PrintQ&A with Daryl Morey
Rockets' GM discusses summer of 2010, trade deadline and more
Jason Friedman
Rockets.com Staff WriterHOUSTON - Every couple weeks, Rockets.com sits down with general manager Daryl Morey to get his thoughts on everything Rockets-related. If you've got a question for the GM, send it to us (email link at bottom) and we'll try to get it answered next time.
JCF: Less than two weeks to go until the trade deadline, so let’s start with that. Is this year’s deadline unique due to the current economic circumstances surrounding it?
DM: I think there are three things which may make it very active at the trade deadline. One is the playoff teams and non-playoff teams are fairly well-defined, more than usual at this point. Then there’s the economy obviously and the salary cap will likely be flat to lower, and then I think a lot of teams are trying to set up for the 2010 free agent class. So there will likely be a lot of contractual trades which will not be basketball-related, and contractual deals are generally easier to consummate.
JCF: Since you brought it up, I have to ask: Has the whole summer of 2010 thing been blown completely out of proportion?
DM: It's overrated. The most important thing is getting good players at good contracts. We’re not saving up for 2010. If there’s an opportunity to get a good player who has money into or after 2010, we won’t hesitate at all. We obviously have kept our flexibility there, but we’re always trying to keep our salary flexibility; but it’s not for 2010 or 2009 or 2011, it’s that we don’t want to bring anyone in unless they’re a good player at a good contract.
I feel like the league thinks that LeBron’s commercial is real – that there are five LeBrons in 2010. A lot of teams are planning for a big free agent, but then will overspend on a marginal one when they miss out, which is about as big a mistake as you can make.
Also, we’re trying to win with this core. There’s no "wait for 2010" plan.
JCF: I know you can’t talk specifics about deals you may or may not be working on, but something else has always fascinated me about this time of year: With all the various media outlets, blogs and 24/7 news cycles, how on earth do you manage to play things close to the vest and keep secrets this day and age?
DM: You know what? Playing things close to the vest is overrated, too. There are some teams that employ a real close to the vest style, but that style also makes it difficult for them to get anything done. So for as much as you might get the once every five years trade where someone shockingly offers you way more than you would be willing to expect for a player on your roster because you’ve been so quiet for years and years, for that limited advantage you are dramatically decreasing your liquidity of actually getting trades done to address your priorities.
So, to me, close to the vest is overrated and 2010 is overrated.
JCF: Okay, well that begs the question: What are your priorities then?
DM: (laughs) That is a good follow-up. You’re good at this. Let’s see… I’ll give a typical GM answer: I should have said it’s important for the other GMs to know your priorities, not necessarily the media (laughs).
JCF: That’s crushing, Daryl. That really is disappointing.
DM: I’m sorry. It’s typical GM stuff, but it’s true. We’re trying to add very good players. We’re happy to have a promising future with a lot of good young talent, but we’re trying to win. So we want to continue to add good players who we think can help us out in the playoffs. That’s No. 1. Other priorities, I’ll keep to myself (laughs).
JCF: Fair enough. How about this then: Is there any way you can put a percentage on the likelihood of pulling off a significant deal before the deadline as opposed to one which is more a minor housecleaning move?
DM: I think it’s pretty unlikely [we’ll make a major move]. You have to be opportunistic, but generally those don’t happen too often.
JCF: What’s your biggest concern with the team right now?
DM: I think it’s really a two-part answer to that. One, the offense is the biggest thing that’s preventing us from being a championship-caliber team. I think, for us, that’s the No. 1 priority. Our defense has been poor, but we know we can recover that and we’ve put a lot of priority on shoring that up since it’s slipped recently. We know we’ve been good at that in the past and that’s what we’ve hung our hat on, so we need to get back to that, but at the same time, the offense has been the ongoing problem for the past five years. We’ve always been middle of the pack and you can’t be middle of the pack and win the Finals.
When we’ve had everyone available and played inside-out with Yao, we’ve been good enough. But it’s been rare.
JCF: What, in your mind, is the biggest misconception surrounding this team?
DM: One, that we’re waiting for 2010. That’s been driving me crazy so I’ll happily get that out there. What else? I don’t know (laughs). I generally don’t know the conceptions, so I don’t know what the misconceptions are. Tell me the conceptions and I’ll tell you which ones are missed.
JCF: Well here’s one: I think there’s a general feeling that Tracy and Ron can’t consistently play well while they’re on the floor at the same time.
DM: There’s no doubt they can. When they’ve played together healthy, they’ve played well. But the time they’ve been together has been rare.
I would say there’s a lot of uncertainty about that since it hasn’t happened much, but we still feel confident that it can work. I mean, Ron hasn’t been Ron. Tracy hasn’t been Tracy, Shane hasn’t been Shane. Not only have they not been together, but even when they’ve been together, it’s been one nagging injury after another. It’s been frustrating.
JCF: Do you feel confident that they’ll be themselves the second half of the season?
DM: It doesn’t matter, right? It is what it is. As far as our team planning, we’re factoring in our best guesses of getting back to the level we need for our trade priorities, but whether I’m confident or not it doesn’t change the reality.
JCF: I heard you discussing something the other day that I found to be fascinating. You were talking about “high leverage moments” late in games. Can you go into the meaning of that term and how it relates to the Rockets?
DM: I don’t want to go into details since it’s somewhat proprietary, but it basically looks into what people would consider key moments of the game, where the chance of one team winning or the other would shift dramatically. We just add a little more sophistication to it, that’s all.
JCF: And the Rockets have been very poor in that area, correct?
DM: Yeah, we’ve been last out of all the playoff teams and we’ve been even worse recently. So we have to address that. I think we might see Aaron a little more, because he’s had some success in those situations.
JCF: But I imagine a big part of getting better depends on Tracy getting back to being Tracy?
DM: Yeah, that’s the most important thing. I mean, we’re not counting on Aaron. We’re expecting Tracy to get back to that role.
JCF: How have you been in recent years in that area?
DM: We haven’t been the worst, but we’ve not been good. Below average.
JCF: So if history indicates you’ve been below average and you’ve been even worse this year, do you feel like it’s realistic to expect that to change?
DM: That’s why we’re looking at things like Aaron, and also coach may try to get Tracy into better situations.
JCF: I also know you’re a big believer in capitalizing on 2-for-1 situations at the end of quarters. How do you think the team has embraced and executed that philosophy?
DM: History would show that even two bad shots are better than one. That said, there are game situations which dictate whether it’s a good idea to get a shot off and we trust coach to make those calls. If it’s something where we’ve got a good 8-10 seconds to get a good shot then he often goes for it. If not, his philosophy isn’t to just launch anything, because he wants the team to stay focused on always getting a good shot.
In the grand scheme, the 2-for-1 – if you do it consistently, at it’s best it probably only shifts one game every two years. So it’s not a huge factor and we trust coaches decision making.
JCF: Have you shaken off the Memphis game yet?
DM: I’m still trying to shrug it off. Those games are devastating on so many levels – team confidence, etc. Those are games we need to win to get in the playoffs. Losing games that are expected wins hurt you in two ways. Not only does it likely mean one less win at the end of the season, it also tells you you’re not nearly as good as you want to be. They shift how good of a team you probably are more than anything else, just as big wins on the road against good teams tell you that you are a high quality team.
We’ve had the highs and lows. We’ve had two of the best wins in the NBA this year – beating Orlando in Orlando and beating Boston in Boston – and we’ve had at least two of the worst losses. If you look at the league as a whole at this point, we’ve got four of the extremes.
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