Why Rockets GM Daryl Morey claims he has let James Harden down

except they were up against 2 superstar + 3 all star = 5 star GSW

 

"More than a lot of teams" does not equal "championship."
"Solid rotation players" also do not equal "championship."
It's really special to win a championship in the Warriors/LeBron era. You know?
James has held up his end. And the Rockets have treated him very well too.

 

Couldn't they have found a more ridiculous image of Daryl than the one they used? I guess not. He deserves one better than that.

 

now compare it to what other superstars have had to work with

just because he hasn’t had an Atlanta Hawks or Knicks level roster doesn’t mean most of his help hasn’t been mediocre

he has had a legitimate title contending roster just once since he’s been here, but his co-star went down in the WCF...meanwhile, Kawhi, Bron, Steph, and KD have been blessed for most of their careers

Giannis has a roster I would take over every Harden squad aside from 17-18

 

Yes like others said, if there wasn’t a once in a generation Warriors team in our way 4 times in the last 5 years, I think we would have had at least one championship by now.

 

This is Morey's way to tell Tilman, "YOU have let James Harden down!"

 

Hasn't he built 2.5 championship teams if you consider the Clippers core?

 

We may not have been the favorite going into any particular season - but we've pissed away at least a couple opportunities...

 

yeah and that's inspite of Harden not because of

 

Chris Paul's hammy was rather predictable.

His hammy went out against the Rockets in 2015 which made the comeback rather possible. He had several hammy issues in the past too.

I am not saying it's anyone's fault but relying on old players alone isn't a long term plan.

Les Alexander screwed us over with his plan to not ever going through the deep draft.

There is no young elite talent to invigorate the team.

I am all for Brodie but he is not young.

 

again, who outside of the warriors? the only good teammates lebron has ever had were his team USA playdates who he got together with in miami and then people cleveland acquired with literal #1 overall draft picks that they got from being terrible. practically everybody else was a 3&D guy with some flaw (age, injury, stupidity). his best teammate now is another guy who forced his way to LA in anthony davis.

giannis? you don't think his current cast is as good as harden's '17-'18 so i assume you don't think last year's cast for giannis was as good as harden's '18-'19 (considering they lost to the best team in the east and we lost to a better team in the west and the supporting cast's bricking of 3's was a big reason milwaukee got knocked out). what else has he played with?

AD, russ, paul george, what were they ever surrounded with? one of their gm's traded a future mvp for kevin martin. KD? after getting russ like 10 years ago, what else did their gm do except trade away harden? his best teammates were joining a 73 win team.

kawhi's amazing toronto team was a playoff laughingstock for years and even after acquiring kawhi it's hard to argue they did any better against the warriors than we did considering they got way more injury help, and that's even with kawhi probably having more overall impact than harden (more offense for james, more defense for kawhi). if kawhi has a good team now, it's again because he got buddy buddy with another superstar and got them to join him. instead of getting buddy buddy, harden managed to chase cp3 away and now we've taken a step back with westbrook. is that morey's fault?

i guess i just don't see all these other teams that have put such amazing supporting casts around their stars. i basically see the warriors and a team that faced the warriors when injured.

 

I see the Celtics as a balanced team this year. They also play small.

Thing is Jaylen and Jayson Tatum have to find another gear to go to which they partly did but not consistently enough.

With the Celts and Sixers it is the experience they lack.

 

Except Morey actually means what he says.

 

To his credit, Morey did build a championship caliber team in 2018, but at the same time, Harden has only had one all-nba teammate his entire tenure here (maybe two after this season). That is a failure, no doubt about it.

 

Implementing an unreliastic philosophy of 2 narrowed options, free throws and contested 3 pointers. Maybe Morey stop being delusional after 15 years and is taking accountability

 

And, he's not responsible for Adam Silver or GS.

 

Went from "I wake up everyday thinking how to get Harden a ring" to "I wake up some days thinking I've let James Harden down"

Even Morey knows deep down the chance of Harden winning a ring in Houston is slim to none.

 

True! But that is the ONLY yr that I would give Morey. Houston should have at least two Championships. Morey's philosophy was right but the way he structured his teams were all wrong! What kills me, is The Rockets STARTED running and shooting 3's!!! Then Golden State PERFECTED IT! I remember when The Rockets where trying to set a record on the number of 3's made in a game against Golden State in 2012 or 2013!

Then we signed Dwight Howard and Golden State signed Iggy and EVERYTHING changed! They stayed small but had an inside presence, while we deviated! I think if Morey would have got Harden a true running mate, then we could have won several Championships. Sure he would have had to trade up but I wanted PG in the draft, I wanted the Greek Freak and they were there for taking. Morey never put an emphasis on getting legitimate forwards. His philosophy was always Guards and small bigs, when it should have been Guards and tall forwards.

Any basketball afishionado, could see after Shaq, the league was turning into a Guard and Forward league. Morey has done a good job of keeping The Rockets relevant but I think he could have done better.

 

Instead of trading away picks and prospects to get rid of Ryan Anderson's contract, they should have bought him out. That would have given them the room and picks they needed the last two years to make some moves to surround Harden with more talent.

 

Spoiler

Just did off the top of my head so may have missed a guy or three.

LeBron James
-Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh
-Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love
-Anthony Davis

Kevin Durant
-Russell Westbrook, young James Harden, Serge Ibaka
-Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green
-Kyrie Irving, DeAndre Jordan

Stephen Curry
-Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Kevin Durant

Chris Paul
-Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan
-James Harden

James Harden
-Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook
-Dwight Howard, Chris Paul

Russell Westbrook
-Kevin Durant, James Harden, Serge Ibaka
-Paul George
-Victor Oladipo

Kawhi Leonard
-Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, LaMarcus Aldridge
-Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam
-Paul George

Paul George
-Russell Westbrook
-Kawhi Leonard

Giannis Antetokounmpo
-Khris Middleton?

Damian Lillard
-CJ McCollum

Anthony Davis
-LeBron James

Luka Doncic
-Kristaps Porzingis

Nikola Jokic
-Jamal Murray? Gary Harris? Paul Millsap?

Joel Embiid
-Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler, Tobias Harris? Al Horford?

Kyrie Irving
-LeBron James, Kevin Love
-Gordon Hayward? Jayson Tatum? Jaylen Brown?
-Kevin Durant, DeAndre Jordan

Jimmy Butler
-Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah?
-Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid
-Karl Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins?