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[OFFICIAL] Jeremy Lin IS a Houston Rocket

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by quinnolivarez, Jul 17, 2012.

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typhooonn Member

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lakers4life said: ↑

thanks for the correction, but that is still too much.
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what did you mean? it's not your money

#1461 typhooonn, Jul 19, 2012

dachuda86 Member

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Lin is paid the amount because he puts asses in seats and gets the Rockets on TV. This in turn makes it a marketable environment for a heavy hitter... like Howard. This is the reason Lin is making this amount. The Rockets had to over pay to steal him and hey, that's what the market determined his value at.

#1462 dachuda86, Jul 19, 2012
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typhooonn said: ↑

what did you mean? it's not your money
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There is only one reason we are starting to see posters like lakers4life now. Rockets became relevant again.

I am thrilled that fans from other teams give a ***** about our signing.

I am thrilled that fans from other teams cursed Morey for stealing their prized possession.

I am thrilled ESPN's lead into last night's Sportscenter was Rockets.

It's about time.

Stick around, lakers4life. What's the point of having a new toy if you have no one to show off to?

#1463 DreamWeaver, Jul 19, 2012
CoolColJ Member

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rebounding his own miss

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/s...cond-shot-with-jeremy-lin.html?pagewanted=all

The second N.B.A. executive to hastily misjudge Jeremy Lin was the first to publicly confess his sin.

“We should have kept @JLin7.” Those words popped into Twitter timelines on Feb. 9. They came from the keyboard of Daryl Morey, the Houston Rockets’ general manager and one of the league’s leading outside-the-box thinkers. There was more.

“Did not know he was this good,” Morey wrote. “Anyone who says they knew misleading U.”

General managers rarely admit their mistakes (at least, not in real time), and they even more rarely get the chance to rectify them. Morey did both, and shook up two N.B.A. franchises in the process.

Lin became a Rocket late Tuesday night when the Knicks balked at matching a three-year, $25.1 million offer sheet from Houston. In doing so, the Knicks surrendered one of the most fascinating sports figures of the decade and handed Morey a chance for quick redemption.

On Dec. 24, Morey waived Lin — at the time, an anonymous 23-year-old point guard — in a payroll-clearing move. The Rockets needed room to sign center Samuel Dalembert, and they seemingly did not need Lin, an unproven prospect who, at best, would be third on the depth chart behind Kyle Lowry and Goran Dragic, and perhaps even behind Jonny Flynn.

It was the sort of minor transaction that happens in every N.B.A. preseason, the kind that merits a one-line mention in the local newspaper and is quickly forgotten. In this case, Morey had unknowingly provided one of the signature lines in Lin’s now-famous profile, as the undrafted, overlooked, twice-waived kid from Harvard.

The first waiver was executed by the Golden State Warriors, Lin’s hometown team, two weeks earlier. But it was the Rockets’ decision that indirectly sent Lin to New York, setting in motion a chain of events that would save the Knicks’ season and captivate much of the sports world.

Lin’s soon-to-be-legendary streak was just three games old — with averages of 25.3 points and 8.3 assists in victories over the Nets, Utah and Washington — when Morey started answering queries and taunts on Twitter, where he is a semiregular participant.

Fans prodded for signs of regret. Morey demurred at first, acknowledging that Lin was “a very good player,” but that “Linsanity was not happening here this year.” Finally, someone accused Morey of being “defensive” and asked, “Why not just accept the mistake?” So Morey did, breaking with years of tradition and well-worn platitudes by sports executives everywhere.

Five months later, Morey ensured he would not make the same mistake. The Rockets courted Lin harder than any other team, the Knicks included. They made an initial offer of three years and $19 million — the only formal offer Lin received — during the July moratorium, so named because deals can be negotiated but not signed.

When the Knicks publicly declared they would match the deal, Morey bumped the offer to $25 million, with a $14.9 million balloon payment in the third year that was explicitly intended to make the Knicks squirm. As a high-payroll team, the Knicks would have had to pay a staggering luxury tax, as much as $35 million, in that final season.

After months of public and private assurances that they would keep Lin at any cost, the Knicks for the first time wavered. Days later, the Knicks caved and let their most popular player in 10 years walk away.

As hearts broke in New York and Linsanity took root in Texas on Tuesday night, Morey idled outside a Las Vegas fast-food restaurant, shouting his family’s order into the drive-through speaker. Morey, a 39-year-old father of two, had left the Cox Pavilion at U.N.L.V. a short time earlier, after watching the Rockets’ summer league team beat Portland’s, 99-88.

The Rockets’ greater victory had just occurred in New York, but Morey had no time to celebrate. After apologizing for the background ruckus and straightening out French-fry portions, he reflected on the symmetry of the moment.

“Obviously, a player we didn’t want to let go,” Morey said. “Ended up letting him go last year, and we’re excited for him and how he blossomed in New York. And we’re thrilled to have him back in Houston.”

In some quarters, Morey has been criticized (anonymously) for violating an unwritten code by changing the terms of Lin’s deal. It was a legal maneuver, however, because no contract had been signed. Two rival executives contacted Wednesday said Morey was well within bounds, technically and ethically. In fact, they praised Morey for the bold maneuver.

Others question the wisdom of a $25 million deal for a player with 25 career starts, but Morey is not much of a conventional thinker, or even a conventional N.B.A. executive. With a master’s degree in business administration from M.I.T. and a bachelor’s degree in computer science, Morey was the first advanced-statistics practitioner to become an N.B.A. general manager, in May 2007.

