A Deliberate Discussion Of Daryl Morey

I believe that the contract negotiations with Carl Landry proved that Morey will not hastily pay above the market rate to retain his own players. Morey could have moved quickly to resign Landry at the price of his (agent’s) demands, but instead, he opted to wait until Charlotte set the market rate. This patience is in stark contrast to the practice of Morey’s predecessor (see: Norris, Moochie; Maloney, Matt etc.)

via Discerning Morey’s Philosophy | Red 94.

An absolutely amazing dissection of the history of Daryl Morey at Red94, the new Rockets blog for THN.

People will often look to oversimplify Morey into nothing but a number-crunching dork, but the Landry contract extension was a great example of how shrewd Morey is. Morey had no intention of letting him walk. But instead of rushing into discussions, Morey established what his value was to the team, and when Landry tried to over-extend his value, Morey stared him down. Being able to make those kinds of decisions and working to only pay for the right value is a way more important skill than the crapshoot that is drafting.

I’m fascinated by the idea of Morey with all that cap room. He’s done so much with so little, you wonder if he’ll opt to add a premier piece, one that we can easily identify as a no-brainer, or if he’ll instead add multiple assets to work in the system. Will he overpay for someone we don’t think is that good but whose numbers are high? Has our understanding of advanced metrics put us in a place to see where Morey’s coming from? Will he fail when he has to acquire a star? So many questions. The Rockets have become science, full of discoveries and rote assumptions, but still full of drama and a big tall Chinese dude.

Oster-Tags: Carl Landry, Houston Rockets, nicetrylandry