I mean, the value philosophy is legitimate, but there's no way to sugarcoat the fact that he really blew this draft. It would be better if he didn't already pick Patterson and Morris in the lottery, alongside of Donatas. A roster of 11 PFs doesn't win and a GM must either unload those players for greater value or help produce wins. Morey will likely not do either before he is inevitably fired.
Value or no value, he responded to massive holes in the roster by picking three players who do the same thing as his recent picks (while waiving the best player of said skill set on the roster), picking a wing who will replicate his best player's skill set (Lamb wasn't a replacement either: both Lamb AND Martin were rumored to be trade chips), AND instead of picking a PG or C (both huge positions of need with sure-things available when they drafted), they really gambled, possibly overpaid two guys who are hardly sure things to be the anchors of the team.
Ehh, I'm just not seeing it. The moves all made much more sense with an eye toward Dwight. In their current form, they look a little silly, but a guy like Omer Asik has been (according to most analysts) paid about correctly for what he should bring in defense and rebounding. Lin is, perhaps, an overpay but he's also a shrewd business move (the Rockets have begun to receive advertising revenue from Taiwanese companies already-- see
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8...pany-follows-rockets-guard-jeremy-lin-houston).
I don't understand why Lamb can't be a replacement AND a trade chip. That, to me, was the purpose of the Lamb/Jones/White picks. Pick guys that you're high on, and use them as trade bait, but should nothing work out you're left with a bunch of young talent that you like and a load a cap space.
The Scola waive is the one thing Rockets fans are still down on, but that was clearly to try to induce the Magic into a trade. They took a gamble, and they lost for bizarre reasons. It happens.
Morey may inevitably be fired--he has, after all, been the GM in Houston for quite some time--but I hardly think he's unskilled at his job or an immature GM. He's a little too coldly analytical sometimes (Chuck Hayes and Carl Landry are plus players, I swear!!!), but I think he "gets" the league and knows what it takes to win. Despite the Yao/T-Mac injury saga, he's put together several years of winning teams. This year will be his first shitty team, but it's a shitty team that's exceptionally well positioned for the future. And, to Morey's credit, he's always been a fantastic drafter. Marcus Morris is the only glaring recent pick that hasn't panned out, and in that same draft he still picked up Parsons and Motiejunas.
I'm defs a Morey fanboy. If you go over to the Houston boards, you'll see that public opinion is about split 50/50, but I'm defs on the Morey side. The "other" side, to me, just screams "let's a GM that can land a big player!!! and then we'll be awesome!!" Not going to happen by simply sweet talking a guy into playing for you.
