Records don’t say everything in this league. They distinguish the boys from the men; the contenders from the non-contenders. Come playoff time, there’s quite a large gap between the first seed and the eighth seed. The Miami Heat are a better team than the Milwaukee Bucks, if you can believe it.
But, one thing that the NBA records don’t show right now, is that the Houston Rockets are at the apex of the league right now.
They’re seventh in the Western Conference and thirteenth in the NBA record-wise, but that doesn’t really matter. Every thing is going right for them. From the front office down to the end of the bench where Scott Machado typically sits, this franchise is a template for how NBA teams should be run and built. But this isn’t because Kevin McHale is one of the leagues best coaches(which he isn’t) or because James Harden is a tenacious being and exceeding all expectations(which he is).
It’s because of Daryl Morey.
Morey is one of the most knowledgeable men in the NBA and there’s no disputing it. He’s an analytic but has a brilliant basketball mind (and if you disagree Zach Lowe of Grantland.com’s sitdown with him at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference this week). The general public didn’t see much of Morey’s basketball genius in the opening years of his tenure, which were clouded by T-Mac injuries and poor shot selections paired with Yao Ming’s unfortunate decline. Again, the general public didn’t see it. It was there, though.
Morey began his General Manager stint officially in 2007, and since then has not put together a sub-.500 team, even with Mcgrady’s surgeries and the Yao Ming foot conundrum.
He was handed the team from now former Rockets GM Carroll Dawson, who led the franchise for eleven years through the abyss and bitter darkness that is Houston sports. But, when Dawson passed down the GM position to the then-assistant Daryl Morey, the team had already been put together.
Now, we’re getting to see, in depth, Morey’s basketball intelligence and intangibles.
The James Harden blockbuster deal in October that Morey had dictated headlines a series of dexterous moves that have placed him up on the pedestal of NBA front office executives and general managers alike. Other moves include the drafting of Chandler Parsons,(who’s quietly fitting into a perfect role and averaging 15 points per game), with the 38th pick in 2011 draft, the offseason signing of Omer Asik, a man of very few words but an abundance of rebounds(11.6 RPG), and the sly deadline move for the 2012 fifth overall draft pick, Thomas Robinson, at the deadline, in which he Maloofed the Maloofs in Maloofing. He also drafted a promising Lithuanian forward in Donatas Motiejunas who continues to develop.
While building a roster that’s going to cause matchup problems and be a legitimate threat in the playoffs, he’s also stockpiling young assets, one after another. While doing so, he’s also freeing up a substantial amount of cap room to make a push for one of this summer’s free agent big men, Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum.
A model for General Manager’s in the NBA, Morey will continue to do more of the same: build efficient rosters in short-term and long-term consideration, while keeping his teams among the league’s most competitive.
