Just imagine if we had Morey and Adelman instead of Dawson and JVG when both Yao and McGrady were healthy.
If you really want to grade him so far, go look at the team when the Rockets had the 20+ game winning streak. Ideally speaking, that streak was because Morey basically put the pieces together to compliment Yao and TMac. Brooks, Landry, Scola mainly and then Lowry. That's really what Morey has been doing for at least four seasons. Its just that the superstars were wobbly and broke down. Out of the 300+ games Aldeman has coached here in Houston, Yao and TMac were only together in 72. Meaning they have basically and collectively did not play at least 2.5 seasons together Where would the Lakers be if Kobe and Gasol missed the previous two seasons Or Boston if Ray Allen and Paul Pierce missed two seasons. Or Tim Duncan and Manu, or Manu and Parker etc., There was no denying that in '08-'09 that that team was a serious contender when they added Ron Artest. There were many pundits and many on this board that the Rockets would at least be in the WCF. That to me was validation that Morey knew WTF he was doing. The Rockets have been near the bottom last year and this year mainly because of no Yao. As a previous poster said, he cannot be blamed for the broken down superstars that he inherited
This is the stupidest, most god awful analogy I have ever heard. And to think I used to quite respect you as a poster, even when I differ with you on opinions. When the Cavs trade fell through, it did not preclude the following. A. The Cavs from making a separate trade for Scola B. EVERY OTHER NBA TEAM from making a trade for Scola C. The Spurs from aggressively LOOKING to move Scola Not to mention the Spurs could've kept Scola themselves rather than sign Matt Boner(although this was at an earlier date) So if you want to make the analogy that Morey got the winning lottery ticket, you'd also have to say that he picked it up from the ground AFTER at least 20 GMs decided to not pick it up(Eastern conference teams + crappy WC teams SA were more likely to negotiate with). And that only Morey knew its true worth and willing to pay to get it.
I just hope Morey stands pat and keeps all our guys so I can buy season tickets next year and then sleep at night knowing that I made a good decision with my money. We already have stars on this team and I don't think we are to far away from making a Championship run. We always finish 3rd and 4th quarters strong and we really abused the Timberwolves last week, thats how I know we are close to winning it all. If only we could get some more 2nd round picks and more projects on this team we would really be scary next year. This team has always been about patience ever since I was 15 back in 1995 now that its 2011 I am now 87 years old and so much wiser I can really look at this organization and say we are in for another great decade of no injuries and no disappointments. Thanks for another great year Daryl and I'm looking forward to many more.
I'm sure Morey had input, and it very well may have been his idea. Still I would be interested to see more reliable "confirmations" than anonymous posters who supposedly talked to anonymous sources.
This is the roster Morey took over, aside from the 2 extreme injury prone superstars. Listed by Minutes Rafer Alston (out of the league) Shane Battier Luther Head (fringe NBA player) Juwan Howard (fringe NBA player) Chuck Hayes Dikembe Mutombo (out of the league) Bonzi Wells (out of the league) Kirk Snyder (out of the league) John Lucas (out of the league) Villi Spanoulis (out of the league) Scott Padgett (out of the league) Steve Novak (fringe NBA player) Jake Tsakalidis (out of the league) He turned a nothing roster, into a roster filled with good young players, and flexible salary situation. He hasn't been able to get the great player, but that player is impossible to get in this stars wanting to join forces era.
Look, This league is full of a bunch of great, very smart GM's. NO ONE is going to come into this league as GM and automatically build a championship team. It's a highly competitive, tough league. Some of the expectations of Morey are far too high. We can't expect him to find the best sleeper in every single draft. We can't expect him to make impossible trades. And we can't blame him for not luring superstars who want to be in New York. We certainly can't expect him to predict Yao would have gotten injured either. But what we can do is expect him to have a plan, understand what it takes to win, keep us competitive, draft smartly, make opportunistic moves, and not screw us over with bad contracts and desperate trades. Morey is exceptional in all those areas, in my opinion. Morey is giving us the best chance possible, given the circumstances.
Honestly, Morey is extremely overrated on this board. I'm not saying he's not a good GM, he's just overrated.
Daryl Morey = Warren Buffett He works with what is in front of him, works longer and harder than anybody else, plugs along, invests in value, doesn't give away anything and doesn't lose his head or panic. If you want him to make splashy, big, sexy moves you will think he is overrated. But at the end of the day, the splashy Bernie Madoffs with the fancy suits and the too-big-to-believe profits end up in jail, and the plodding Warren Buffetts own the world.
overrated. not much happening actually. the rockets team is full of "Assets". like at where we are going now.
