Never had a losing season. Never made the finals. Such an overrated and underrated tenure.

I will give Morey credit for two things:

1. Obvious answer is hit commitment to analytics, he changed the way teams are built in the NBA.

2. While many teams waited for the Warriors run to end, he went all in and said he is gonna try to beat them (and almost did)

But yes, he is a pretty overrated GM and probably wasted Harden's prime.

Deluxe said:

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Never had a losing season. Never made the finals. Such an overrated and underrated tenure.

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Lucking into the OKC Thunder Ownership refusing to pay luxury tax and having to trade one of their four stars covered up for lots of mistakes.

Really liked how open Morey was about talking about analytics and his thoughts on the game.

Really liked how Morey wasn't ever afraid to pull the trigger and try something different.

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1. Obvious answer is hit commitment to analytics, he changed the way teams are built in the NBA.

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Did he change the way teams are built? He changed the way HE built teams. But I don't see a lot of teams that are trying to build Rockets clones, either.

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2. While many teams waited for the Warriors run to end, he went all in and said he is gonna try to beat them (and almost did)

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Yep, definitely give him credits for trying to make the moves to win every year. But then again, the Heat lost the big three, never finished more than 5 games under .500, and made it back to the finals with a completely different team (minus the ageless Haslem) in 5 years. That's pretty damn impressive.

I think most fans prefer the Rockets technique to the 76ers tanknique, and then the 76ers didn't even work out.

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Did he change the way teams are built? He changed the way HE built teams. But I don't see a lot of teams that are trying to build Rockets clones, either.

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No one has been trying to clone the Rockets as of right now. But his influence stretches almost the entire league. Hell, the Mavericks hired a professional NBA gambler to be there Director of Quantitative Research and Development.

Morey (and D'Antoni) always gave great interviews. Obviously winning is the most important thing but it was nice having leadership that would actually talk to the media and weren't robots like BoB was.

I liked him. "Overrated" depends on your viewpoint. I think he was a good gm, but not great. Saying he wasted Hardens prime is foolish. James harden isn't a top 5 playoff performer. Great at the regular season, but limited during the playoffs. The only reason we know that is Morey consistently gave James the opportunity to show his fatal flaws. I'm not sure what he should have done except not trade CP3 for Westbrook...which I don't think was his call.

Now is the chance to reinvent who the rockets are. They are never going to win a title they are built. Not enough size

Funny enough, rockets probably never should traded Clint Capela

You can win without elite size.

You just aren't going to do it with Russ and Harden.

Imo Morey made 1 good move, and that was trading for Harden.

Every other move (signing Dwight Howard, trading lou will and trez for CP3, super maxing cp3, trading for RoCo, trading for westbrook, cutting Hartenstein, a serviceable cheap young big, for literally no reason...) ranged from questionable to bad.

How much of these moves were ham-strung or pre-empted by Tillman? No idea, and that's a fair consideration. Still, these moves were Morey's to make. And they failed.

I'd be curious to see him with another team to see if he treats draft capital as cheaply as he did in Houston.

M.C. Swag said:

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Imo Morey made 1 good move, and that was trading for Harden.

Every other move (signing Dwight Howard, trading lou will and trez for CP3, super maxing cp3, trading for RoCo, trading for westbrook, cutting Hartenstein, a serviceable cheap young big, for literally no reason...) ranged from questionable to bad.

How much of these moves were ham-strung or pre-empted by Tillman? No idea, and that's a fair consideration. Still, these moves were Morey's to make. And they failed.

I'd be curious to see him with another team to see if he treats draft capital as cheaply as he did in Houston.

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The CP3 trade was a really good one. We almost won a title if he doesn't blow a hammy. Now giving him a stupidly large contract and then trading it for Russ and offloading 2 picks was a terrible idea. I think that last part was Tillman though.

I liked Hartenstein, but he can't play defense without fouling so I was ok with losing him.
Trading Capella for Roco is a wash for me. They are both valuable players in the right system.


I think you have to give Morey credit for keeping the franchise in the hunt every year. Unless you had Lebron, Leonard or Curry you weren't going to win a title over the past 10 years. Is that Morey's fault?

