Daryl Morey - The Man that Sold the World (Takedown)

Dr IV · Post #1 » by **Dr IV** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 5:09 pm

Yikes. I know some Rockets fans have been saying this for years
https://medium.com/the-cauldron/the-man ... f16d8b754a

Last weekend, the Dallas Mavericks outmaneuvered the Houston Rockets’ supposed wunderkind GM, structuring their offer to coveted restricted free agent small forward Chandler Parsons such that Morey was forced to blink. Morey, in the process of explaining Houston’s decision not to match, somewhat derisively deemed the contract “untradeable,” even as it conjured memories of the recent deals for Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik that Morey tailored in Houston’s favor.

In short, the Rockets lost Parsons because they strategized specifically not to lose him — a confounding turn of events. Morey either underestimated the demand for Parsons or overestimated the Rockets’ chances to sign marquee free agents Carmelo Anthony or Chris Bosh. Either way, this was a horrific misstep that, at least for now, cripples a team that was harboring immediate title aspirations.

One profile in Sports Illustrated discusses Morey’s very own thought process in seemingly advanced statistical measures. Thunder GM Sam Presti’s call to Morey regarding James Harden is described as a 5-10 percent shot that Morey measured in the back of his mind. The Dwight Howard signing is explained similarly: the probability of landing him was likely less than five percent, but the potential payoff was enormous. The justification for these percentages is unsubstantiated, but they are emphasized for dramatic effect. The reader can almost visualize a “Genius at Work” sign perpetually and cartoonishly floating above Morey’s head. He has calculated everything.

In the end, Morey’s true distinguishing characteristic is his friendliness to the press. He gives a breadth of access and speaks openly, and it’s clear he receives deferential coverage as a result. In particular, Morey and Simmons have wagged the dog on Morey’s and the Rockets’ narrative for mutual benefit. They are each ubiquitous and self-promoting; they are each masterful at manipulating their individual brands to bolster the public perception of them as knowledgeable gatekeepers.

texasholdem · Post #2 » by **texasholdem** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 6:34 pm

Makes you miss Steve Patterson and Carroll Dawson.

Sasaki · Post #3 » by **Sasaki** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:17 pm

texasholdem wrote:Makes you miss Steve Patterson and Carroll Dawson.

I can't tell if you're serious. What's sad is that I'm sure there's some people who actually think that.

And if you are, just remember: Somebody tell Kelvin Cato we want our money back.

texasholdem · Post #4 » by **texasholdem** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:49 pm

Sasaki wrote:
texasholdem wrote:Makes you miss Steve Patterson and Carroll Dawson.

I can't tell if you're serious. What's sad is that I'm sure there's some people who actually think that.

And if you are, just remember: Somebody tell Kelvin Cato we want our money back.

Cato helped get us TMac in a trade and he also helped convince Dwight to come to Houston. That's worth the $27 million we paid him

moofs · Post #5 » by **moofs** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 8:32 pm

texasholdem wrote:Cato helped get us TMac in a trade and he also helped convince Dwight to come to Houston. That's worth the $27 million we paid him

:rimshot:

moofs · Post #6 » by **moofs** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 8:46 pm

I wrote this a few days ago on the GB {with a few slight edits just now}:

moofs wrote:
Q00 wrote:It still amazes me that he could be there 7-8 years and only get out of the 1st round once, and not only have no one ever talking about him being replaced, but people often talking about him like he's one of the best in the league.

I always like to use the Dumars analogy because he won a title and was one of the most successful GMs in sports for almost a decade, but then had a 5 year down period and got replaced, and people were calling for his removal after the first few down years. Morey has done nothing in 7-8 years and you never hear a peep about him being removed. I don't get.

