Why MoneyBall doesn't work & other lessons learned

At the time, we were looking at a 2-3 year window of contention with the stars we had. The deal was made because it was felt McGrady and Yao would shoulder the scoring load and that Battier's other contributions would shore up other areas of need and improve our chances to win it all. Michael Lewis's article talks about this deal in detail.

Would Rudy Gay have made a difference? Maybe, maybe not. Nobody, including you, knows what, if any, effect his presence would have had.

 

I tell you what. You can afford letting Rudy Gay have his time to become a star in this league if you already have two stars. Thats what good teams do. They go ahead and overload the talent if possible. A Rudy Gay is there with potential to become a star? You dont say we need a role player to win now and get Battier or draft the other role player they where considering. You get Rudy Gay and potentially have Rudy Gay and Tmac on your team with Yao. Potentially three stars. Thats how winning teams draft. They draft to add more stars as possible. Thats why LA went aggressively after Kobe because he had star potential even though he wasnt developed enough to put with Shaq right away for the Championship. Thats why you go after Pippen instead of role player to fill a need next to Jordan right now. Thats why you draft these guys. You dont draft to fill in the needs around your guys with role players unless they are already Championship caliber. Which means they won one already or are in the Finals every year. You draft to get more stars and dominate other teams with your talent. Thats why Rudy Gay is a huge blunder now that Tmac is gone and Yao.

 

It's a problem of matchups when you use that example.

Yes, Battier is not a good matchup against the Utah Jazz. The thing about it is that the Jazz are pretty much the ONLY good team out there that thrives without using a dominant perimeter scorer, like Kobe or Manu, which means that a great perimeter defender like Battier is less useful. Against the Spurs or Lakers, Battier would have been more useful, but we drew the Jazz. That's just bad luck.

So, you'd rather be like the Clippers, T-Wolves, or Cavs - suck for years upon years upon years while eternally gambling - then the Rockets.

 

The funny thing about all o fthis is the same people still arguing over keeping Battier. Battier ironically cost your team the Championship perhaps and perhaps a good team now? Yet here we are saying Rudy Gay wouldnt have helped again?

 

Lets say you do draft him? His 18 points and rebounds to go with Tamc and Yao. In each year Yao or Tmac went down? You still had Rudy Gay with one of them.. Then lets say fastforward to today and his contract isnt as large because he was playing along sid Yao and Tmac and his stats took hits because of it. He gets paid second option money by us and we lock him up long term to go with Landry, Scola, Lowry, Brooks, and we kept Ariza or Artest? Then our team would build around Rudy Gay at lesser price. Not have Martin here playing horrible defense. Keep Landry. Alot of what ifs. Could have not worked out? It could also have won us a championship is the counterargument also. With more now to look foward to.

 

For what it's worth, I agree with you. Although I think Gay is very overrated and Battier is under-appreciated, we didn't need to spend a #6 pick to get him, and Gay was still a valuable asset that we could have cashed in down the road. No doubt about it, we lost value on this move.

What's your point? Please, show me a GM that hasn't blown drafts and trades. How do you think Buford feels about giving up Scola for nothing? Think Presti is happy with all of his draft picks? Being a GM is, by its nature, an imprecise discipline in an environment of uncertainty. It's easy to criticize with the benefit of hindsight, but our Moneyball philosophy has served us well in pickup after pickup.

 

I am just saying no has not. Served us well yet. You pass on Amare and Gay as part of Money ball. Release Artest so he can go win a Championship. Trade Ariza for a role player. These are some pretty big misses for money ball sakes. Now there is no player like these guys on the horizon that we can just give away or we are looking at replacing them with any of Moreys money ball moves. Its not doing good until he has the player with proof in the putting that shows its a good system. Until then? We are who we thought we are? A below or around 500 team as our record tells us two years running.

 

I don't think legit good players have their performances heavily based on favorable/unfavorable matchups.

Ron Artest, Kevin Garnett, doesn't stop performing just because they have a unfavorable matchup. Kevin Garnett didn't really have that much to guard in the series against Cleveland/Orlando, so he put his efforts elsewhere and contributed in other ways.

