Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey Sees High-Profile Status as Part of the Job

The headlines found Daryl Morey again, though in this case even he had to admit he found the headlines.

This time, as if there was one more bit of business to address before he could allow the offseason to make way for the preseason, the Houston Rockets’ high-profile general manager crossed swords with even more celebrated Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, and the basketball corner of the Internet lit up, as Morey undoubtedly knew it would.

Those lights have found him before.

No NBA general manager elicits more opinions from one extreme to the other, with most of those judgments not about moves he has made or record on the floor but on how decisions are perceived to have been made.

Heading into his eighth season running the Rockets, Morey insists he is uncomfortable to be viewed, as he is, as a symbol for a way of doing things as the face of the analytics movement. But he also has often said that is the Rockets’ goal—to be on the “cutting edge” of new techniques—the very goal that inspired Rockets owner Leslie Alexander to surprisingly pluck him from the Boston Celtics’ management staff.

He also does not agree with the suggestion that he has become something of a celebrity, arguing that all NBA general managers are similarly well-known in their markets. But put Morey in a lineup with fellow GMs Neil Olshey, David Griffin, Ryan McDonough and even the San Antonio Spurs’ R.C. Buford, and Morey would be the most easily recognized and the subject of the widest range of opinions.

“Generally I would say—and not just with me—there has been more focus on the role of the general manager,” Morey said. “If you play a basketball video game or a football video game, a major component of that game is being a general manager. That’s the dynamic there.”

Still, he is very much of his times. He is active on Twitter. He invites interaction. He will be involved with public activities, from a chess event with grand master Susan Polgar to a now-famous Las Vegas table tennis tournament. The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference he founded has grown into an enormous, go-to event for statistical analysts.

L. Barry Hetherington/Associated Press

Morey, however, insists his high profile is part of the job.

“For me, I think a lot of the interest in the team is around not just the play, but what goes into the play, coaching, general manager-ing, strength conditioning, everything,” he said. “I think the trend is very strong that more accessibility drives more interest and more interest means more people buying tickets, more people watching. To me, you will see more and more coaches, general managers, everybody involved, provide more accessibility to drive interest.

“I think about it that way, but for sure you can reasonably choose other paths. I’m not advocating. I do think in 20 years, 26 out of 30 GMs will be on social media like I am. We like to be somewhat ahead of the curve on all our processes. It will be the rare coach, the rare GM in 20 years, who are not actively interacting with fans with whatever the leading social media platform will be in 20 years.”

Still, with the attention that comes his way and a track record that includes just one playoff series win, there are as many misconceptions as there are opinions.

Public as he can be, he also does not chase celebrity in other ways, almost always refusing on-camera interviews and rarely speaking after games. Even before agreeing to an interview for this story, he said, “Can we make it about the Rockets? I hate stories about me.”

His use of analytics has led many to consider him a slave to the numbers, but he also does as much on-site, traditional scouting as any GM, saying he copied Danny Ainge’s routine, not knowing at the time that it was not typical. He has an extensive analytics staff but insists on a balance with traditional scouts.

Though he will push back strongly when he considers statements to be inaccurate, as evidenced again with his shots back at Cuban, he said he does not care when assumptions are made about him, except in cases where it impacts team-building.

“You have to worry about the optics in terms of how it drives interest in the team and free agents,” Morey said. “The president is on Twitter. Every future president will be on Twitter. Most important is getting the wins and losses right, the results, obviously, but in the sense that it might shape opinions and drive free agency, you do have to worry about the optics more than people might think necessary.”

He said that is why he chose to take on Cuban, who has long since mastered using celebrity unlike any other NBA owner. Wanting to rebut recent comments, Morey told Yahoo Sports that if the money was equal, free agents would choose the Rockets over Cuban’s Mavs every time. He vehemently disputed Cuban’s charge that Morey does not value chemistry as much as the Mavericks. And he inspired another day of jabs, though this time for comic effect, from Cuban.

“I think it’s very smart of him to do that because we’re in competition for free agents,” Morey said in a similar interview last week. “If he can come up with something that is completely untrue and have people write it, then I think that’s smart of him. Mark is a great owner, one of the best in sports. He is smart and strategic in everything he does.

“I get disappointed when he is not asked the follow-up question, ‘If you believe in chemistry, why do you break up a championship team for no return down the road? If you believe in chemistry, why do you have as much turnover as teams you say you have less turnover than?’ I think what Mark is doing is very intelligent. I get disappointed in the media that doesn’t ask the simple follow-up questions.”

Cuban had seemed to get under Morey’s skin with his retort after Morey said that Chandler Parsons’ contract—with the right to refuse any trade the first season and opt out after two seasons—made him untradeable. Cuban said that the Mavericks would not sign a player to trade him.

“That just says so much about the difference,” Cuban told KTCK-AM 1310. “They looked at every player as an asset. That asset was a step toward getting another asset. We look towards how do you build a team. Chemistry matters to us. Culture matters to us.”

A year earlier, however, when writing in his blog about the risk if the Mavericks had signed Dwight Howard and the belief it would work, Cuban added, “If not, he was obviously a very trade-able asset.”

There has actually been extensive coverage, especially in Dallas, of the Mavericks breaking up their championship team and their extensive roster turnover, but that was last summer’s popular narrative. This summer, criticism has moved down I-45 to Houston and its failed attempts to land a third star and aborted plan to keep Parsons.

With the attention that moved to Houston with the trade for James Harden and successful long pursuit of Howard also came the backlash when the Rockets went all-in for a third star, came up empty and let Parsons walk. Almost all of those recriminations were directed at Morey.

“The last two summers have been, ‘The Rockets are geniuses, can do nothing wrong,’” Morey said. “So, the inevitable tumble makes for a natural anti-article. 'They are a bunch of idiots; they can’t do anything right.’ It’s natural.”

Morey does share the extremes of public reaction with all general managers and contends he has no quarrel with that reality. He was clearly annoyed at the notion that other, more specific charges might stick if left unanswered.

“It bothers me,” Morey said, “if I think it’ll impact how it might affect wins or losses, what people make of things like, ‘We don’t believe in chemistry,’ or ‘We have more turnover than other teams,’ or “We don’t care about players as much.’ When people make that [stuff] up, I do have to address.

“I think we operate pretty much the same as most teams. You get core guys you are going to build around, Yao [Ming] and Tracy [McGrady] in the past and now James and Dwight, you work your ass off to put the right guys around them. That’s our No. 1 focus more than everything. Sometimes you have to change the players around those two or three core guys.”

The Rockets made their changes around their core players this offseason, moving out Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin to land the third star that left them at the altar. That left Morey to face the recriminations that followed. No one pointed a finger at Alexander. Few mentioned coach Kevin McHale, though he has been in the Hall of Fame longer than Morey has been in the NBA.

Morey was the face of the decisions, as with the previous offseason’s successes. Eventually, he will be judged in the way he considers most appropriate, by results. But for now, as with all celebrities, opinions drive the discussion, and on occasion even inspire him to join the debate.

Jonathan Feigen covers the Houston Rockets for the Houston Chronicle. You can find him on Twitter here.