At the time the Rockets promoted Morey, analytics were hardly part of the N.B.A. conversation. Now nearly every team in the league sends a representative to the annual M.I.T. Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, a veritable advanced-stats festival, which Morey runs.

Bill Simmons, an ESPN columnist, has dubbed the conference “Dorkapalooza” and crowned Morey as “Dork Elvis,” because of his exalted status among the young stat geeks drawn to the event.

As a general manager, Morey has advocated a blend of old-school scouting and new-age analysis, and the Rockets have an impressive record of discovering hidden gems in the draft, from Aaron Brooks (the 26th overall pick) and Carl Landry (31st) in 2007 to Chase Budinger (44th in 2009) and Chandler Parsons (38th in 2011).

The search for a superstar — the high-salary, high-ceiling players who change a franchise — has proved more challenging. Morey has repeatedly acquired and flipped high-value players and draft picks, reshuffling the roster in a perpetual quest to put the Rockets in position to make a blockbuster trade.

“A mad scientist,” one rival team executive said, using the term as a compliment. “He’s creative.”

Morey was one of the few executives willing to acquire Carmelo Anthony without any long-term assurances in 2011, when Anthony was pushing Denver to trade him to the Knicks. He had threatened not to re-sign anywhere else, but Morey was undaunted, believing he could persuade Anthony to stay if he got him.

Now Morey is pushing hard to acquire Orlando’s Dwight Howard, who similarly has demanded a trade to one team (the Nets) with a threat to leave any other. To make room for Howard — and the bad contracts Orlando would want to dump in a trade — Morey has virtually stripped Houston’s roster of veteran talent, waiving Luis Scola and trading Lowry to Toronto (for a draft pick he can send to Orlando). He let Dragic leave for Phoenix, rather than tie up cap room.

Morey is the only N.B.A. general manager who regularly interacts with fans through social media, even trading occasional barbs with Simmons and other writers on Twitter. His Facebook profile page includes two Mandarin Chinese symbols, a phonetic translation of his name (mo lei).

The Rockets have enjoyed strong ties to China ever since drafting Yao Ming, and they are poised to capitalize on those relationships now with Lin, the only Taiwanese-American player in the N.B.A.

But it is Lin, the player, who has most intrigued Morey. Where others see a risk, Morey sees a high-value play — a talented player with a high work ethic and high intelligence who has improved tremendously in a very short time. “An extremely, extremely good risk,” Morey said.

“We have a young team with every player on the upswing of their career,” Morey said, “and we think Jeremy is someone who can help lead that group.”

Later Tuesday night, Morey was back on Twitter, his message both celebratory and sheepish.

“Welcome to Houston @JLin7!” he wrote. “We plan to hang on this time.
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#1464 CoolColJ, Jul 19, 2012

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off season training - looks like from last year

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/45872147?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/45872147">SPARTA Athlete - Jeremy Lin</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1670560">SPARTA</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

#1465 CoolColJ, Jul 19, 2012

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CoolColJ Member

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ahh no, definitely this year
Knee looks to be fine then

#1466 CoolColJ, Jul 19, 2012
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I hope they don't try and trick us by sending a Trojan Horse replica of Lin

#1467 Joe Fan, Jul 19, 2012

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In MOLEI we trust?

#1468 daywalker02, Jul 19, 2012
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CoolColJ said: ↑

off season training - looks like from last year

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/45872147?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/45872147">SPARTA Athlete - Jeremy Lin</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1670560">SPARTA</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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No. This is from this summer. What he has been doing this off-season.

#1469 roxxy, Jul 19, 2012
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daywalker02 said: ↑

In MOLEI we trust?
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I'm pretty embarrassed that I laughed at this.

#1470 dharocks, Jul 19, 2012
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Good article. I'm not back to sipping the Morey kool-aid yet, but I'm regaining respect.

#1471 mic, Jul 19, 2012
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LOL.. NY still talkin mess

#1472 davidio840, Jul 19, 2012
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#1473 MoonDogg, Jul 19, 2012

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davidio840 said: ↑

LOL.. NY still talkin mess

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Gotta love those classy folks in New Yawk.

Damn, what a bunch of butt-hurt little girls.

#1474 Nero, Jul 19, 2012
mike_lu Member

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Don't know how to embed.

A good video on Jeremy Lin's training program at Sparta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucApVmfE89s

#1475 mike_lu, Jul 19, 2012
justtxyank Contributing Member

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So will this press conference be on the interwebs?

#1476 justtxyank, Jul 19, 2012
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mike_lu said: ↑

Don't know how to embed.

A good video on Jeremy Lin's training program at Sparta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucApVmfE89s
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here you go

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ucApVmfE89s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

#1477 Nero, Jul 19, 2012
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justtxyank said: ↑

So will this press conference be on the interwebs?
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no idea but this is what randy mcilvoy tweeted

Randy McIlvoy ‏@RandyMcIlvoy
Ok., are you @houstonrockets fans ready for #linsanity to arrive today? Live coverage on @kprclocal2 of 4p news conference

#1478 DorianTurk, Jul 19, 2012

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mike_lu said: ↑

Don't know how to embed.

A good video on Jeremy Lin's training program at Sparta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucApVmfE89s
Click to expand...

Interesting video -- thanks.

Yet, he still hurt his knee.......

#1479 Joe Fan, Jul 19, 2012
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davidio840 said: ↑

LOL.. NY still talkin mess

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Is that even his real account?!

#1480 SupermoochieFro, Jul 19, 2012

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