I wouldn't put harden on daryl morley. morley will eat him alive. Good article, but everything happened so fast that a lot of us are still in disbelief.
I completely agree with the premise of the article. Saying this offseason is a failure is an overreaction and poor look at the overall picture. In the aftermath of the Bosh fiasco, the Rockets have made smart moves that benefit the short term as much as the future. Not sure what more you could ask for. What I do disagree with in the article is the depth. It has been affected, no question. I don't think anyone can argue that it's really bad right now. This is why the Lin trade, I wince at. He had his issues, but could always score and lead the team for a game or two in the pinch, especially if he had the ball in his hands most of the time. He was ideal as a sixth man, but not at that price, which is why he had to go.
Ariza was a FA who left a second-round team to sign here. He wasn't even afraid of "McMilkHair" and Daryl "Asset" Morey. Not even Lin#7gate put him off.
Were you actually watching the games? Even the most hardcore Harden fans agreed that he was the single reason the Rockets lost to Blazers. Had him just be his "average" on offense, the Rockets would have won the series. The Rockets are hoping and praying that his playoff performance was just a fluke, he will be okay. But so far, it doesn't look good, he sucked big in the final against the Heats as well.
I completely agree. This situation does not make any sense right now. We tried putting a a 3 and guy next to tmac and it led to first round exits. Unless Ariza has significantly changed the past few seasons since he was traded from Houston, how is his addition with Parsons an upgrade. If we were to say have both then yes I would see the improvement. Another thing is that Parsons is a very proud player. He had a swagger and confidence that rubbed off amongst the other players. Parsons will be missed. We can however no longer cry about spilled milk anymore. It is time to move on and hopefully Morey can pull magic tricks out of his hat. Morey should have just talked to him told him our offer and made him still feel like he was a significant part of our plans. Signed him up and have him part of the recruitment. That we were not looking for a third star but our fourth star. Losing Parsons is going to bite Morey in the ass for years to come. Parsons loved this team he would have done just about anything quite possibly get Bosh in here.
The counterpoint to this was the medium article that eviscerated Morey and brought up some valid points. I didnt want to start a thread about it because it really goes in deep/ https://medium.com/the-cauldron/the-man-who-sold-the-world-3df16d8b754a For those who have not read it. I think it highlights certain facts about favorable treatment in the media of Morey. This maybe what other GM's are more annoyed by than anything.
Morey went all in on this off season, looking for a 3rd star of many available, and while the odds weren't remotely close to 100%, the risk/reward was well worth it. If you've ever played poker and gone all in with two kings and lost to two aces or a worse hand, well it's gonna happen. He had the guts to play for championship contention right now and it didn't work out. As a result his backup plan seems to be to be patient, take on very few long term contracts, and then build the value of young players with cheap contracts to move them later for more valuable assets. Remember how average this roster was before Harden, and in just a couple years it had the potential to be championship caliber. That simply does not happen almost ever, especially when we had no real stud lottery picks. Morey's a two headed snake (apologies for the bad analogy DM if you're reading) that can not only capitalize on the immediate big value, but also nickel and dime the other GMs incrementally until he lands that big asset. It is brilliant game theory/ technique and I have no doubt that he hasn't analyzed this chess position quite deeply well ahead of time.
I think you are a smart poster so I won't say it's dumb if someone like you buys it. With that said, I think people should go back and read past articles and posts on this very site to realize that prior to this offseason many here were calling for Morey to do exactly what he did and make Chandler a RFA. I was one of the ones against it then.
While the HP article oversells the "success" of this offseason, the Medium article is just terrible. It basically *****s on Morey for the media coverage he's received and cherry-picks the worst quotes from those articles and the worst transactions Morey has made while somehow totally ignoring that Morey is not wholly responsible for the media coverage and Morey built a fringe title contender from middling pieces without tanking. Take the Robinson trades for example. They basically amount to trading PPatt for 2 second rounders and two Eurostash guys and an opportunity to evaluate Robinson's potential within the Rockets system. Keep in mind that we probably would have had to trade PPatt anyway to sign Dwight. To my mind, that's a pretty good return in exigent circumstances for a career backup 4. Yet the Medium article just hammers at a dumb talking point: HE WAS LAUDED FOR TRADING FOR AND TRADING THE SAME PLAYER GEEEEEZZZZZ. Also note the author's absolutely ludicrous criticism of Asik and Dwight. Morey "overpaid" for Asik and then was silly enough to also sign Dwight Howard at the same position. Like anyone in their right mind would say, "well, I just signed Asik, better take a pass on the best center in the world." And how can Asik be deemed "overpaid," when the absolute worst portion of his contract was just spun for a near-guaranteed lottery pick? Really, the worst that can be said of this offseason is that Morey should have picked up Parsons option and he jumped the gun on the Lin trade. As for the former, it's pretty indefensible unless there was some deus ex machina diktat from Dan Fegan. Morey just underestimate Chandler's value and thought he could deflate his price tag by going the restricted route. Woopsie--now all the talk is about strategic OVERPAYS in the restricted market. As for Lin, Morey has said that he had to do the Lakers deal when he did because the Lakers put a firm deadline on it. But how compelling is that? Were they really burning with desire to lock up Jordan Hill and Nick Young before all the FA dominoes fell? Morey should have called their bluff and held out until he heard from Bosh, because the Miami offer wasn't exactly beyond the realm of contemplation.
