Meh. There's a type of old-school mindset in some sports fans that makes them THINK the "Moneyball" approach is wrong. You can just picture the crusty old coach saying, "You can have all the new-fangled computers and calculators you want, but they'll never tell you as much about a player as looking him in the eye!" The fact is: The Rockets may rely heavily on statistics, but they combine that data analysis with actual scouting by live human beings. And Morey has said on many occasions that while he, the coach and the owner make decisions on which players to acquire (and conversely, who to let go), the coach makes ALL the decisions on who gets playing time.
if you followed this guys reasoning, if james and wade went down with career ending injuries, it would be pat riley's gm approach that is at fault for miami's poor performance
Zero discussion of the facts that drove many of the decisions the last few years. Blah blah blah, Sixer fans are not buying it and we shouldn't either. Go Rockets!
Considering the ineptitude with which the author analyzed Houston's situation, it's not surprising that he doesn't understand the value of analytics in sports. Your 'crusty old coach' bit is spot-on. The thing that frustrates me most is that there's such a pervasive misunderstanding about what basketball analytics are. You hear ridiculous nonsense like 'Moreyball doesn't work! Some players only score a bunch because they take too many shots!' as though our front office just makes personnel decisions based on what they read in the newspaper box score.
negative. We have the best GM in the history of NBA that managed us wining every single season. Our goal is the championship even though our best record is the 9th team in a very competitive western conference. The record makes us so proud.
Did the A-holes in Philly not remember 2007 to the Summer of 2012??? Maybe they should look in the mirror before they start criticizing other GM's in the business. Oh, and analytics has nothing to do with it. Look at their roster after AI was traded in 2006. Looks pretty damn similar to the 2012 Rockets if you asked me. 5 years later, and they finally land a marquee player. However that player is on a one year contract, just had some German knee surgery procedure, and is already on the IR. Oh, and the players they have drafted in the meantime during their rebuilding years... Some quality players, but I sure as hell haven't seen anyone claim that Jrue Holiday is the next great young star or anything. I personally dont think the 76er's are any closer to winning a title than the Rockets are. Yeah, you traded for Bynum, but dont count your winnings just yet. He hasn't signed anything, and banking on his health is like betting on green in Roulette. But go ahead and pick on analytics if that makes you feel better since thats the only tool Morey uses to run his basketball team.
Relax, John. There is no need to get defensive. Tony DiLeo will not win the most clueless GM in the league title by season's end. Young "sexy" Robbed Hannigan has that on lockdown. You will have your chance to write an article on how wrong things can go when you try to go "sexy" soon enough, one that doesn't make you look like a complete r****d.
I'm impressed with how much revisionist history and misinformation this guy managed to cram into one article. They actually pay him a salary to mislead the Philly public in this way? It's not just the criticism of the analytics, but pretty much everything he says the Rockets did didn't actually happen as he describes.
To be fair, Morey was honest in saying he didn't want to tank to be better. We've gotten good players every year. We've got a good, young core without tanking.
LMAO Analytics doesn't work? Its really funny reading articles like these, because for some reason while America tends to have some of the brightest minds known to man, you also have this anti-intellectual thing going on, where people take a dump on a guy for being smart. Ha-ha, Murray went to college at MIT! What a loser Ok, let's assume that Analytics doesn't work, so you drop Morey and want to go get another guy. What exactly does this "new" dude have over Morey? I mean, what tool is there that you can follow if you hate Analytics? It should be like MMA right, if you don't like wrestling then there's jiu-jitsu, if you don't like boxing there's muay-thai...then there should be some sort of method that runs counter to analytics...right? This here is the crux of the problem: there is no alternative to analytics. Sure, some people on the board will say "Old school bball knowledge", but wtf does that even mean? At the end of the day, if you don't use analytics then all you're really doing is eye-balling the dude and using hunches or gut feel to find out which player will perform, and that's something Morey can do as well. Sure, some GMs have built dynasties without analytics like West, Riley, Kupchak and Krause, but those guys seem to be special. If you don't have one of those legendary names in front of you, then how do you know the guy you're interviewing is another West or another Otis Smith? You won't really know until you've wasted 10+ years waiting around and discovered your franchise was run into the ground. This is why you're seeing less and less ex players become GMs, and more and more analytics gurus taking their places. As of right now, the Spurs, Rockets, Dallas, Bobcats, NO, Wolves,OKC and Boston either have a $ball guy or rely heavily on Analytics to support their basketball decisions. Because at the end of the day, you want someone like Morey who can both crunch numbers AND guess, than someone like Bird or Jordan who will just guess.
You know the funny thing is that going into this pre-season it was pretty obvious to me that our track was to go was to go back to the lottery and rebuild. After watching some games I'm starting to think that this team could win 40 games even with a roster of players that features zero players that have started on an NBA roster for more than a season. Morey's ability to spot talent is pretty much irrefutable. It's also ironic to hear this from Philly a team that is basically stuck in the same problem only that they have the good fortune to be in the East where a middling team gets you a 7th seed instead of a 9th.
Can someone photoshop Morey's face on the Dalai Lama? Would it be blasphemy to the Tibetan Buddhists?