AG@RICE said:

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M.C. Swag said:

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Imo Morey made 1 good move, and that was trading for Harden.

Every other move (signing Dwight Howard, trading lou will and trez for CP3, super maxing cp3, trading for RoCo, trading for westbrook, cutting Hartenstein, a serviceable cheap young big, for literally no reason...) ranged from questionable to bad.

How much of these moves were ham-strung or pre-empted by Tillman? No idea, and that's a fair consideration. Still, these moves were Morey's to make. And they failed.

I'd be curious to see him with another team to see if he treats draft capital as cheaply as he did in Houston.

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The CP3 trade was a really good one. We almost won a title if he doesn't blow a hammy. Now giving him a stupidly large contract and then trading it for Russ and offloading 2 picks was a terrible idea. I think that last part was Tillman though.

I liked Hartenstein, but he can't play defense without fouling so I was ok with losing him.
Trading Capella for Roco is a wash for me. They are both valuable players in the right system.


I think you have to give Morey credit for keeping the franchise in the hunt every year. Unless you had Lebron, Leonard or Curry you weren't going to win a title over the past 10 years. Is that Morey's fault?

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The CP trade and the max deal have to be lumped together. You weren't getting CP3 w/o assuring him of that deal. It almost worked but you know what they say about getting close....haha.

As for Hartenstein, it's not a huge deal but it's one that lacked any logic imo. He had like a 30 pt triple double earlier in the year, was only like 21? 22?, 7ft tall, on i believe a league min contract. And Morey cut him to sign...*checks notes* David Nwaba.

I'm not saying he was a starting caliber player, but it's not like the rockets NEEDED to clear that roster spot. Plus, he at least has the range and size to play against LA in a pinch if PJ needed a spell.

Whatever success he had with keeping the rockets in the hunt i think stemmed from that 1 (admittedly) great move; getting Harden. He should get credit for making that move, and I give it to him, but he had to pillage every future resource to chase 1 bad signing/trade after another.

I think in his pursuit of efficient shots, he forgot that sometimes you have to take inefficient ones. When teams gameplanned to take away the good shots, they were left without anyone who could make the mid range stuff.

Except for CP3, who they traded.

DubFalls said:

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I think in his pursuit of efficient shots, he forgot that sometimes you have to take inefficient ones. When teams gameplanned to take away the good shots, they were left without anyone who could make the mid range stuff.

Except for CP3, who they traded.

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Also, if a team knows that you are either going to shoot a three or try for a layup, defense becomes easier.

Then you get a woefully inefficient player on a supermax that cannot hit 3s, but loves to try and the brilliant defense is to not guard the highest paid player on the floor and let him jack up shots.

Max Power said:

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Now that he's resigned I want him to write a book about every trade he offered that other teams rejected throughout the years. I always heard the other GM's would be beside themselves with the stuff he would offer.

I'm pretty sure the original trade offer for Westbrook was something like:

DM: I'll give you Chris Paul, 2 third round picks, an expiring contract of your choice, Jeff Bagwell, Bill O'Brien, and a bunch of stuff from the basement.

SP: No deal.

DM: Wait, I'll also eat an entire 6 foot subway sandwich on live tv, and you can stay at my house whenever you're in town.

SP: Keep talking...

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Would pre-order.

Could we get an Audible version narrated by former Rockets great Dikembe Mutumbo?

M.C. Swag said:

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AG@RICE said:

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M.C. Swag said:

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Imo Morey made 1 good move, and that was trading for Harden.

Every other move (signing Dwight Howard, trading lou will and trez for CP3, super maxing cp3, trading for RoCo, trading for westbrook, cutting Hartenstein, a serviceable cheap young big, for literally no reason...) ranged from questionable to bad.

How much of these moves were ham-strung or pre-empted by Tillman? No idea, and that's a fair consideration. Still, these moves were Morey's to make. And they failed.

I'd be curious to see him with another team to see if he treats draft capital as cheaply as he did in Houston.

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The CP3 trade was a really good one. We almost won a title if he doesn't blow a hammy. Now giving him a stupidly large contract and then trading it for Russ and offloading 2 picks was a terrible idea. I think that last part was Tillman though.

