The reason for the apathetic side of things is not so obvious. There have been reports at times of a somewhat fractious locker room, not as toxic as that of the comparable Bulls but not a happy place to be. If this is manifest in their play - not enough ball movement, man movement, energy outside of a select few or generally lackadaisical defensive play - this is probably not a surprise. “Let’s try to only shoot threes and layups” does not mean much or work very well as an offensive philosophy if players are just sort of standing there. It is not the efficient strategy it is said to be if it is not done well, and aside from the unrelenting confidence of Terry (his aforementioned comment, while funny in how inaccurate it proved to be, is the sort of brazen, laudable spirit a locker room needs), Rockets players never seemed particularly happy to be there. You can put the world’s best business people in the same executive committee, and yet nothing of note will get done if they cannot get along.
“Let’s try to only shoot threes and layups” does not mean much or work very well as an offensive philosophy if players are just sort of standing there. It is not the efficient strategy it is said to be if it is not done well, and aside from the unrelenting confidence of Terry (his aforementioned comment, while funny in how inaccurate it proved to be, is the sort of brazen, laudable spirit a locker room needs), Rockets players never seemed particularly happy to be there. You can put the world’s best business people in the same executive committee, and yet nothing of note will get done if they cannot get along.
Seemingly, this is to a point what the Rockets have done. In being so candid and cutthroat in trying to keep open the roster and financial flexibility in order to acquire three star players (losing Chandler Parsons and Goran Dragic in the process), perhaps the team sowed the seeds of doubt. It is impossible to know from the outside, but it does stand to reason that if you feel like you are only a placeholder, you might not fully buy in. Wherever it comes from, though, what is known via the obvious listlessness on the court and the reports echoing it is that discontent comes from somewhere. And if the players neither fit the system nor like each other, it is a valid question as to why they were there.
This is not to say Morey should be, or is, on the hot seat. Making the conference finals last year was a very, very significant achievement, and everyone is allowed at least one blip. Most get at least two, and without having achieved as much as this prior. Also, while the .500 record was a massive disappointment, it was also the worst in Morey’s entire tenure - a decade of being at or above. 500, even if only slightly above it, is almost unrivalled. But there are legitimate concerns about the current prognosis of the Rockets.
Morey has been in charge for ten years now; officially taking over in 2007, but running operations since at least 2006, as evidenced by the Rudy Gay for Shane Battier trade on draft night of that year (that is not a trade Carroll Dawson was ever going to be making). Some rewards should be seen. As it is, there was one Western Conference Finals loss, and then a mini-implosion. It was all building to something – building, building, building – and then it suddenly wasn’t.
Perhaps this year was an aberration, and last year’s Conference Finals team is more reflective of Moreyball’s ability. But the nature of the implosion, the sloppy, lifeless team with seemingly interminable scoring droughts that seemed far short of both talent and effort, does not bode well. For so long, it was all about building a core, yet the Harden/Howard core has not proven to be much more effective than the McGrady/Yao core it was replacing.