 1 being elite…a josh smith or a cousins…something worth overpaying. If we wind up trading lee and a pick for asik and getting garland Wallace for yaos contract hill and budinger….I will think morey had been a failure. And for me that is saying a lot………
With so many Horrible Gm's out ther DM has yet to make any real stupid moves. He's a pretty shrewd dude when it comes to business thats evident in How he got us Kmart. Thers a lot of Bs in the League as far as the Good Ol" Boy stuff(example Pau Gasol Trade) when it comes to trades and what not. But Morey made big Moves he got Artest, we had a big three. But two of that three could not stay healthy so here we are. We had the pieces the pieces didnt stay healthy. Now he has too try to work some more magic and get us too the playoffs. We have no Stars we went from three to none. We have Very solid Players but we need "that guy". Morey is hard at work again trying to get us that guy or guys. Once you have that you can just build around that. Morey knows that, this is why the whole team is on the Trading Block.
Losing is not easy. but I agree that we should give Morey more time to see if he can lead us to losing.