I liked Hartenstein, but he can't play defense without fouling so I was ok with losing him.
Trading Capella for Roco is a wash for me. They are both valuable players in the right system.


I think you have to give Morey credit for keeping the franchise in the hunt every year. Unless you had Lebron, Leonard or Curry you weren't going to win a title over the past 10 years. Is that Morey's fault?

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The CP trade and the max deal have to be lumped together. You weren't getting CP3 w/o assuring him of that deal. It almost worked but you know what they say about getting close....haha.

As for Hartenstein, it's not a huge deal but it's one that lacked any logic imo. He had like a 30 pt triple double earlier in the year, was only like 21? 22?, 7ft tall, on i believe a league min contract. And Morey cut him to sign...*checks notes* David Nwaba.

I'm not saying he was a starting caliber player, but it's not like the rockets NEEDED to clear that roster spot. Plus, he at least has the range and size to play against LA in a pinch if PJ needed a spell.

Whatever success he had with keeping the rockets in the hunt i think stemmed from that 1 (admittedly) great move; getting Harden. He should get credit for making that move, and I give it to him, but he had to pillage every future resource to chase 1 bad signing/trade after another.

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What an odd take. Completely sweeps over other really important and more important things that happened between the Harden signing and now such as getting PJ Tucker on an incredibly cap-friendly deal, drafting and development of Clint Capela, bringing Gordon in. Even things like bringing in and retaining Austin Rivers or Danuel House.

But nope... skip those and get straight into the rotating around marginal NBA talents Isaiah Hartenstein and David Nwaba.

Lol I brought up his biggest moves. Hartenstein was just the most recent one that I remember scratching my head at.

Listen if you disagree and think the world of Morey, that's fine. We're all allowed our opinions.

I think Nwaba will be better and more useful than Hartenstein. He play some serious D.

Guitarsoup said:

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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/rockets/article/Source-Rockets-GM-Daryl-Morey-to-step-down-15650368.php

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This is exactly what I expected my sister's cabbage patch doll to grow up and look like.

M.C. Swag said:

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Lol I brought up his biggest moves. Hartenstein was just the most recent one that I remember scratching my head at.

Listen if you disagree and think the world of Morey, that's fine. We're all allowed our opinions.

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Morey wasn't perfect but I think his record speaks for itself. I'll go out on a limb and say the Rockets were the best team across his tenure in aggregate that didn't win a Finals. He successfully rebooted and retooled on the fly like 3 or 4 times and were really never uncompetitive and never tanked. End of the day, the team was a quality product and entertaining the entire time he was in Houston... that's the product of way more than one good move.

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I'll go out on a limb and say the Rockets were the best team across his tenure in aggregate that didn't win a Finals

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But winning a finals is kind of the point, isn't it? The Rockets made it to two conference finals and zero NBA Finals.

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He successfully rebooted and retooled on the fly like 3 or 4 times and were really never uncompetitive and never tanked.

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Literally every team has rebooted several times. I'll say the three straight years of missing the playoffs wasn't that competitive, if challenging for a conference title is considered competitive. Most common season outcome was 1st round exit under Morey, followed by Semis exit, followed by missing the playoffs.

There are a lot of teams you would trade the last 14 seasons with.

How about Miami. Won the title the year before Morey was hired. Only had one real bad team while retooling from Wade+Shaq to Super Friends. Four Straight NBA Finals, then retooled again and make the NBA Finals agains this year. Heat missed the playoffs 4 times instead of the Rockets' 3 and only one of those seasons was really bad.

Dallas had that 67 win team that was pretty fun. Retools (new coach, new philsophy, new veteran leaders) and win the title, beating the SuperFriends. Retools again, only one real bad season, but miss the playoffs in 3 other seasons with records between .400 and .500. So four total playoff misses, fewer wins than the Rockets, but a championship and a team with a 21yo All-NBA First team star. So some less exciting seasons, but they didn't mortgage their entire future to get a few more 50-win seasons. Rather be in the Mavs position right now than the Rockets.

Lakers retooled from Kobe-only to Kobe+Pau, then finally to Bron+Caruso. They had a string of ****ty seasons in between, but I think most people would trade 3 championships and 4 appearances for six seasons in the 20-30 win range. It helps to be LA.

