Rebuilding the Morway?

[SpursNBucks]

I'm surprised how little was ever said of this hire-I know it was mentioned on here, but really not a lot made of it.

He was hired before the Draft and they got what everyone is calling the steal of the 1st Round + What looks like the steal of the 2nd Round. The Jennings for Knight/Middleton trade -looking pretty lop-sided now also came well after the hire. (BTW - I started a thread on Pistons forum - Knight or Jennings? you may want to see the not so surprising results). You might say "What about the moronic hire of Drew?" That came before his hire.
The Mayo signing came after, but lets blame that and the vet signings on JH/Herb/Cronies.

Is it just a coincidence? Personally I don't believe in coincidences, but that's me. I'm sure he came here with some understanding of how much say he would have. I wonder what the relationship is between he and JH? I would not be surprised to see him officially replace JH after the season.

Some facts on Morway:

Promoted to GM of Pacers May 7, 2008- till he resigned June 26, 2012

When he was hired by Bird they initiated their rebuilding plan (managing payroll key).
(*First 6 Months)
*Traded Jermaine O'Neal and his bloated contract to Toronto for TJ Ford and Draft Rights to Hibert
*Traded Draft rights of Jerald Bayless for Brandon Rush, Jarrett Jack, and Josh McRoberts.
*Singned Danny Granger to extension

Drafted Paul George #10 and Dwight Stephenson #40
Morway likes bigger PGs for the playoffs so he traded a #15 pick to get George Hill. (SA made this one hurt a bit after they selected Drafted K. Leonard)

Within a couple years he established a Super Star, Starting C and PG.

Maybe some reason for "optimism"? I know that is kind of a dirty word around here, but just maybe?

[trwi7]

All the good things = Morway
All the bad things = Hammond



I really doubt they allowed Morway to make any draft pick.

[SpursNBucks]

All the good things = Morway
All the bad things = Hammond



I really doubt they allowed Morway to make any draft pick.

not saying he was the lead guy making the calls, BUT

Who knows- he was there almost two months - could have had some influence. May have had some say one or both picks. I'm sure he just didn't sit in a closet for the 50+ days he was there.

[trwi7]

Don't get me wrong, Hammond is an idiot but we did this whole song and dance when Hammond was first hired. Look at how good those Pistons teams were! Great hire! LOL look at the moves Dumars is making without Hammond. Hammond was definitely the brains of that operation. Just a repeat here.

[SpursNBucks]

Don't get me wrong, Hammond is an idiot but we did this whole song and dance when Hammond was first hired. Look at how good those Pistons teams were! Great hire! LOL look at the moves Dumars is making without Hammond. Hammond was definitely the brains of that operation.

Hammond wasn't the GM.

Because something happened in one situation doesn't make it a hardened rule, sure a lot of examples could be given to the contrary.

Pistons and Pacers two different situations.

BTW: Not really sure what you're saying about Dumars - good or bad? Dumars sucks, making it look kind of like he wasn't any great mastermind = kind of siding with Hammond being good- I probably am just being stupid and missing your meaning.

Your original point was solid - it is doubtful that Morway came in and took the lead on those picks. It was a process where you have to give credit to your scouting staff - and the process.

[trwi7]

Hammond is stupid. Dumars is stupid too.

Thing is when Hammond was hired everyone thought it was a great move because he came from the Pistons organizations and learned from Dumars.

Then Dumars started making stupid decisions after Hammond left and everyone thought Hammond was the real mastermind behind the Pistons and Dumars was just the former player figurehead.

Then Hammond started making stupid moves but some fans forgave him or were in denial that the moves were stupid because Dumars is making stupid moves and Hammond was assistant GM so someone had to be making the good moves in Detroit and it obviously wasn't Dumars.

Then people finally started to realize that Hammond was actually just as dumb as Dumars and they completely lucked out with how the Pistons were built and both are actually terrible GMs.

