But What If McHale *Succeeds*, Mr. Solomon?

Mostly I entirely dislike what he writes. But, with respect to this particular column, I think he is on the right track. No one disputes that Morey inherited a mess, and has made the most of it.

For better or worse, the currently assembled crew is entirely Morey’s team. Morey also essentially ‘fired’ a very successful coach – Rick Adelman, and is searching for a new coach. So, with full control over the entire hiring of the players, and the coach, it is Morey’s show.

There is nothing wrong with local columnists demanding accountability for the actions. I think Morey himself would agree that results are important.

What Solomon is doing is explicitly stating what most people in the NBA implicitly know. When something is not working you have to make changes. Rockets are trying out a new philosophy in recruitment of players and coaches – that is entirely Morey’s. When you try a new strategy, you judge it, by the results it produces. That should be fine.

I tend to ignore the undertone of what Solomon’s writing and in this instance, the success or the failure of this ball club now entirely rests with Morey. Let us see how this plays out.

I would rather read Solomon, than Justice (who has to make obsequious remarks about Les Alexander). He is at least antogonistic and buy into the Rockets line all the time, and is a poor man’s Fran Blinebury (with lot less talent in writing).

Kari

outcome of this McHale hiring. If we go with his past, then it is likely he will not succeed. When we hired Aldeman we did not know how it would work out either, but atleast we knew he had prior success with Portland and Sac, and that he was considered a good coach. Even though he did not have the baketball career Mchale had on the court, he still was respected by nba players as well. And everyone is saying Morey finally got Yao and McGrady off the books, but when we came to training camp last year McGrady was not on the roster, so this will be his second year without McGrady’s contract. And with Yao even though he got hurt the last two years, we got exceptions from the league and Morey still could not do anything with them. I like the pickup up Lowry,Lee,Dragic,Pat,T. Will, and even Bud, but if Morey would of got us the star that he thought he could with all the trade exceptions, expiring contracts, and draft picks we have recently had would we even have to be in this rebuilding state, and be forced to hire McHale.What about jeramine Taylor that was a waste of millions to aquire him, as it has also been with the signing of Llull who we also paid millions for and will probaly never play for us. If this does not work out then Morey does deserve some of the blame, and depending on his future moves, could also deserve to be fired if McHale is. The last two coach’s Les hired were proven coaches with prior success,(taking teams to the finals) so this move is what Morey mainly wants. And everbody is saying rebuild, for someone who just recently started being a Rocket fan its ok, but someone who has been watching them for over 20 years it kind of hard to take. After we won the two titles we have have multiple rebuilding attempts with no real success.

Classic troll, trolling for attention.

They don’t always go to inside sources or conduct extensive research to formulate an insightful and well-crafted article.
In instances like this, they aren’t any different from other sports fans.
The only difference is when they get the urge to pontificate, they get paid for it.

Isn’t he basically the NBA’s version of Billy Beane, GM of the Athletics. Famed for using higher math and statistics to find “diamonds in the rough” thus allowing a small market team to remain competitive in a league of rising salaries etc…

Problem with that logic is that when have the Athletics used their Moneyball tactics to actually WIN. Sure it’s smart, and competitive. But it has yet to prove successful.
Just like Beane, Morey has been successful at acquiring bargain talent, and developing them into NBA players (Landry,Brooks, Lowry, Scola etc.). But even he would say that you don’t win in this league without a superstar. Or sometimes two.

Morey’s a great doubles hitter. He needs to learn to swing for the fences.

and don’t you think he is just trying to be a dickhead. He lives in the past a lot.

  You’re really kidding, right? If the Rockets’ roster were really the envy of the league, don’t you think that teams would be lining up to trade for those assets? Why aren’t they offering great packages in return to get a piece of these assets?
  The Rockets have a couple of near All-Stars(Martin, Scola) and some good role players (Lowry, Lee, Budinger, Hayes). Why do Rocket fans continually overrate the players on this team? A major part of the reason that Morey’s been unable to make a trade for a top player is that other teams don’t believe these players are that valuable.

We only lack a Durant, LeBron, Rose or Howard. But the GMs that acquired each of those players will readily admit to being lucky there.

Durant was acquired by Seattle having the 4th worst record in the league (31-51).
Lebron was acquired by Cleveland with a tie for the worst record in the league (17-65).
Rose was acquired by Chicago having the 9th worst record in the league (33-49).
Howard was acquired by Orlando having the worst record in the league (21-61).

Only one of those examples stands out as being exceptionally lucky. I think the process for acquiring an elite talent in the NBA is pretty well-defined. That’s why I’m not optimistic with the “trade for an elite player” strategy the front office is pushing.

but it still gets us the best chance to land that young super-talent who can develop into a franchise player.

Trading will only net us older players with less upside or great role players. As we all agree, we need to get our #1 superstar first.