GM Daryl Morey has agreed to a five-year contract extension with the Rockets, according to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. Morey was in the final year of his current deal.
The 46-year-old started his career with the Celtics before coming to Houston in 2006 as assistant GM. He was promoted to his current job after the 2007 season.
“I’m super happy,” Morey said. “I’d love to be with the Rockets for life. This obviously solidifies us for a little while. I’m just really thankful to [owner] Tilman Fertitta for having the faith in our team. And really, it is about us having a team of people that makes this all work.”
Morey has built Houston into a perennial contender in the Western Conference and one of the top challengers to the Warriors for the NBA title. His most successful move as GM came prior to the 2012/13 season when he acquired reigning MVP James Harden in a trade with the Thunder.
Morey was also among the leading proponents of bringing analytics to the NBA and is recognized as the inventor of true shooting percentage. He was a co-founder of the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
“We wanted to make sure that Daryl stays locked up,” Fertitta told Mark Berman of Fox 26 (Twitter link). “I think he wanted to make sure he was welcome here in Houston.We have a good working relationship. You want to keep good people under contract.”
Morey said one of his first priorities will be an extension for coach Mike D’Antoni, who is signed through the end of next season.
“He’s such a critical factor,” Morey said. “Speaking for myself only, I would love for him to be here for as long as he wants to be here. He’s so critical to everything we’re doing here. Hopefully, that’s something we can work out at the right time. I think the right thing for everyone is those things are done in the offseason.”
Best GM in the league.
Spurs, Warriors, and Celtics all have better GMs. All Morey did was get super lucky with Harden turning into a modern Allen Iverson. And maybe Morey deserves credit for Harden, but nothing else about the roster is particularly impressive, and they are maxed out of salary cap.
Stop being a hater ur just looking at the players teams have u don’t rly know what’s happening behind everything
LOL. You might want to learn a little about advanced stats, which is what Morey introduced to the NBA and other teams started using. Here is one: AI has a career TS% of .518 and Harden has a career TS% of .608. If you are going to compare those 2 players, you are going to embarrass yourself.
Which makes him a great statistician. But he isn’t a statistician he’s a GM. That’s like telling me how good a pilot is at making filet mignon. Who cares? That’s not his job. His job is to build a team that can win a championship. He hasn’t done that.
You’re right. The ultimate goal is to win championships and I agree he needs that to cement his legacy. But to say stats and analytics don’t matter, lol. Have a good day.
I’m not saying they don’t matter. I work in finance myself, so I definitely get the value of analyzing numbers.
I’m just saying him being good at analysis and him being good as a GM are two different things. We have yet to see the latter.
He should have signed House to a deal that’s some crazy ish. He really fit in nice with Harden as a 3 and d.
There is no better GM a team could want
In the last 35 years (Morrey GM for last 12), the Rockets have had 32 seasons of going .500 or better, which is the most in the NBA. The next best team has 29.