I believe Morey draws his powers from the Satanic cult that elected him. He also has a pretty tricked-out MacBook Pro.
Somewhere in all of this...Do you have a point? First, there was NEVER a mention of Scola by ANY NBA team...including the Spurs prior to a decision to bring Scola over from Europe. If you can find any CREDIBLE source of an NBA team with a serious offer on the table for Scola for a month prior to the Rockets' trade...I'll stop posting for a month. Secondly, there is a reason Scola NEVER hit the market. The Spurs back- channeled the deal DIRECTLY to Ferry. They did this as a FAVOR to Manu Ginobilli who is Scola's friend and Argentine teammate. Again...Scola was NEVER on the market prior to the Spurs offering him to Danny Ferry. There was absolutely NOTHING that was done by Daryl Morey other than be in the right place at the right time. That's why it's called "luck"... Luck: (noun) 1) fortune (an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable outcome) "it was my good luck to be there"; "they say luck is a lady"; "it was as if fortune guided his hand" 2) an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another
Its not a 3 team league. What were the other 27 teams doing? Part of the job of running a franchise is being opportunistic and being ready to pull the trigger when the chance arises. You can fairly criticize the Rockets for missed opportunities in other instances, but this is a case where I think they should be credited for taking advantage of an opportunity that 28 other teams did not take advantage of. Edit: After a quick google search looking for more details about the deal, I found this: http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73864 Spoiler [rquoter] The following is a post by a poster on Spursreport.com. If any of you guys follow both sites like I do, you know that the poster, Amente, is believed to be an insider. I thought this was very interesting and brought something to the discussion, so I copied and pasted it here. Anyhow, here it is: == == Allow me to interrupt....... FYI. Scola was ready to extend his contract with Tau if he wasn't going to come to the NBA this summer and had until the 15th to tell Tau whether he would be coming to the NBA or not. Here's the kicker, most all the GMs KNEW THIS so they were not going to give the Spurs anything of real value for SCOLA. They were in no way going to help the Spurs in any way in this Scola situation, for them it was either you accept our cheap offers for you don't get him or anything else for him. The Spurs took the best they could do. For the Spurs it was either sign Scola, take whatever they could for him or just lose him and get nothing in return. The Spurs had tried for two years to try and get a first round pick for Scola with no takers. Chicago was only offering a 2nd round pick for Scola and nothing more. Nocioni, a first round pick or Duhon were never offered by Chicago. Spurs weren’t getting any good offers for Butler either and they knew Butler wouldn’t find playing time on the Spurs this season and was to be paid $2.5 million to be the 13th or 14th guy on the roster and they were unlikely to keep him beyond 2008 anyway. There was a deal in the works yesterday for Butler to go to Sactown and Scola to Cleveland and it fell through but the Spurs weren’t getting anything more in that deal than they did with Houston. Not even a big man needy New Jersey was willing to give the Spurs anything of value for Butler. As far as the luxury tax goes, yes the Spurs now are under the luxury tax threshold by a bit but the Butler move was also to open a roster spot and some salary as well as for tax purposes. Note: The luxury tax a team has to pay is not determined until the last game of the regular season. In this case, April 2008. It’s difficult for teams to do this in April as all contracts are guaranteed by then so it’s more like Feb. 2008 when the trading deadline occurs as that is the last time to move players out. So Butler didn’t have to be moved now to get under the tax threshold. But he did have to be moved now to drop $2.5 mil and at the same time create a roster spot and some wiggle room on signing someone that may be of more value to the team in 2007-2008 than in 2009 or never. The Spurs have paid small tax in the last 3 years or so but they are going to pay too much over the tax threshold as most teams are now going that route as well, especially with the CBA and luxury tax changes made in the last CBA. Now back to Scola. The Spurs no longer wanted Scola as a Spur. I have never gotten a straight answer as to their reasoning but it was never about his buyout or him asking for too much money. Tau dropped his buyout in 2005 and again in 2006 to $3 mil which was reasonable and doable. Nocioni had a similar buyout and received a contract from Chicago that allowed Nocioni to pay the buyout. Scola wanted a 3 year/ $9 million deal last year but the Spurs said that it was too much for a first year player from Europe since they felt they were burned with Oberto after his first year in the NBA. That was the Spurs excuse anyway. And now it appears Scola will sign a similar deal with the Rockets. It wasn’t about the buyout. I’ll add