For my part, I'm not really bashing Morey. I'm still a fan of his. I get what he was trying to do, and I would have joined the parade if Bosh had said yes. We were very close. So, I'm not bashing Morey. I just think we should all recognize that this was a turd of an offseason, and some people seem to want to figure out a way that it isn't. Morey put real, valuable assets at risk so he could swing for the fences, and he whiffed. He whiffed. He'll recover. The Rockets will continue to be good, maybe great. But, right now, he whiffed. Yeah, Asik needed to be traded. And we got something decent in return (though not as great as some want to make out). But, it won't help us this coming season unless Morey flips it soon. Howard's got a short window, so I'm looking at our competitiveness this coming season. Asik-for-Dorsey doesn't fill me with confidence. If it had been Asik for Ryan Anderson, I'd be more optimisitc about our chances this season. I'm saying restricted status distorts the market in weird ways. RFAs get underpaid or overpaid. And, if you're going to overpay, you'll throw in all the posion pills you can. The Mavs wouldn't present an offer sheet to a restricted Parsons without the poison pills he had. But, negotiating with an unrestricted Parsons, those tricks would not be included. He'd want an unrestricted Parsons come because he wants to come to play for the Mavs, not because he'd get a trade kicker in his contract. An unrestricted Parsons would have gotten a straight max offer perhaps, but without the player option and without the kicker. And the unrestricted Parsons doesn't have to sign that offer hoping the Rockets would match (he said he expected they would), he could go and ask Morey if he will. Now, he could have done that as an RFA and didn't ("Hey Daryl, the Mavs are ready to give me a max contract with poison pills, will you give me a straight max right now?"), but that comes with risks to the player ("Sure, Chandler, but I need a few days to work this thing out with Bosh before we can settle."). So, I think Morey's RFA policy is playing with fire -- you could get savings sometimes, but you can also lose. What I mean here is that small differences in talent are worth large differences in pay. You can only have 5 guys on the court at a time. One 1 guy can hold the ball at a time. So, if one player is only 5% better than another player, he might be worth 50% more, or more than that even. Parsons isn't twice as good as Ariza, but he's better. And that's worth a lot of money. On this, I completely agree. I tend not to believe the agent conspiracy theory as a result. But, if it was true and I was Howard, I'd fire the stupid prick for doing it.
This post is the epitomy of Morey nut hugging. This whole talking point "atleast Morey had the guts to play for championship contention" is not only beyond r****ded, but laughable. We were only a good coach, true PF & MAYBE a slight upgrade at PG away from being a contender. Had we simply ugraded coaches it'll had been enough. But Morey got greedy. He wanted a 3rd star EVEN if it meant bringing back a unqualified coach and ignoring all the other team needs. Not only that, he's IGNORED all the other veteran FA's that could've helped this team and chose to put together a d-league bench of former Rockets. If we don't make it past the 1st round next season, the writing should be on the wall for Daryl Morey
According to an ESPN article there were at the very least some GMs that agreed with what Morey did and said it was a great plan, just didn't work out. That the hate Morey receives around the league is out of pure jealousy. Are these rival GMs just nuthuggers or people who can judge things rationally?
The issue isn't that he missed out on Bosh and Chanlder. The issue is he had zero back up plan!! Don't try to sell us that Ish, Dorsey, and Adrien where his backup plan. Bullshiggidy!!
we got nick johnson in the second round which again looks like a great pick. capella could be good too. we upgraded our perimeter defense with ariza. he'll be better for us this time around. and we sent a message to the rest of the league and the players and agents: we're going for it. we want it. we're not going to screw our cap with a bad contract until we find the right 3rd guy for this team. we swung and missed - sTF what - we came 'this close' to having the best starting 5 in the NBA. how HOU came out of all this empty handed? politics, agents, egos, money - theres more of that in all of this than winning.
