Why MoneyBall doesn't work & other lessons learned

you never gave morey a chance to prove himself with healthy players. thanks.

 

I agree with most everything you said, I'm just wondering why you named Parker/Ginobli & Pierce and not Lebron, Duncan, Wade, when you followed it up with we need a top 5 talent.

Because as far as I know the guys I named are guys are/were a top 5 talents, the other guys are GREAT players, but honestly I consider them top 20 talent, def no where near top 5.

 

Implicit in the OP is the idea that the Rockets have been built by statistics.

I think this is overblown. If you actually read about what the Rockets do, its not just stats. Yes, other teams look at stats and they also consider other things. So do the Rockets.

So, what exactly is the distinction? The Rockets are more reluctant to pay for bad contracts? OK, well if we're going by that then the Spurs operate the same way.

 

BTW, the very topic was discussed at the Sports Analytics Conference last year:

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/panels-2/2010-2/what-geeks-dont-get-the-limits-of-moneyball/

You can watch the video in the link. Moderated by Michael Lewis, and panelists include Mark Cuban, Jonathan Kraft, Daryl Morey, Bill Polian, and Bill Simmons.

 

and that is why the rockets tried to make a move for carmelo anthony......???

 

To be fair to Morey - he never had the intention to build a team full of roleplayers. He acquired all the role players to support TMAC and YAO. This team would have been perfect if the two of them were inctact. BUT because we are minus the 2 stars for which every other player was picked to support - we are basically stuck with a team full of roleplayers.

IMO Morey could have pulled the plug a long time agao, instead of gambling on the odds that the two STARS will pull through and will not have any further injuries. Thats where I blame him. Everyone saw this coming a long time ago - why didnt he perpare for it?

Once again it was never in Moreys plans to build a team full of roleplayers only. We are stuck with this roster because of what happenned with TMAC and YAO.

Dont get it twisted.

 

Indeed, we also feel like role players are overrated. It's not like we would've done any better if we had Scola, Brooks, Lowry, Landry rather than JHo, Jim Jackson, Clarence Weatherspoon, David Wesley, and Flying Ryan.

Signed,
T-Mac and Yao from 2004-2007

 

Great post. The sole reason the Rox haven't been successful during Morey's tenure is because he inherited a team with two superstars, who consequently had their careers caved in due to injuries. Morey did an admirable job -- actually, a GREAT job -- of building a solid roster despite that handicap. As of next year, we are no longer totally constricted by those two huge salaries and huge presences. Even if Yao somehow manages to come back, it'll be at a much-reduced salary and a lesser role.

Morey will define himself as a GM by what he does between right now and the beginning of next season, whenever that is. If he fails to bring in either an elite talent or a couple of about-to-be elite talents, then we'll likely be looking at another mediocre season. I don't think he'll let that happen, though.

I love all the people on here (not referring to the OP, by the way) who say that Morey is just sitting on his a$$ and not doing anything. The media is always full of reports about DM exploring this or inquiring about that. When Dawson was our GM, you rarely heard this sort of thing. Instead, there'd be the occasional trade or signing out of the blue -- most of which failed. Morey seems to be one of the more active GMs in the league. But he's smart enough not to make a move just for the hell of it.

I say save the whining and complaining and funeral services for Moreyball until he's had enough time to be proven wrong.

 

forgot to rate this thread. 1 star.

 

Didn't want to read after that first sentence. It has been more and more obvious to me that a LOT of people don't understand what Moneyball is and what Morey is doing. Yet that doesn't stop them from criticizing it.

 

Moneyball wasn't about trading stars away for decent players on cheap contracts.

The moneyball goal was the to get the best talent to build a 2-3 all-star. Morey built a team with 3 all-stars. It's why he traded Greene(roleplayer) for Artest(all-star). Even though Yao and T-mac were never healthy, they were untouchable in moneyball until recently. It never was about trading star players for decent players on cheap contracts.

If it was about obtaining decent players on cheap contracts, T-Mac and Yao would have been traded 4 years ago. The Rockets had one of the worst pair of contracts for injured players on expensive contracts.

 

Wow what a horrible thread. You don't even know what moneyball is. Yes, in baseball moneyball was created to get decent players on the cheap, but $ball works in baseball because almost every activity in baseball is isolated-you hit balls on your own, you catch balls on your own etc.

In basketball, no one in his right mind relies solely on $ball or statistics because a lot of thinga don't show up on stats (such as difficulty of shots taken, defense, etc.). People who do so end up thinking Kidd is the 2nd best player in the NBA. What $ball can do for you though is help get the player who perform higher than their contract-i.e. it helps you avoid overpaid players. You might not think its important, but with the cap in place the team who has the most talent:dollar ratio has the highest chance of winning. "Real" superstars like DH or LBJ perform much higher than the contract they're given, if anything they fit the $ball philosophy even more because they are the biggest bargains basketball wise.

DM has been handicapped by Tmac's and Yao Ming's contracts in recent years, next year will be the only year we're rid of the two of them. I consider it a major miracle we haven't been one of the worst teams in the league considering we're still paying Yao's salary today.

 

I understand what you're saying and have felt similar frustrations before.

The thing is - Morey is trying. It's not like he's purposely avoiding Carmelo or CP3 trade talks. I mean we all thought the Rafer trade was a Moreyball move.. and it turns out Lowry was an upgrade to him. A lot of people felt the Ariza deal was a Moreyball move and now most would agree with Lee being better than Ariza.

The only criticism I think you could legitimately point to Moreyball on is the Gortat FA. Morey wouldn't budge to offer the full MLE and he got it from another team. In the end, Orlando matched.. so even if Morey did offer him the full MLE, we wouldn't have gotten him. The point more would be that we had a shot to land a legitimate center and we 'lost' out because of a few million. When you see this team struggling with its lack of size, that's the one thing that jumps out at me with Moreyball. The rest of the moves I am okay with.

 

Real insightful stuff. *cough* Anyone think that Les Alexander might have some input as to the team's makeup? That's Les "Drexler, Barkley, Pippen, Francis, McGrady, Artest" Alexander I mean, not any number of other Les Alexanders. The Les Alexander I'm talking about likes bringing in star power. It's one of the reasons the team gave Yao Ming every opportunity. There is just no way in hell the Rockets continue on as some amalgam of affordable role players. We WILL be getting all-stars in Houston again sometime soon, whatever that may require. That doesn't guarantee jack **** obviously, but it's going to happen.

 

I think there are legitimate criticisms, but the Gortat thing isn't one of them. Like you said, Orlando matched the full MLE offer. And the Rockets could not have offered him more than that. So, actually, they really had no shot of landing him. Further, if they had gone through with offering him the full MLE, that would have constrained their ability to pursue other targets because Orlando was going to wait till the last second to match. I thought the Rockets handled that appropriately.

 

Another tread like this...

 

We built on Yao and died on Yao.

Moneyball didn't have a single thing to do with this. Morey's gamble by doubling down on Yao (year after year) does.

 

yawn, one star

We arent good because we lost McGrady and Yao suddenly and unexpectedly.

Stop equating our GM's valuation style with our current W/L record.