Why MoneyBall doesn't work & other lessons learned

I think what I would have done differently, first and foremost, would be something that Les wouldn't have allowed anyway....I don't think that's on Morey.

My criticism of Morey, however limited (and let me say again, in no way am I advocating getting rid of Morey at this point...mere questioning or criticism of the man gets flipped into an argument that somehow I want to use my flux capacitor, go back in time and prevent his parents from ever meeting) is that I think often moves are made in the abstract...without much solid thinking on how the player to be acquired fits with the current roster. For instance...adding K-Mart to this bunch..particularly with an already undersized, defensively limited PG, makes very little sense to me. And do we have enough PF's yet? When will we have enough?

 

This needs to be addressed because it's a misconception that keeps coming up again and again. Which do you think is more likely?

1) That Morey has a weird and irrational affinity for drafting players who are upperclassmen, undersized, and have holes in their games.

OR

2) By the time it's our turn to make our mid-to-late first round pick, the 6-11 freak athlete freshman have already been taken.

You're saying we need a big, tough center who can D it up and score from the post along with a high-octane scoring guard who can shut people down from the perimeter. You understand that there's only a handful of players like that in the league, and their teams aren't parting with them, correct? In the meantime, Morey's doing the sensible thing: trying to re-create the aggregate. Scola's D is weak but he can score with reasonable effectiveness from the bock, while Chuck is not a scorer but defends very well. Same relationship exists with Martin and Lee, Bud and Battier, etc.

What should we do instead? Get overpaid busts and measure performance by how pretty a guy's jumpshot looks? And yes, you're absolutely correct that Morey's moves have made us a mediocre team. We should be one of the worst teams in the league, given that we lost our two superstars and there was no talent on the roster when Morey took over. Morey's moves haven't weakened a good team into medocrity; they've made a crappy team competitive despite everything.

We've gotten offers for all these guys, but none of them have been favorable. We're not likely to see a lot of movement till the deadline.

 

ASTUTE OBSERVATION OP I DON'T KNOW WHY MOREY NO WANT TO GET A TOP 5 SUPERSTAR LIKE LEBRON OR WADE OR DEREK ROSE!

 

YIPEEEEEEE....MORE STRAWMAN ARGUMENTS!!!!! WOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!

 

he got rid of a pf, he had no shooting guards.

 

and then we brought in more PF's!!

Brooks is a SG in a PG's body. Which is fine, as long as you have someone who can play some defense back there.

 

Moreyball gets another 2 or 3 years to prove its worth -- too many injuries to know if it is working or not. Morey is great at landing solid role players - he's landed one star Kevin Martin, but it's time he used all the parts he has built up to land us a superstar.

 

Even though your right, don't expect the majority to agree with you until about another decade has past and were in the same position.

 

I think the whole thing is being over-analyzed. I see the organization trying to keep as good a team as possible on the floor until we can land that superstar or two. What else can they do?

 

I would take Mark Cuban's word over Daryl Morey's every day of the week.

Cuban is a general, Morey is a leuitenent.

DD

 

Morey has in the past talked about key "high leverage" moments in the game where the Rockets struggle. Its something they track and pay attention to -- at least in the past.

But, yeah, he does say that the Rockets don't believe in investing a lot of dollars in players that need to be developed or on players that appear to have great clutch statistics. I sort of get the rationale in it. Clutch-time statistics can be extremely noisy and unreliable -- you have to be careful what conclusions you draw from it. Also, a player being "clutch" is often more reputation-based than actually fact-based. That said, perhaps sometimes in sports you need to take a leap of faith and invest big money on reputation or potential. I will say that its easier to take that "leap" when you're playing with your own money (i.e. Cuban) rather than someone else's money (i.e. Morey).

That isn't to say that the Rockets don't look at other things that are related to clutch performance. They look at what players did in the playoffs and whether they were part of a winning culture. They also look at how the player performs against stiffer defenses:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/7318348.html

[rquoter]
"We look not necessarily how they play in the clutch; we look at how they play against top defenses," Morey said. "We look at when they play better against teams that are defending harder. How we do that is something we've worked on. In terms of how we're evaluating personnel, obviously we're not a championship roster now. We're always asking, 'Will he fit on a championship roster?' That's what we're looking at constantly."[/rquoter]

 

Do you think the Rocket should have retained McGrady? Or was there another player you have in mind that we should have pursued?