Boston put together their big three for two Finals appearances and one title. They also made the Conference Finals four other times and only missed the playoffs once. So they retooled from ****ty Paul Pierce/Al Jefferson team to Garnett/Piece/Allen to Isaiah Thomas/Al Hortford team to the Kyrie Irving/Jason Tatum team to Tatum/Brown/Kemba/Gordon.

SA won in Morey's first year, had to completely change the team as their stars grew older and less effective, made great moves to acquire and develop a new star and made two straight finals and won one. Now in the middle of rebuilding again. Spurs made it to at least the conference finals six times while Morey was GM.

I'm not saying Morey is one of the worst GMs in the league by any means. But he wasn't as good as most Rockets fans believe. And we will see that over the next 3 years as the Rockets have to navigate the league without any young talent or assets. Was mortgaging the next 6 years worth the last 3? I would rather be where Dallas, LA, Boston, SA, Miami are right now and would rather have the young players and assets that a number of other teams that didn't have as good of a last decade as the Rockets.

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End of the day, the team was a quality product and entertaining the entire time he was in Houston... that's the product of way more than one good move.

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One huge great move can cover for lots of little bad moves. But nothing is going to be able to cover for the Westbrook trade.

Any team that won a finals automatically has been better than the Rockets since 2007. I won't argue that point.

But Morey did way more good than bad. Yeah the Harden trade was the best one but he made a ton a good moves to set up for that.

Good or bad for the NBA product itself, he pushed the envelope to get an edge both in how the Rockets incorporated analytics in their game plans and strategy and thru exploiting salary cap loopholes. It didn't all work out, but it's hard to look at Iowaaggie's post and say with a straight face that his tenor was over or underrated.

People love to talk about the Rockets luck because they got Harden for so little ignoring the fact it was on the open market where a lot of the other teams probably could have done something similar and had him. But the Rockets were vastly unlucky to be at their best when the Warriors were at their's. Yet nobody really brings up the Warriors luck in circumstances leaving them in a spot where they could get Curry on a long term contract fairly under market and set them up to be able to put together the team they had.

Good Poster said:

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I will give Morey credit for two things:

1. Obvious answer is hit commitment to analytics, he changed the way teams are built in the NBA.

2. While many teams waited for the Warriors run to end, he went all in and said he is gonna try to beat them (and almost did)

But yes, he is a pretty overrated GM and probably wasted Harden's prime.

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I completely agree with the bolded.

I'm not so sure about #1. I understand a lot of team's now shoot a ton of three pointers, but Im not sure if that is a good thing.

Earl Watson had a great interview where he stated that the analytics of taking a ton of 3 point shots doesn't quite work as well unless you have all time great shooters like the Warriors, or a James Harden.

ATM9000 said:

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Any team that won a finals automatically has been better than the Rockets since 2007. I won't argue that point.

But Morey did way more good than bad. Yeah the Harden trade was the best one but he made a ton a good moves to set up for that.

Good or bad for the NBA product itself, he pushed the envelope to get an edge both in how the Rockets incorporated analytics in their game plans and strategy and thru exploiting salary cap loopholes. It didn't all work out, but it's hard to look at Iowaaggie's post and say with a straight face that his tenor was over or underrated.

People love to talk about the Rockets luck because they got Harden for so little ignoring the fact it was on the open market where a lot of the other teams probably could have done something similar and had him. But the Rockets were vastly unlucky to be at their best when the Warriors were at their's. Yet nobody really brings up the Warriors luck in circumstances leaving them in a spot where they could get Curry on a long term contract fairly under market and set them up to be able to put together the team they had.

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I think Rockets fans generally regarded him as the top GM in the NBA. I think he was above average, but I don't think he was a top one. And I think that jumping on the Harden trade wasn't as much of him making craft moves, but being able to take advantage of a team in a bad spot. That's like not folding a full house.

Warriors' main luck was having that weird cap year so they could still sign Durant. But they won before that, and they won by drafting Steph, Clay, Harrison Barnes, and Draymond. The other big player on that first team was Iggy, who they traded a couple of first round picks and Dick Jefferson for. That was a pretty organic team. But they did get lucky with the Durant being a ***** and signing with the team that beat him thing. I guess you could say they were lucky by locking Steph into that 4y contract when he was having issues with his feet, before his game really took off.