more later if I remember if I left out anything. I’ll let you all digest this before I open this thread up for replies. I hope he doesn't mind but I am posting coyote_geeks reply to the following question. Originally Posted by kaji157: what i don´t understand is why instead of getting spunoulis and a draft pick why the spurs didn´t send butler to one team and scola to another getting 2 different 2nd rounders. C_G reply: Because the entire goal behind moving Butler was to get his salary off of the payroll without having to add anyone else's salary in return. That really narrows the field of teams who can help the Spurs because you now have to find a team who A.) wants Butler AND B.) has either cap room, a trade exception, a non-guaranteed contract, or a whiny point guard from Greece who wants to take his ball and go home who can be bought out for damn near nothing. I believe we're down to Charlotte and Milwaukee as far as teams under the cap and neither of them need a guy like Butler. Cleveland had a trade exception but they've got their own luxury tax issues to deal with so they didn't want him. Seattle and Golden state have big TE's but they're thinking things much grander than Jackie Butler. Enter Houston. They've got the whiny Greek PG who can be bought out cheaply, and they need a power forward. The Spurs happen to have a power forward in Scola, for whom the best offer received is a 2nd round pick. The rockets don't want Butler, but they need to get Spanoulis off their team and need a PF. The Spurs want a guy like Spanoulis who they can ditch cheaply, they want to get Butler off their team and they need to get something for Scola. So Houston agrees to pay market value, a 2nd rounder, for Scola and they agree to take Butler in return for the Spurs taking Spanoulis. The rockets even kick in the cash to cover a possible buyout and lux tax hit for Spanoulis, possibly even kicking in some extra cash just to sweeten the pot a bit. The rockets get their power forward, the Spurs get market value for Scola and the ability to make Jackie Butler's contract vanish. Rocket fans rejoice, Spurs fans rebel, but in the end both teams accomplished exactly what they set out to do.[/rquoter] If this insider is to be believed, no team was willing to give the Spurs anything of value for Scola in the preceding few years. And the Spurs did not think Scola was worth bring over for 3 million/year. The Rockets saw the value in Scola, and they were willing to give the Spurs significant salary relief by taking on Butler's contract. No other team considered this worthwhile, but the Rockets did. I don't see how this qualifies purely as "right place, right time". Clearly, Scola was undervalued around the league and by the Spurs themselves. Popovich has expressed deep regret over losing Scola since then.
First...it's a poster named "Amente" that calls himself an insider and his/her "insiderness" is questioned within that forum. Even to the point of calling Amente a "joke". Secondly, the Spurs had Scola's draft rights indefinitely. Those rights were NEVER going to expire. They brought him over for the reason I mentioned previously. Lastly, and it's even in the forum link you provided, the Cavs (Ferry) had absolutely the first take of Scola. The "luck" I'm talking about has NOTHING to do with 27 other teams. The "luck" is how stupid Danny Ferry was. If you don't see that, I'm done explaining it to you.
His "insiderness" is questioned. The information being passed was not. He was on the verge of signing a long term deal. That was the main reason for the Spurs' urgency, and this was what was reported in the media as well, IIRC. There is no dispute that Ferry had the first take. But when assessing how much credit the Rockets should get for that move, it doesn't make sense to ignore that the Rockets beat out several other teams for Scola. If the situation was that it was only a 3-team league, and the Rockets got Scola by default because the Cavs passed up on him, then yeah there's not much reason to give the Rockets any credit. Because we could say "any other team in that situation would have done the same thing, the Cavs were just stupid." But if we look at it as it was, in reality, "any other team in that situation would have done the same thing" doesn't fly any more. We know that there were several other teams in that situation that could have used Scola, but it was the Rockets that made the bid and got the deal done.
I'm going to hop in and out on the scola deal. It was a great move by morey,a terrible move by ferry,and a so-so move for the spurs. The rockets wanted and needed a pf and got scola. Like Gater said, they did scola a favor because they didnt havent to trade him, they had his rights like sabonis in portland. They knew the 3m or so he would get would put them in lux tax land at the time,so they gave the ex spur first shot under the table. It fell through, plus they drafted Splitter as his replacement. Morey jumped on it, took some small bad contracts and eventually had to pay teams to take some of the baggage to stay under the tax. I think it was a great move by morey. It wasnt a franchise changer and scola is not on Manu's level, but he is a quality player.