Notes to consider:
- Until Yao retired, (3 years ago) he really didn't have much flexibility. The owner (rightfully) would have sold the team before getting rid of yao's golden goose.
- He held onto McGrady through 1 injury-riddled season that finally impacted his performance hard, then traded him halfway through the next. Had McGrady seemed remotely capable of recovery (hard to determine sooner, as he was only 30 {when we traded him, 28 when he started getting injured badly}), trading him (once-proven superstar) would have been dumb.
- given the first two, our cap was screwed prior to the 2011 offseason, though he juggled it quite well with what he had to work with
- Even with a healthy McGrady/Yao as the front 2, that team was going to have a hard time winning (2007-2008 probably being their best shot)
- he made it clear that the role players we had were not going to remain as the core of the team after Yao/mcgrady's removal. This was not the best idea for PR.
- Basically since that point he has completely rebuilt the team around a valid core within 3 years {(throwaway 2011-2012, decent starting of a core 2012-2013, potential contender that didn't work out 2013-2014)}, judge that. {I'd said MANY times that "We will not go anywhere until Yao retires," starting within a year or so of having joined this forum. Cap + Production + Injury concerns resulting in lowered odds.}
- I can agree that his basketball {and HR} mind is up for examination, but he is proven capable of putting together 50 win teams with ease. The question is if he can put together the 60 win ones that are needed to win championships. He's close. Yesterday was definitely {might have been, but it stung, bad} a significant setback.
- Comparing Morey with Dumars is silly. Comparing him with Buford/Pop is still silly too{, though Morey's never had anyone of Tim Duncan's stature (sorry, Dwight) outside of MAYBE Chuck Hayes}.

moofs wrote:
A top 3 gm in the NBA has 1 playoff series win in 7 years?

2006-2007 - Playoffs L 1st. The roster was pathetically thin. I wouldn't say that was his fault. Same if we'd won.
2007-2008 - Playoffs L 1st. Yao Ming didn't play in the playoffs, we started Chuck Hayes against the Jazz with Deke off the bench. Pretty much out of his control.
2008-2009 - Playoffs L 2nd. Yao Ming went down in game 3 against the Lakers. We were built around Yao. Yao was forced to play for the Chinese national team every year in the offseason. This was pretty well our doom.
2009-2010 - No Playoffs. No Yao, No McGrady, injuries, entire season. Good luck. The husk of McGrady is traded to NY.
2010-2011 - No Playoffs. Beginning of talent reacquisition. Acquired Kevin Martin (blech). Yao Retires
2011-2012 - No Playoffs. Added more talent (Parsons, Smith, Dalembert [yeah yeah, "beggars, choosers"]).
2012-2013 - Playoffs L 1st. Flipped Martin for Harden, added Lin, Asik, Beverley, Garcia, Delfino, Jones, Robinson. Not bad at ALL for one year. Made playoffs.
2013-2014 - Playoffs L 1st. Added Howard for nothing, Casspi, and Daniels. Lost Smith (I'm a HUGE Smith fan, and think this was a BIG deal) to injury. Asik, Lin, Harden, Parsons, and Beverley all completely forgot to show up for the playoffs.

Even when you consider most of the team that won that playoff series was actually brought in under the previous regime?

Morey was basically running the operation in 2006-2007. From 2005-2006 to 2008-2009 (the playoff win year), here is the roster overlap for all players who weren't traded (outgoing) during the playoff season.

Tracy McGrady (35 Games)
Yao Ming
Chuck Hayes

Just to throw it out there, the reason I defend the guy is that I'd say there's pretty much a 100% chance that he's in the top 40% of GMs in the league (top 12). I've seen the crap ones. Our former GM WAS one of the crap ones. Almost nothing he did made sense, made the team better, took any consideration to the cap. He couldn't draft well to save his life. He wasn't THE WORST (I'd still take him over David Kahn, Scott Layden, Elgin Baylor, Isaiah Thomas, etc - the dregs), but he was really, really bad. There's probably a 10% chance that you end up with a GM like that. That leaves a 50% chance of getting a guy that's worse, a 10% chance of getting a guy that's a WHOLE LOT worse, and a 40% (optimistically, imo, but I'm being generous here to show the odds in case he's worse) of getting a guy that's better. 10% of that is a pretty marginal improvement, so really about a 30% chance that you get a guy that's [b]significantly[b] better, and again, this is optimistically.

During his tenure, the Rockets have averaged 48.5 wins per game, which includes orchestrating (whether by luck, skill, or both) a complete 2-star rebuild within a 3 year period.
He's completely corrected our hamstrung cap issues that we had from 2003-2008.

So, as a Rocket fan, whether he's the best out there or not (I personally think he's probably top 5), it's almost guaranteed that we have a better chance of getting a worse GM than a better one if we move to replace him. I'd say it's amazing we made it last year (12-13), all things considered. We shouldn't have gotten knocked out this year. 3 years to completely reload ain't bad, either. Yes, it sucks that we just got a setback. It's the first setback I can remember under Morey's term. That's not bad, either. He certainly has his weaknesses, but who doesn't? If the goal is improvement, the odds are stacked against you.