There's luck in any GM moves', no doubt. I think Morey made as many dumb moves as good ones, maybe more. But being able to acquire an MVP-caliber player covers up for a lot of that.

Kellso said:

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Good Poster said:

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I will give Morey credit for two things:

1. Obvious answer is hit commitment to analytics, he changed the way teams are built in the NBA.

2. While many teams waited for the Warriors run to end, he went all in and said he is gonna try to beat them (and almost did)

But yes, he is a pretty overrated GM and probably wasted Harden's prime.

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I completely agree with the bolded.

I'm not so sure about #1. I understand a lot of team's now shoot a ton of three pointers, but Im not sure if that is a good thing.

Earl Watson had a great interview where he stated that the analytics of taking a ton of shots doesn't quite work as well unless you have all time great shooters like the Warriors, or a James Harden.

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Harden an all time great scorer? Sure. All-time great shooter? Not even close.

Kellso said:

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NickNaylor said:

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Kellso said:

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Good Poster said:

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I will give Morey credit for two things:

1. Obvious answer is hit commitment to analytics, he changed the way teams are built in the NBA.

2. While many teams waited for the Warriors run to end, he went all in and said he is gonna try to beat them (and almost did)

But yes, he is a pretty overrated GM and probably wasted Harden's prime.

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I completely agree with the bolded.

I'm not so sure about #1. I understand a lot of team's now shoot a ton of three pointers, but Im not sure if that is a good thing.

Earl Watson had a great interview where he stated that the analytics of taking a ton of shots doesn't quite work as well unless you have all time great shooters like the Warriors, or a James Harden.

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Harden an all time great scorer? Sure. All-time great shooter? Not even close.

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What is up with some of you guys on this site, and the nitpicking?? I swear some of yall act like females.

James Harden is an incredible 3 point shooter. Steph Curry might be the only player I've ever seen that can shoot 3's off the dribble better than Harden.

I don't need to look up his stats to confirm because the eye test is all I need.

Same with Luka. Some players like Luka and Harden have lower 3 point percentages than you might expect because of the sheer number of difficult 3 point shots they attempt.

My initial point remains the same. It might not be smart for a team to take a ton of three pointers if they don't have Steph Curry, James Harden or Klay Thompson.

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We are talking about analytics use, not the eye test of know-nothing fans.

Harden hit 35,5% this year from three. He hit 55,6% from two. He scored fewer points per possession when jacking up a three than shooting a two.

The NBA average is 1.1 points per possession throughout the season for every team across the league. The worst team averaged 1.052 points per possession.

When you are a 35% three point shooter, you average 1.05 points per possession (3*.35) - so roughly equal to the worst offensive team in the league. A guy like Steph Curry averages 1.31 points per possession on his career 43,5% shooting. A 37,0% shooter gets 1.11 points per possession, so that should be the minimum level for volume shooting. Harden has been below that mark each of the last 5 years and has only been above it twice.

As a team, Houston shot just 34,5% from three, or 1.035 points per possession.

The eye test doesn't mean much when talking about the analytics of basketball.

M.C. Swag said:

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lol dude, c'mon. I'm a Mavs fan and can't stand James Harden but using Steph Curry to argue that James Harden isn't a historically great shooter is ****ing nuts. He can literally shoot the ball from anywhere on the court and your analysis doesn't take into account the difficulty of the shots (which are high).

Plus, I think you're arguing different things. Your saying James isn't the most efficient shooter (which, fine, whatever), but his ability to shoot is undeniably great. Quick release, unlimited range, and can make it anywhere around the perimeter off dribble or catch and shoot.

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I'm not the one that brought up Curry.

Harden is an elite scorer. He's not an elite shooter. He does make shots from all over and does have a super wide variety of moves, which makes him hard to guard.

But he doesn't shoot at elite rates. He shoots at league average. That's not what you want from a guy that shoots volume threes. You let him utilize threes to make the defense keep serious on him. Maybe have some better shot selection so you waste fewer possessions, too.