I'm not the biggest Kevin Martin fan, but I have no problems with that deal.

 

I think people are taking any small argument against Morey to the extreme to defend him.

It's not about Morey failing to get Kobe or Lebron, it's not that Morey should get a Derek Fisher type (a guy that can make clutch plays but isn't very good the rest of the game) over a Kevin Martin. It's that it appears that he would rather take a Kevin Martin over a slightly less talented player through 3 quarters that is better at creating in the 4th. Or he'd rather draft a player that numbers show will be solid right now than a player with more size and athleticism that may show the ability to grow as a player in this league.

I think he's learning now that those players have a lot of value around the league (probably the reason Hill gets so many minutes). Still, there is an apparent lack of "high upside" prospects and clutch performers on this team that can't be denied.

 

GREAT THREAD! Morey has built a team of good character players, but we have GIGANTIC holes that have been exposed by other teams. Trading Ariza for another undersized shooting guard (who doesnt start) was a bad move. Everybody likes Courtney Lee, but Ariza brought more to the table at SF. This has forced Battier to score more and it ultimatley has crippled our season at this point. As much flack as RA gets, he's actually done a good job being almost ALL of our players are one-sided. Our defense stinks and we have yet to find a shotblocking Center. If Morey doesnt fix this thing soon RA will step down as coach

 

I've been saying this for over a year. The Rockets have no chance of winning a Championship without a top ten player. None.

And every meaningless victory (like last nights) only further hurts our draft position.

 

Interior defense is atrocious. Ariza is horribly overhyped as a on ball defender. He gambles a lot and plays passing lanes. And it doesn't help that he's an awful ball-handler. Only thing you could make a case about is Ariza emerging as a much better player at the 3 when Martin came along.

 

You lost me a bit there. It sounds like you are saying moneyball works but stop using it because we will never suck so bad that we have a chance to get a superstar. Your claim suggest we only have 2 choices and that is 1 suck now in hope of grabbing a superstar with our number one lottery pick or be mediocre forever.

I don't think it is that cut and dry but I do agree that Morey has managed to pull in players that keep us competitive. That might seem like a bad thing to you but I think it is a good thing because it means if we had that star player you so covet we would be able to surround more easily with talent. The problem with blowing up the team is there is little hope of getting that star player. Duncan's and Lebron's don't grow on trees. Even Nowitzki's are hard to come by and a lot of luck as well. And since I brought up Nowitzki look how poorly Dallas is doing without him. Look how poorly Cleveland is doing without Lebron. hell look how poorly Miami is doing without LBJ. They won like 25 out of 26 until lebron hurt his ankle and then the lost 3 in a row. Wow teams with stars win and teams without stars lose. I think our problems are simple and not about moneyball. We lost our superstar. Yes yao is to this team as Nowitzki is to Dallas. We lost him and our season is over. I don't know how you blame that on Moneyball. yes Yao is damaged goods. We got that 1st pick the hope diamond of basketball. And that got us the best pick in the draft. And we were supposed to be in line to win some more championships. We had youth, eddie griffen yao ming, steve franchise, and Cat Mobley. We had a fit Mo Taylor a solid Cato and a bright future for a young franchise on the rise. Jeff Van Gundy looked far and wide and chose the Rockets as the most promisng franchise that he would allow to purchase his services. The downfall begins and ends with him.

 

And you're going to get a top 10 talent in this draft? I want what you are a smoking so I can sell that ****.

 

To me the problem with the Rockets is not one of MoreyBall but of organizational planning and talent evaluation. It has always been about these two things and if you go back over the past 15 years, the Rockets consistently fall short vis-a-vis their competition in these two key areas. While other teams like say, the Spurs, have an organizational blueprint for success they implemented and follow, the Rockets organization has been all over the map: signing star players at the end of the line (Barkley, Rice), Rudyball, giving away draft picks for players who never pan out (EG), repeat appearances in the NBA lotto, giving bad contracts to marginal players, trading away young players, hiring a defensive minded coach (JVG), hiring an offensive minded coach (Adelman), trying to compete with players from the NBA dumpster, building around two injury prone stars and now fielding a roster of one-dimensional players while hoping to trade for a star. Small wonder they currently find themselves in the NBA version of No Man's Land. Morey will distinguish himself if he is able to come up with a strategy that results in a winning product on the court. He still has a shot at turning things around but the clock is ticking.