In-season Moves
Daryl Morey is helping us forget his awful offseason
Jan 22, 2019, 10:50 pm
In-season Moves
Twenty games into the season, it was easy to see that the Rockets were in trouble. Sitting at 9-11 - with two separate four-game losing streaks along the way - it was apparent that the squad that had just six months ago made it to within a game of the NBA Finals was nowhere to be found. The Rockets looks listless and solutions weren't exactly forthcoming.
It was baffling to most. How could a team go from the league-best regular season record to a sub .500 team the following year? Even more confounding was how a team assembled by general manager Daryl Morey could look so competitively unequipped.
Morey has built a reputation among the league as one of the more adept front office chess players. From the acquisitions of James Harden and Chris Paul, to savvy free agent pickups like Luc Mbah a Moute just last year, Morey has built up enough credibility among fans that everyone simply assumes that most of his moves will work out more often than not. None of that turned out to be this case this past offseason, however.
Morey began the summer by immediately losing starter Trevor Ariza and breakout forward Mbah a Moute to free agency. He spent most of the offseason playing chicken with center Clint Capela with contract negotiations, while signing as of now underwhelming forward James Ennis to plug a two-man hole. He took a gamble on Michael Carter-Williams and lost. He managed to offload Ryan Anderson's albatros of a contract, but in exchange for a benchwarmer and a guy who hadn't played in almost two years due to injury.
This was easily the worst offseason Morey had orchestrated in recent memory.
But instead of wallowing, Morey went to work. And while he may have whiffed on the 2018 offseason, it's his in season dealings that could be priming the Rockets to be one of the deepest teams in the league by the time the playoffs arrive.
Injuries have decimated the Rockets all season, yet they've also forced the team to be proactive in finding replacements to remain competitive. Forward Danuel House was called up from Houston's G-League affiliate at the end of November after injuries put the gametime status of both Gerald Green and Chris Paul into question. During what turned out to be a cup of coffee-long stint in the NBA, House averaged 25 minutes per game, shot 39% from three-point range, averaged 9 points per game and provided a spring and hustle that the underperforming Rockets had been lacking.
The House move turned out to be only the start for Morey. Roughly a month later Chris Paul suffered a hamstring injury, and with the Rockets' starting point guard projected to be out for a significant amount of time Morey went back to work. He seized the opportunity to grab point guard Austin Rivers, a seven year veteran that had been recently (and fortuitously) waived by the Phoenix Suns upon acquiring him in a trade with the Washington Wizards. The Suns were intent on remaining young and building their roster from within, leaving Rivers on without much room to be of any service. Upon joining the Rockets, Rivers has averaged 37 minutes per game, along with a 35.9% average from three.
The most recent move, however, may turn out to be the most significant of them all. Two weeks ago when the Rockets lost center Clint Capela, they not only lost 14.3% of their offensive production, they also lost the majority of their rebounding and interior defense. Unlike the other two moves where the Rockets could simply ask a warm body to stay in front of their man and get open from three while James Harden took on the entire opposing team, Capela's injury was far less replaceable It became clear that G-league call up Isaiah Hartenstein was not going to be able to shoulder the load for the next 4-6 weeks, and yet another move would need to be made.
Once again, Morey made it happen. While Capela's injury was devastating news to the Rockets, the timing could have been far worse. As Capela went in for surgery on his thumb, the wheels were simultaneously in motion a timezone away for a Nets buyout of forward Kenneth Faried's contract. Faried had been traded to the Nets by the Nuggets over the summer in a salary shedding move, and the Nets never took the time to find the uber-athletic "Manimal" a spot in the rotation. Faried cleared waivers Monday morning, immediately signed with Houston, and contributed 13 points and 6 rebounds later that night in 31 minutes of work.
Each move so far has been made out of absolute necessity, but once Houston is healthy the Rockets could be dealing with a level of depth that not even their 65-win predecessors of a year ago could contend with. The trick now is for Morey to remain active, especially as the trade deadline looms. Despite the shrewd acquisitions of Rivers and Faried, Houston is still very shallow at the small forward position. Acquiring a defensive minded wing with range could very well put the Rockets in position for another deep playoff run. It's time to trust Morey once again though, as he has proven able to shake off a poorly executed offseason and positioned the Rockets to effectively weather these injury-riddled winter months.
Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.
Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.
“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”
Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.
“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”
The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.
“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”
A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.
Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”
“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”