Just your quote on using Lin as a hedge for harden as your first reason. I just don’t think morey ever expected harden to be available at the time of signing and thought Lin could help us in multiple ways. Those being a soft tank, since we had to be competitive under les. Building up his trade value as a player being the starting pg. Just stating why I think he said it didn’t work out the way he planned
That makes sense. However, I think Morey is always looking for Harden type players, it took a bad mistake from Presti and Morey seized the opportunity like no other, thats what makes him a great GM.
Yeah absolutely agreed. I understand morey was constantly positioning himself to be ready for the opportunity. But the harden trade was so unique. trades don’t typically happen that close to season.
@Deuce -- nice reminder of the great Kicking the Can meme. It would have been so awesome of Morey to call the 2010-13 era "Our kicking the can down the road era," as tribute to his favorite poster, @DaDakota, and another tip of the hat to cfnet by using an infamous meme. btw: Am I the only one who was confused by Morey calling 08-09 his first trade deadline as The Man. Officially, he took over from CD in May '07, after one year as assistant starting in April '06. So, wasnt 07-08 his first year?
Nah, "What a maroon" is probably intentional. Right @ApacheWarrior It's a famous Bugs Bunny line. I've certainly used it before.
He already said it. Morris was tagged as having more potential prior to the draft, Kawhi was seen as Shawn Marion lite and had a role player ceiling. In college Kawhi only averaged 15.5 pts on 47% FG, 29% 3 pt. In the NBA (where hundreds of college stars become scrubs) Kawhi scored 49% FG and 38% 3 pt. Why do you think people say the Spurs made Kawhi? If everybody knew he can shoot 38% from 3 in the NBA Kawhi would have been top 5 pick easily.
Say what you will but Kawhi looked awfully good carrying that San Diego State team in the tournament. Had handles and could take it to the hole.
The one I can’t do is Morey. I respect the GM too much to butcher his name. I would never actually call ballscientist1 a moron. Being a scientist and all that.
If he had handles and could take it to the hole how come he only averaged 47% FG and 29% from 3? By comparison Adam Morrison had 28 pts on 52% FG and 47% 3 pt how did that work out?
My point exactly. Handles+Taking it to the hole=47% FG. Didn’t say anything about 3pt %. And yes, would take Kawhi any day over Morrison coming out of college. More upside.
My point is 47% FG in college is nothing in the NBA, Morrison had better handles and could take it to the hole more thats why he had 52% FG but that didnt translate into the NBA. If somebody like Morrison will be a scrub despite shooting a better percentage then how will Kawhi be seen as a "high upside" guy? Upside with Kawhi coming out of college is an oxymoron, like I said everyone had him pegged as a role player because his shooting was bad. Look at MKG, in college both guys were leagues apart but in the NBA Kawhi turned out to be so much better because of his elite shooting.
That's the thing though. He's very open in a fan accessible way, but doesn't reveal anything that would actually give away his edge or detriment his job performance. From a PR perspective sure maybe he should say less. But I like hearing his insights, especially way back ones in hindsight
Fits in with their mantra of "signing risky vets" as he put it. They were buying on Lin's tremendous performance, advanced stats, and team effect, which were all off the charts during Linsanity. But it was a really small sample size. That's probably one of the biggest analytics GM's struggle with - how much to buy into what they see in limited minutes. Though Morey did mention Lin not working here was due to things out of Jeremey's control. He said he would elaborate later, but it never came up again. Would have been interesting to hear, maybe some combination of coaching/Harden/injuries?