IMO, I still wish we'd started rebuilding in 2008-2009. The NBA is about business though, and Yao was a cash cow. Basketball comes second to money.

inquisitive · Post #7 » by **inquisitive** » Tue Jul 15, 2014 8:58 pm

I agree with Morey, the roster(still in progress) will end up being better than last year's team especially on the defensive end....the GB on Realgm was scared shiet of us getting Bosh and then matching Parsons.....they knew it was inevitable that the Rockets were going to be in the Finals if Bosh came.

90sAllDecade · Post #8 » by **90sAllDecade** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 1:41 am

Just a repost here guys:

"Morey had a bad offseason, and I'm not disagreeing with the criticism.

But just to point out, the author (who I thought was going to be Bill Simmons clicking the link) is writing that story from Medium.com which essentially is Blogger 2.0, an amateur writer's website."

Why We Built Medium
In 1999, two friends and I launched Blogger, a simple tool for publishing on the web. Blogs, or “weblogs,” were largely unknown outside a small community of web geeks. The idea that anyone, anywhere, could publish for a global audience seemed radical.

https://medium.com/about/9e53ca408c48

They are each ubiquitous and self-promoting; they are each masterful at manipulating their individual brands to bolster the public perception of them as knowledgeable gatekeepers.

He makes good points and has a right to his own opinion. Morey had a tougher summer than the past two, just thought that passage was funny, as the author is really the one doing that described.

inquisitive · Post #9 » by **inquisitive** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:44 am

you can outspend morey(cuban and riley know first hand), but you can't outsmart him.

spolgar · Post #10 » by **spolgar** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 7:37 pm

Dallas paid 15 million dollars above market value for Parsons over the course of the next three years, because Cuban wants to win now. Dirk took a huge paycut to do it, and look at their free agent signings, they've reloaded. All they need is a dietician to get Raymond Felton to lose 30 pounds before camp.

We would've signed Parsons, even if it was to the tune of 15 mill a year IF Bosh didn't go back to Miami for 120+ million different reasons. We decided to commit less to a team that wasn't going to win the chip. What's wrong with that? Without Bosh, Asik and Lin, there's no way we're not gunning for the ship.

This team has terrible chemistry on the court. Now that they've traded away half the bench for cap space. We're not going to win anything anyway, why not be financially flexible? The cap is 63 million. We're at 49 million in salary right now with two top 10 players in the league, with around another 4.5 (Alonzo Gee and Scotty Hopson) million in unguaranteed salay to boot. We are under the cap, with both the MLE and the BAE to boot.

Spending money on Parsons is just anchoring ourselves to the mediocrity treadmill. Doing otherwise would be an act of desperation. Sometimes it's just better to retreat after a lost gamble and trade in your chips until you have a better plan.

texasholdem · Post #11 » by **texasholdem** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 7:58 pm

spolgar wrote:Dallas paid 15 million dollars above market value for Parsons over the course of the next three years, because Cuban wants to win now. Dirk took a huge paycut to do it, and look at their free agent signings, they've reloaded. All they need is a dietician to get Raymond Felton to lose 30 pounds before camp.

We would've signed Parsons, even if it was to the tune of 15 mill a year IF Bosh didn't go back to Miami for 120+ million different reasons. We decided to commit less to a team that wasn't going to win the chip. What's wrong with that? Without Bosh, Asik and Lin, there's no way we're not gunning for the ship.

This team has terrible chemistry on the court. Now that they've traded away half the bench for cap space. We're not going to win anything anyway, why not be financially flexible? The cap is 63 million. We're at 49 million in salary right now with two top 10 players in the league, with around another 4.5 (Alonzo Gee and Scotty Hopson) million in unguaranteed salay to boot. We are under the cap, with both the MLE and the BAE to boot.

Spending money on Parsons is just anchoring ourselves to the mediocrity treadmill. Doing otherwise would be an act of desperation. Sometimes it's just better to retreat after a lost gamble and trade in your chips until you have a better plan.

We weren't mediocre last year with Parsons. We were a pretty good team, even sweeping the eventual world champs. They could have traded Asik and Lin for Boozer and had a pretty good front line. Ariza is only making 7 million less than Parsons. Is that really that big of a savings? Not to mention we helped 3 western conference teams get better.

Hakeem and JVG both thought this was a championship caliber team. Do you know more than them?

baki · Post #12 » by **baki** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:15 pm

inquisitive wrote:I agree with Morey, the roster(still in progress) will end up being better than last year's team especially on the defensive end....the GB on Realgm was scared shiet of us getting Bosh and then matching Parsons.....they knew it was inevitable that the Rockets were going to be in the Finals if Bosh came.