I think many of us would consider Garnett to be a great defensive player. He only had to deal with Rashard Lewis and Antawn Jamison, so his defensive abilities weren't going to be needed as much, but he stepped it up in other areas.

Battier, in the same way, didn't have that much of a defensive task, but he became a scrub in that series because he couldn't do anything else.

McGrady has had the toughest defenders on him in every single playoff series, and yet he stepped up to the challenge every time. McGrady got 40 points on the Jazz in 08. I'm sure the Jazz defended him well as he was literally the only offensive option we had outside of maybe Scola.

So Battier really isn't that good. Therefore he was a mistake by Morey. I'm not bashing him because he is bad person, but he just failed so much at supporting the McGrady-Yao era and Rockets basketball hopes during that era.

I'd rather be like that rather than what we have now.

Clippers got Blake Griffin

T-Wolves had Kevin Garnett, now they have Kevin Love.

Cavs had LeBron, not much to say there. Next year they'll be looking at a Perry Jones or a Kyle Irving.

 

Just so we're not talking past each other, I'd like to clarify something. What exactly is it that you think our organization's philosophy is?

 

I absolutely loved the Michael Lewis Battier article. I actually read that over and over again at least 10 times, lol.

Whatever Rudy Gay may have changed about history, we'll never know. All we know is, whatever Battier brought, wasn't enough. BUT, whatever Rudy Gay probably would have brought--scoring, athleticism, attitude, would have been very very useful.

I really thought we lacked scoring more than any kind of defense in the Yao-McGrady era.

 

Its clear from Les Alexander what it is to win Championships. That shines through even despite Moreys misteps for Les to keep telling him to do the things necessary that still despite all of that make our team pretty good. That shines through and on down from the owner who is phenomenal. From a GM standpoint? His philosophy of system drafting and adding players and sticking to it religiously isnt the same goal. It is based on staying within his system to prove it. Les Laexanders philosophy is to build a Championship and to use all philosophies and resoureces to get to that goal. Which is why he is using Morey to see if he finds a angle or avenue that works. If Morey cannot stray off his personal goals of system over Championship and star players when applying it to the NBA? His and Les conflict and therfor is failing right now. Sometimes he has to go outside his numbers and philosophy to meet Les Alexanders goal of winning a Championship by any means he can possibly go about it. The problem is not the organizations. The owner so far is proven and just fine. He can find another guy if Morey doesnt start to work out. He will as I gather. Morey is only safe as long as he stays a fan favorite. Once his moves no longer add up to the fanbase? The owner Les will act accordingly to win Basketball games if he sees the same thing. I have complete and total trust in Les Alexander himself.

 

OK. That's a fair point. And like I said in my reply to thetatomatis, I completely agree that we lost value in the move. All I ask is that people consider the circumstances under which the decision was made and the logic behind the conclusion.

 

Yes, I agree. We lost value in that move. (Personally I think we got robbed on that one, lol)

I am very much keeping in mind of the organization's ideas and logic behind that decision, however, results speak louder than anything. I just totally disagree with the organization's reasoning behind that move.

Morey wanted defense and complimentary players to Yao and McGrady. Its fine, Battier would be great, but only as a compliment to YAO-MCGRADY-GAY. Without Gay, Battier would be useless.

As proven over and over again.

 

Think of it this way, you are the Celtics, and someone said to you they want to give you James Posey for Paul Pierce. James Posey instead of Pierce? No way they are going to win any championships,

 

Thats exactly what we got. James Posey for Paul Peirce without defense(Rudy Gay). James Posey won a Championship though. :grin:

 

Pippen was absolutely thought of as a superstar at the time. Francis demanded a trade, but every team in the league had a chance to put together a package to acquire him.

Even if the Rockets acquired all of the guys you listed, that's still not a championship team. Taking a gamble on Griffin was worth a try. Which one of those guys are leading teams to titles? Quit acting like Parker was the reason the Spurs won those titles when it was Duncan and everyone knows it.

 

Joe Johnson is one of the biggest playoff chokers in the NBA. What have his teams accomplished? What a joke.

 

The 'rest was history' after they lucked in to Tim Duncan. Way to leave that little detail out.