He does get a raw deal.. he played a large part in the Rockets not trading Dream to Miami before the Championship years and scouted well over his career. He accomplished more than anyone in our organization now
He did make some decent moves but he did also make alot of bad moves. In Morey's first 2 years as GM, he re-built the majority of the roster to make them a better team. In his first 2 years, he has never made a bad move and proven to be better at drafting/scouting than CD was. You can sugarcoat it all you want but CD was not a great GM. http://hoopshype.com/general_managers/carroll_dawson.htm http://hoopshype.com/general_managers/daryl_morey.htm The track records don't lie. Alot of what this thread entails is pretty accurate, CD is known for given bad contracts based on potential and the majority of the time they did not work out.
So this is what Moneyball is going to look like: 1: Battier available??? OMFG!!!!!!!! AWESOME NO STATS ALL STAR!!! HOORAY WE CAN TRADE OUR TOP 8 PICK FOR THIS ALL STAR!!! SHHHH DONT TELL ANYONE WE'RE HOT ON THE HEELS OF BATTIER...SSHHHH MEMPHIS HERE IS UR FUTURE ALL STAR JUST GIVE US BATTIER!!! U CAN HAVE WHATEVER U WANT JUST GIVE ME BATTIER!!! OH U CANT SAY NO HERE IS RUDY GAY HERE IS THE NO.1 PROSPECT IN THE DRAFT! HERE IS NO.1 RANKED PREP PROSPECT!!! HERE YOU GO U CAN HAVE THE TOP ATHLETE AND TOP STAR AND STARPOWER IN THE DRAFT!!! FOR BATTIER!!! Gay for Battier is totally a moneyball move. you can't deny that at all.
Okay, fine. More credit for moneyball. And I can't tell if you're sarcastic or not, but if you're claiming Gay is the top prospect in that draft, you're an idiot.
What a typical idiotic thread from a bitter JVG lover. CD holds the distinction of being the only person on all four Rockets coaching staffs to advance to the NBA Finals. He also served as the Houston Comets Executive Vice President of Basketball during their championships. He stayed longer than he wanted too because Les insisted. ANd most recently worked with with Dorsey, helping him improve his game. The guy is a Rocket icon who doesn't deserve a stupid thread like this. One can apreciate what Moreys done without trying to put down CD. But if you really want to be serious what would the team look like if JVG was still here. Brooks would have been traded for Nate Robinson, landry for Sprewell, we would have just released VSPan and never got Scola and both of Yao's feet would have to be amputated from overwork.
Battier may not have the stats but you cannot deny his impact. He is quite possibly the best perimeter defender in the game. Maybe you don't think defense is important, but the fact is, it is. Battier is a class act, a team player, and the type of guy you can't really put a price tag on because of his impact. All of this was known when Battier was acquired. He was a key player on this team, fit the personality of the squad well. Gay at that point was a freshman out of college with still ways to go to develop his game. He is turning out to be a very good player in this league but I still don't think his impact to a game is as great as that of Shane's. At first I liked Rudy and wanted to keep him but after seeing a few years of Shane playing on the squad, I don't think the Rockets front office is regretting the deal at all. Shane is the ideal role player, an intelligent player. The type of player every great team has. You don't see many players like Shane in this league.
He was a Rockets assistant coach who is probably more known by the more recent generations as a Rockets GM. He was considered a "big man's" coach on the team over the years. He was really a nice guy from everything I've read about him. To understand his importance to the organization and its history, they honored him by hanging a banner from the rafters with "CD" on it. He was with the Rockets for over 25 years, I think. In terms of organizational history, he was every bit as big a figure as Rudy T, Hakeem, etc., but he was a "behind the scenes" guy. The work he did with the C's and PF's on the team only showed up on the court and of course, nobody's usually going to credit an assistant coach with player improvements. If you know about Rudy T, he and Rudy were really close. In Robert Falkoff's book "Dreamland" he said that CD was to Rudy what Tex Winter was to Phil Jackson. CD was actually next in line for the coaching gig with the Rockets once Don Chaney got the boot back in the early 90's, but Steve Patterson (the GM back then) was worried about CD's health and instead offered the job to Rudy (CD was blind in one eye due to being struck by lightning not too long before that). From what I remember reading, CD basically begged Rudy to take the job and he felt no remorse or anger in him being bypassed. Rudy, of course, accepted, and the rest of that tale is Rockets history. All in all, he's a class act and like I said, the guy as a person far outweighed any mistakes he may have made contract-wise when it comes to the history of the team from everything I've heard. In my eyes, there is a "trinity" of sorts when it comes to the Rockets players and coaches : CD, Rudy, and Hakeem. Along with those 3 are Gene Peterson and Jim Foley, the legendary voices of the Rockets on radio for so many years (I believe both were with the organization longer than even Rudy or CD). Those 5 are the guys that I think of when I think "Houston Rockets". There are no Rockets players greater than those 5 in the organization's history in my eyes if that helps you understand what I think of CD.
As a 40 year old life long fan of the Rockets I'm going to echo what others here have said. Through good times and bad CD was here trying to make the Rockets the best team in the NBA. He deserves much more respect than he's given and doesn't deserve to be trashed here.
Agreed. With all due respect to his coaching ability, CD did not engineer the championship teams; CD became the GM in 1996. If great GM's are measured by how the teams fare in playoff wins, championships, and prudent payrolls, then CD is a fail GM. He's fair game as a GM.
I see people saying this thread is disrespecting CD, but it looks like it's a shot across the bow of the knuckle heads who clutter the board with all of their stupid trade ideas.
CDs had some great moves ...but i honestly think D Morey is better at the scouting/drafting of talents. right off the bat he got us scola for almost nothing...props to Morey.
He was awesome. You are right. Ever year, he would try to keep 3 all-stars every year. He was trading, or signing an all star almost every year. People forget about all the all-star talent that CD brought, because he signed roleplayers to crappy contracts. In 1993-94, CD got all-star Sam Cassell. In 1994-95, CD got all-star Clyde Drexler.(Hakeem, Clyde, Sam)(2 x championships) In 1996-97, CD got all-star Charles Barkley.(Hakeem, Clyde, Barkley) In 1998-99, CD got all-star Scottie Pippen.(Hakeem, Barkley, Pippen) In 1999-00, CD got all-star Steve Francis.(Hakeem,Barkley,Francis) In 2001-02, CD got all-star Glen Rice.(Francis, Rice) In 2002-03, CD got all-star Yao Ming, pure luck this time.(Francis, Yao, Rice) In 2004-05, CD got all-star Vin Baker, Tracy McGrady, Juwan Howard and Dikembe Mutombo.(Yao, McGrady, Howard, Mutombo) In 2006-07, Morey advises Les Alexander to trade away potential all-star lottery pick(Rudy Gay) for no-stats all-star Battier. Every move after CD, Morey relied on getting cheap late round draft picks for the rotation instead of all-stars.
