What's next for the Houston Rockets after Daryl Morey's decision to step down as general manager, as reported Thursday by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski?
Already, Houston was trending in the wrong direction. Despite giving up multiple first-round picks to fortify what was the league's oldest roster weighted by minutes played in the postseason, the Rockets haven't been able to get back to the conference finals since coming within a game of knocking off the Golden State Warriors in 2018.
If those trends continue, could Morey's departure eventually lead to the end of an era of contending Houston teams led by James Harden? Will Harden himself end up departing?
Morey's singular importance to Houston
No team has been more closely associated with an executive than the Rockets with Morey, whose aggressive, analytical philosophy has led the team to push the limits on 3-pointers, pace and other fronts over the past 14 years.
Morey's hiring in 2006, first to serve an apprentice season under longtime Rockets GM Carroll Dawson and then to follow Dawson in that role the following year, marked an enormous turning point in the NBA's post-Moneyball embrace of statistical analysis. When Morey was hired, only a handful of other teams even employed anyone tasked with analytics. Following Morey's lead, and influenced by the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference he co-founded, every team now has an analytics department -- many of them big enough to field a pickup basketball team.
We saw Morey's influence play out on the court too. Over the past 14 seasons, Houston has attempted far more 3-pointers than any other team: 5,106 more, to be exact. The gap between their 3-point attempts and the second-ranked team (Warriors) over that span is larger than the difference between Golden State and the team ranked 24th.
In this way too, other teams followed the Rockets' lead, meaning Morey played a key role in the evolution of the modern NBA.
Consistent success was also a hallmark of the Morey era. Houston is one of two teams, along with the rival San Antonio Spurs, to win better than 60% of its games over the past 14 seasons, and the Rockets won at least 50 games eight times -- again second only to the Spurs. But Morey's moves were unable to produce the championship he valued even above consistent success.
While the Rockets' decision to promote executive vice president of basketball operations Rafael Stone to GM ensures a degree of continuity, Morey's forceful presence and strong philosophy will be impossible to replace.
Short term: Coaching choice determines Rockets' direction
For now, Houston's biggest question is who replaces Mike D'Antoni as head coach after he too walked away from the team at the end of the 2019-20 season. Wojnarowski reported that Morey will stay on to consult during the coaching search, and given the continuity in the front office, that search won't likely be delayed.
Given the talent still on the roster, headlined by Harden and Russell Westbrook, the right coach could potentially extend the Rockets' run by tightening the team's defense to go with the top-10 offense we saw during the regular season.
In the short term, dramatic changes to the roster will be difficult for Stone. Houston has committed to more than $123 million in salary to the top six players under contract for 2020-21, which would already put the Rockets close to this season's $132.6 million luxury-tax line if the NBA decides to maintain this year's cap and tax figures.
Houston can still make trades, but the players the team recently acquired (Westbrook and Robert Covington) would probably fetch less value in return than the team gave up, while Eric Gordon likely has negative trade value after signing a four-year, $76 million extension prior to a disappointing 2019-20 campaign. Given how crucial P.J. Tucker is to the team's style of play, he's not going anywhere, which leaves only Danuel House Jr. as a player with positive trade value the team might actually move.
Without Morey and D'Antoni around to advocate for the extreme small ball the Rockets committed to last season, it's possible the team looks a bit more conventional in 2020-21 -- particularly with the second unit on the court. Houston could add a traditional center to the bench on the cheap. Still, transitioning entirely away from small ball could be like turning an aircraft carrier given the constraints under which Stone is operating.
Bigger decisions loom for Rockets
If a new coach is unsuccessful in transforming Houston's fortunes, the questions will only get more difficult for the Rockets in the 2021 offseason and beyond. Tucker will be a free agent after next season, and another strong campaign would command a raise from his current $8 million salary despite the fact that Tucker will be 36 by the time he hits free agency.
The rest of Houston's starting lineup is younger, but not by much. All five players will be in their 30s by December, when Covington celebrates his birthday, and Harden (31) and Westbrook (32 in November) have piled up atypically high mileage for players their ages.
Worse yet, the Rockets have already leveraged much of their ability to add to the roster. They're out their 2020 first-round pick from the Covington trade, and Oklahoma City has the right to swap picks (including one from the Miami Heat) in 2021. And with more than $110 million committed to just three players (Harden, Westbrook and Gordon) through 2022-23, Houston won't have cap space to add a key piece in free agency.
Add it up and the Rockets are more likely to head toward first-round exits from the playoffs than a return to the conference finals if they don't get back soon.
That could eventually mean a conversation about Harden's future in Houston. He won't hit unrestricted free agency until 2023, but we've seen time and again that superstars like Harden tend to move a few years before their contracts are up -- ensuring that their former teams get value in return.
It's possible Harden is committed enough to the Rockets to see out their decline phase. He's shown no interest in looking around since landing in Houston via trade on the eve of the 2012-13 season in Morey's signature deal, signing a series of extensions rather than testing free agency. That said, the Rockets' ability to build a contending team around Harden was surely a factor in his decisions. If Harden doesn't feel like he can win in Houston, he might want to head elsewhere.
Stone inherits one of the most difficult situations in the NBA -- facing high expectations combined with limited flexibility and an aging roster. The Rockets' dogged, unsuccessful pursuit of a championship during Harden's prime will have long-term consequences. Eventually, it could lead to bigger changes than Morey's departure.