Not saying Morway is stupid or that he won't be a good GM but what you posted is pretty much exactly went on on this board when Hammond was hired and the couple years after that before everyone realized Hammond is stupid.

[KingWing]

Some have speculated Morway was behind the Mayo signing, since he made a big push for him when he was with Indy.

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[SpursNBucks]

Some have speculated Morway was behind the Mayo signing, since he made a big push for him when he was with Indy.

Sent from my HTC_One_mini_601e using RealGM Forums mobile app

Ho got criticized by a lot of fans in Indy at the time for not getting him. I have to say I didn't think the Mayo signing was a bad one at the time. He was coming off a pretty good season - and if people were totally honest on here they would admit to wanting him. Former highly touted 3rd overall pick, decent size, ok defender, and coming off a career best year where he was averaging over 40% from 3. On paper it looked like a pretty good signing. The Pachulia signing was made at about the same time of Morway's hire -they paid too much there and didn't need him. The same pretty much for Delfino - I think that Herb and the cronies were on some memory lane thing with all those ex-Bucks signings- not sure I even blame those on JH.

At some point you have to put the blame almost all on the un-motivated out of shape player. At the time on paper- given all the reasons above the Mayo siging didn't appear to be as bad as it has turned out- hindsight is a killer.

[SpursNBucks]

Hammond is stupid. Dumars is stupid too.

Thing is when Hammond was hired everyone thought it was a great move because he came from the Pistons organizations and learned from Dumars.

Then Dumars started making stupid decisions after Hammond left and everyone thought Hammond was the real mastermind behind the Pistons and Dumars was just the former player figurehead.

Then Hammond started making stupid moves but some fans forgave him or were in denial that the moves were stupid because Dumars is making stupid moves and Hammond was assistant GM so someone had to be making the good moves in Detroit and it obviously wasn't Dumars.

Then people finally started to realize that Hammond was actually just as dumb as Dumars and they completely lucked out with how the Pistons were built and both are actually terrible GMs.

Not saying Morway is stupid or that he won't be a good GM but what you posted is pretty much exactly went on on this board when Hammond was hired and the couple years after that before everyone realized Hammond is stupid.

I get your point. I am just saying this guy actually was the GM= not some Assistant. During his tenure as GM with Indy they went from 36-46 to 42-24. That can be misleading in some ways, but it is the on-paper facts.

As I mentioned before - just because one thing happens in a given situation, doesn't make it a rule. You can bet that more often then not GOOD GMs more often come from GOOD organizations. More specifically it works out more often then not to hire personnel that were part of a successful rebuilding process.

I get the cynicism though with the team- that is why I said "optimism" is pretty much a dirty word around these parts.

[trwi7]

I agree but a lot of the stuff went through Bird as well.

The O'Neal trade for Ford and Hibbert was great. Drafting George was great. Getting Stephenson in the 2nd round was great. Bayless for Jack, Rush and McRoberts was meh. Drafting Tyler Hansbrough is meh. Giving Dahntay Jones a 4 year deal was awful. Trading Kawhi Leonard for George Hill is probably neutral.

So some really good and some not so good. I'd like to see him get a shot, hopefully without Kohl and 531 vice presidents dictating moves.

[SpursNBucks]

You're right it is pretty well established that a lot of moves had to get the Bird seal of approval, but I think it is safe to say he was behind them. Not to keep beating the same point, but he was THE GM, not some underling like Hammond was.

Really the only bad move was the Dahnty Jones deal and that was not exactly a cap killer at 4 years/$11mil. That was made to give them a lock-down defender for the playoffs.

He did find them a Super Star- as much as they liked George Hill - were committed to George.

He did trade a terrible contract on a player on the down for their starting Center.

He did find them a starting PG- who could be a + defender in the playoffs.

Those are some nice building blocks. No GM is going to bat 1000% - keep in mind he wasn't afforded the luxury of a bunch of top 5 picks either.

[Dobber-16]

I would say that Dumars had the final say on drafting Darko Milicic, but I'm sure Hambone was upfront and involved in the decision to draft him. Total fail there.