Please stop with the delusion, there was never a chance of making any finals.

baki · Post #13 » by **baki** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:20 pm

texasholdem wrote:
spolgar wrote:Dallas paid 15 million dollars above market value for Parsons over the course of the next three years, because Cuban wants to win now. Dirk took a huge paycut to do it, and look at their free agent signings, they've reloaded. All they need is a dietician to get Raymond Felton to lose 30 pounds before camp.

We would've signed Parsons, even if it was to the tune of 15 mill a year IF Bosh didn't go back to Miami for 120+ million different reasons. We decided to commit less to a team that wasn't going to win the chip. What's wrong with that? Without Bosh, Asik and Lin, there's no way we're not gunning for the ship.

This team has terrible chemistry on the court. Now that they've traded away half the bench for cap space. We're not going to win anything anyway, why not be financially flexible? The cap is 63 million. We're at 49 million in salary right now with two top 10 players in the league, with around another 4.5 (Alonzo Gee and Scotty Hopson) million in unguaranteed salay to boot. We are under the cap, with both the MLE and the BAE to boot.

Spending money on Parsons is just anchoring ourselves to the mediocrity treadmill. Doing otherwise would be an act of desperation. Sometimes it's just better to retreat after a lost gamble and trade in your chips until you have a better plan.

We weren't mediocre last year with Parsons. We were a pretty good team, even sweeping the eventual world champs. They could have traded Asik and Lin for Boozer and had a pretty good front line. Ariza is only making 7 million less than Parsons. Is that really that big of a savings? Not to mention we helped 3 western conference teams get better.

Hakeem and JVG both thought this was a championship caliber team. Do you know more than them?

But will have no point guard or scoring boost off the bench from Lin.

Hakeem doesn't understand team play and JVG thinks the league is too soft for him to coach anymore.

moofs · Post #14 » by **moofs** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:30 pm

texasholdem wrote:We weren't mediocre last year with Parsons. We were a pretty good team, even sweeping the eventual world champs.

Hakeem and JVG both thought this was a championship caliber team. Do you know more than them?

We were. 54 wins isn't bad. I think we should've been at least 57-58 without some major injuries, and had predicted 60-62 before the season. We had some jelling issues at the start of the year to go with that as well.
Portland had 54 wins too.

We had a 4.6 point differential to their 3.9.
I don't recall the average point differential of NBA champions, but I think it's like 6.5.
The 1993-1995 Rockets, at 4.3 and 2.1 PD were easily among the 5 weakest champions in NBA history (don't take that as me not liking them obviously, but they definitely weren't the 96 Bulls).

So we were at 4.6 last year, may or may not be worse this year (depending on Dorsey, Daniels, Johnson and Jones develop), and are still looking to need another 2-3 PD per game to be serious contenders.

2-5 PD is good overall, but mediocre at best with regard to winning a ring.

BaYBaller · Post #15 » by **BaYBaller** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:40 pm

Here's a nice article on Morey's thought process and end result of this offseason (assuming no more moves of course)

http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/2014/07/16/ ... ee-agency/

texasholdem · Post #16 » by **texasholdem** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:20 pm

moofs wrote:
texasholdem wrote:We weren't mediocre last year with Parsons. We were a pretty good team, even sweeping the eventual world champs.

Hakeem and JVG both thought this was a championship caliber team. Do you know more than them?

We were. 54 wins isn't bad. I think we should've been at least 57-58 without some major injuries, and had predicted 60-62 before the season. We had some jelling issues at the start of the year to go with that as well.
Portland had 54 wins too.

We had a 4.6 point differential to their 3.9.
I don't recall the average point differential of NBA champions, but I think it's like 6.5.
The 1993-1995 Rockets, at 4.3 and 2.1 PD were easily among the 5 weakest champions in NBA history (don't take that as me not liking them obviously, but they definitely weren't the 96 Bulls).

So we were at 4.6 last year, may or may not be worse this year (depending on Dorsey, Daniels, Johnson and Jones develop), and are still looking to need another 2-3 PD per game to be serious contenders.

2-5 PD is good overall, but mediocre at best with regard to winning a ring.

Miami Heat was 4.8 this year. If they had three peated would they be considered a mediocre team?
Mavericks were the champs in 2011 with a 4.2 pd in the regular season and 57 wins.

inquisitive · Post #17 » by **inquisitive** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:23 pm

BaYBaller wrote:Here's a nice article on Morey's thought process and end result of this offseason (assuming no more moves of course)

http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/2014/07/16/ ... ee-agency/

good article...this team will be better by the end of this season than last year's team....this is spot on.

