The Rockets Had to Be Uber-Aggressive to Challenge the Warriors Ben Cohen Updated May 24, 2018 4:57 p.m. ET Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, doesn’t own a car. He realized several years ago there was a smarter way for him to move from one place to another than the way he’d always done it. And that’s when he decided to sell his Lexus SUV. He stopped driving. He started taking Uber everywhere. It might sound almost unfathomably odd for someone who runs a professional sports team in a city known for sprawl to get rid of his car because he’d rather commute by climbing into a stranger’s car, but only if that someone were anyone other than Daryl Morey. He applied the same empirical rigor to the question of how he should get to work as he did the question of how the Rockets could improve their chances of winning the NBA title. Morey calculated that it would be cheaper, a better use of his time and safer for everyone involved if he were in the back seat. That was all the rationale he needed to go carless. He’s so pleased with his decision almost three years later that he says he’ll never have a car in Houston again. “There’s a whole bunch of ways I can ruin my life right now,” Morey said. “One of them could be that I do something stupid driving and hurt myself or hurt someone else. So why even have that risk?” The way he thought about his method of transportation happens to be a surprisingly useful way of understanding how the Rockets are now tied with the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. Morey looked at the same facts as everyone else before this season—that any NBA team with Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant was probably going to win the championship—and then he thought differently than anyone else. The Rockets weren’t content to wait out the Warriors. They went after them instead. Morey understood that he had to be aggressive, extreme and contrarian to beat a team that may turn out to be unbeatable. They were willing to try anything. They defied conventional wisdom when they traded for Chris Paul even though they already had James Harden. They had the audacity to shoot more 3-pointers than 2-pointers. They overhauled their defense to complement their explosive offense. They were coached by Mike D’Antoni, whose name has become synonymous with playing fast, and they played slow. They isolated more than any team in the NBA, and because they had Harden, they averaged more points on their isolation possessions than any team in the NBA. But all that zigging when the rest of the league zagged only gave the Rockets slightly better odds against the Warriors. They were a really good team, possibly a great team, with the burden of playing one of the greatest teams in the history of basketball. The Rockets were unabashed about their obsession with the Warriors because they had to be. They needed to chase every little edge they could get. They also needed to get lucky. And then maybe—maybe—they would have a shot to beat Golden State. That’s what they have now: a shot. The Rockets saved their season in Game 4 by winning exactly the kind of game they were built to win. Morey’s grand plan might actually work. The series is 2-2 heading into Game 5 on Thursday night, and it has become clear the Rockets are the only team capable of seriously pushing the Warriors this season. They are the last defense against the Golden State dynasty. And they’re in this position in no small part because they were constructed by the type of person who thinks it’s reasonable to live in Houston without a car. Morey says his approach to driving was like his approach to investing and, for that matter, building an NBA roster. He tried to strike the right balance of risk and return. Morey treated the rules of the road as mere suggestions. He was not a fan of red lights, and he found red lights for left-hand turns so objectionable that he sometimes ignored them. “I skirt the speed-safety line,” he said. “I go really, really fast, but I’m super safe. I haven’t had an accident since I was 20.” “You haven’t had an accident in three years,” said his wife, Ellen, who still owns a car, “because you haven’t driven.” The streets of Houston are safer now that he’s no longer behind the wheel. He types away on his BlackBerry—yes, his BlackBerry—and works on the way to work. He can be productive even when he’s in the car. And he never has to worry about parking. Morey understands that it might be necessary for his family to own a car. He doesn’t necessarily endorse it. “It’s...fine,” he said. But not everyone understands his logic for not having a car. Morey recently explained to a colleague that he was trying to optimize his life around only things that were important to him. That person asked: “Are you Buddhist?” The other explanation for why he Ubers everywhere is that Morey actually likes meeting the people who drive him around Houston. He talks to anyone who talks to him. When one driver told him that he was a musician, Morey indulged him and listened to his songs. “They were pretty good, I thought,” he said. The driver then told him that he personally delivers his CDs and even claimed to have made one delivery to New Zealand. “I sorta, maybe believed him,” Morey said, “although I don’t know why.” He’s been in so many Ubers by now that he’s developed opinions about routing algorithms. He thinks about beating Houston traffic the same way he thinks about beating the Warriors. It may not be possible, but all he can do is bend the odds in his favor. He prefers that his drivers use Waze. Except if he’s really in a hurry. In which case he checks Waze and Google Maps to compare his options. “I’ll let them vote on the route,” Morey said. “And then I’ll use my own judgment.”
Uber is a criminal enterprise. No more, no less. I don't want this to go political, so I won't reply to comments.
