<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>HOUSTON -- Before becoming an NBA executive, Daryl Morey was a high school basketball player with a dependable jump shot. Well, maybe his jumper wasn't all that reliable. </p> "I was pretty unremarkable," Morey admitted.</p> The same can't be said about his transition into the Rockets' front office. With a computer science degree from Northwestern and an MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the new Rockets' general manager has a different background than most sports executives. That has not stopped him, however, from quickly putting his stamp on the Rockets in his first off-season. </p> The Rockets have been one of the league's most active teams this summer, naming Rick Adelman as the franchise's new coach and adding guards Steve Francis and Mike James as well as power forward Luis Scola. With those moves and the re-signing of free agents Bonzi Wells and Chuck Hayes, the Rockets are optimistic that they've narrowed the gap on the Western Conference's top teams heading into the season.</p> This, of course, is what Morey was hired to do. But how he got here and how he is doing it is unlike any other general manager in the game. The Rockets general manager uses traditional methods like any other team, but is attempting to create a sustainable edge by applying objective information to personnel decision-making. This is a concept most notably praised in the famed book Moneyball about Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane. While Beane's approach was celebrated for his ability to build playoff-caliber teams without overspending like big market clubs, a principal of Moneyball is to find undervalued assets relative to the market that allow a team to maximize wins under cap constraints. </p> <p align="left">That's a philosophy that Morey is pioneering into the NBA.</p><p align="left">"We're not doing anything new," Morey said. "General Managers have forever been trying to figure out which players are going to fit into their system and create wins. We're doing the same thing. We're making the same decisions, but we're trying to make them better. We're trying to differentiate ourselves by more accurately forecasting a player's production by using information from the past."</div> </p><p align="left">Source: Rockets.com</p>
I like what the Rockets have done. First of all, I've always loved the way Adelman coaches teams. Too bad he never won a championship, but he comes close to them, so thats a good thing for a team. lol</p> Second, Bonzi will play, lets say, about 10x better now that Rick is the coach. He was a beast against the Spurs in the playoffs when he was with the kings and adelman was the coach. I also see Tmac and Yao improving their game under the new offense. Rick knows how to use centers. (we all know yao is much better than divac) </p> This team is going to be very underrated. I see them being a top 4 team in the west. And who knows, maybe even beat the celtics for the rings. </p>