[AussieBuck]

GM was just a title for Morway which is why he was applying for GM jobs elsewhere during his time at Indiana. Bird was the guy in charge they just label things differently at the Pacers.

[Diggr14]

Hambone has done a decent job drafting players. Im not saying he wasn't up there wanting Darko.. heck a lot of the league was right there wanting darko too. Fool's good obviously in retrospect. I'd still trust Hambone to make our likely top 4 pick in this draft over probably 75-80% of the leagues GMs.


This last year, Hammond has made pretty decent moves for the future for this team. Mayo, Zaza, ect... are pretty much all 2-3 year stopgaps during the sucking that is to come. Sanders is still a tradeable asset at this point and likely will still be this time next season (could even increase his value). Free agent signings are not the way this team needs to look. No one in the NBA really wants to come here... one, its Milwaukee.. two and more importantly this team has been a circus the last 10 years (before we get decent free agents, this needs to be fixed-- ultimately though, we are never getting the top echelon free agents to come here, unless there is an OKC-esque core of players in place already, and lastly as it stands right now we have to overpay anyone just to come here.... as a small market team, you should never... never... never do this, with the caveat of unless you are planning on sucking hard anyways and you need to hit the 90% cap minimum level on a 1-2 year deal).

I know none of these guys planned on losing this badly this season, but the ground work for a nice young core has been built... and who knew it would be on the back of Hammond's drafting and the all but worthless Brandon Jennings. Brandon Knight and Khris Middleton are good young pieces moving forward. They might not be championship calibur pieces yet, but they are young and developing.. and have decent value in terms of assets.

[theFireBlanket]

I'm surprised how little was ever said of this hire-I know it was mentioned on here, but really not a lot made of it.

This just isn't true though. The Morway deal was discussed pretty heavily after he was hired and during the off-season.

PP championed him as the solution to Hammond, Kohl & cronies' woeful decision making over the past 6 seasons.

[ampd]

We hired morway and afterward had the worst off season and regular season in franchise history which in hindsight looks worse when you consider they were actually trying to make the playoffs. This is supposed to inspire confidence why?

To be fair I don't think any gm can succeed without a massive dose of luck under kohl and the cronies. I just don't see any reason to think this time is different especially given the results.

[Badgerlander]

So did Morway overpay Mayo, Zaza, and Neal? Sign off on bringing in Larry Drew? Yeah he can be fired too. Sell the team clean house. I have the feeling that Weltman was the draft genius too, why else would they have kept him around for the draft (30 days past the date he was hired by Toronto) last year? Hammond is terrible, Morway who cares really.

[Baddy Chuck]

6/10 on the Morway pun.

[paulpressey25]

I'm surprised how little was ever said of this hire-I know it was mentioned on here, but really not a lot made of it.

This just isn't true though. The Morway deal was discussed pretty heavily after he was hired and during the off-season.

PP championed him as the solution to Hammond, Kohl & cronies' woeful decision making over the past 6 seasons.

Whoa, slow down. I never said the guy knew what he was doing at all. Just simply assuming that Morway would hopefully neutralize Hammonds bad decisions, and ultimately be able to replace Hammond, since we don't have any hope of being able to replace Kohl and the cronies.

I do believe that our GM work under Hammond the past few years has been by far the worst GM work during the Herb Kohl era, and that's saying something. So I will gladly take Morway in charge come April 17th.

[SpursNBucks]

So did Morway overpay Mayo, Zaza, and Neal? Sign off on bringing in Larry Drew? Yeah he can be fired too. Sell the team clean house. I have the feeling that Weltman was the draft genius too, why else would they have kept him around for the draft (30 days past the date he was hired by Toronto) last year? Hammond is terrible, Morway who cares really.

If you read through the post you would have seen where I addressed this. Mayo- is on Mayo, you can't control a player from being out of shape and unmotivated- you can bench him, but if he really doesn't give a F.... Neal became a wash in the end. Larry Drew was hired already.