Parsons is better than Ariza, but twice as good? Nah.
Daryl Morey calls the deal Chandler Parsons received one of the most untradeable contracts he’s ever seen in the NBA; while that isn’t necessarily true, he does imply that Parsons isn’t worth it compared to Ariza.

Parsons is three years younger than Ariza and has improved every single year as a pro, but the numbers suggest that they make a close to equal impact on the floor. For a contending team like Houston, the production each player gives is all that matters, and it wasn’t worth matching the Parsons deal especially after signing Ariza.

Last season Parsons had a 15.90 PER to Ariza’s 15.87 PER, but Ariza was a far more efficient scorer, edging him out in effective field goal (56.2% to 53.8%), true shooting (59.0% to 56.5%), and three-point percentage (40.7% to 37.0%). For such a highly analytical team such as Houston, and one that prefers to maximize their efficiency from three-point land, this differential may have played a large role in their decision.

One reason why Parsons’ PER was a tick higher is because of his superior ball handling, passing, and distributing skills. No doubt, Houston loses a versatile wing that can play off the dribble, but with the ball-dominant James Harden at the two-guard, perhaps having a complementary piece like Ariza hovering around the perimeter could be a better fit.

Interestingly, Ariza was a 42.9% three-point shooter on spot up attempts last season, 5.1% better than Parsons, according to mySynergySports. Even though the differential is minimal, that only supports the assertion that Parsons isn’t worth the extra dough.

Ariza is also a superior defender and was completely snubbed in the All-Defensive Team voting, receiving only three total votes. Houston was 12th in the NBA last season with a 103.1 defensive rating, but perimeter defense was occasionally an issue — ahem, Harden — and Ariza (along with Beverley starting at point guard) will help solve that problem.

Parsons is a better all-around player because of his scoring versatility, age, and upside, but it’s arguable that Ariza is a better fit for Houston’s current situation, especially considering he’ll be $6.2 million cheaper next season (and $8.3 million less by year 3 of their contracts).

texasholdem · Post #18 » by **texasholdem** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:43 pm

Ariza is not going to get any better. He is already at 10 years in the league with his 6th or 7th team. He is what he is. A solid journeyman.

Parsons is just scratching the surface of what he can become. I think an extra 21 million over 3 seasons is worth investigating the possibilities.

Cuban has brought 2 very different teams to the finals. I think he's a better GM than Morey.

baki · Post #19 » by **baki** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:56 pm

BaYBaller wrote:Here's a nice article on Morey's thought process and end result of this offseason (assuming no more moves of course)

http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/2014/07/16/ ... ee-agency/

Terrible article,

"Jeremy Lin is an average backup point guard who occasionally struggled to run the offense, which is one reason why Patrick Beverley became their full-time starter in the playoffs. "

No, our bench was sucking in both playmaking and scoring, Houston basically used Beverley's defense to cover Harden and Lin's offensive and playmaking off the bench. Short term solution that didn't go so well considering that Lin still had to start 33 games anyway.

And to put things into perspective, who would Lakers have picked? Lin or Beverley?

Patrick Beverley, Nick Johnson, Troy Daniels, and Isaiah Canaan can all provide production at the point guard position.

This guy is just projecting, Beverley is not a scorer or playmaker, we haven't seen Johnson or Gentile play in the NBA yet, Daniels is no PG and neither is Canaan. This bench has no real guidance or experience to compete against other benches (ie. Spurs), and Houston has no confidence in them replacing Lin's production and influence on the team.

To say that depth is a problem for Houston completely underrates their current roster, and it ignores the possibility of more moves to come later this summer or during the season.

Houston basically lost a good chunk of the team's core for unknown results and mediocre players who barely played last season.

baki · Post #20 » by **baki** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:58 pm

texasholdem wrote:Ariza is not going to get any better. He is already at 10 years in the league with his 6th or 7th team. He is what he is. A solid journeyman.

Parsons is just scratching the surface of what he can become. I think an extra 21 million over 3 seasons is worth investigating the possibilities.

Cuban has brought 2 very different teams to the finals. I think he's a better GM than Morey.

Agreed, we'll see how the egos on the team work together on this one. Parsons will no doubt be happier with Dallas, I think anyone would be with Cuban as team owner and with a better basketball acumen than most owners in the league.