Former Rockets GM DARYL MOREY thanked fans and Rockets personnel by "taking out a full-page color ad in the Houston Chronicle," according to Matt Young of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE. The ad features a '12 photo of Morey and Rockets G JAMES HARDEN at Harden's press conference "after the Rockets pulled off a trade" with the Thunder to acquire him (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 10/19). NBCSPORTS.com's Kurt Helin wrote what is next for Morey is "unclear, he may or may not be back in the NBA soon." He had "just signed a five-year extension with the Rockets one year ago, the buyout from that will keep him comfortable for a long time." Morey "can pick his spots" (NBCSPORTS.com, 10/18).
SCOPE OF HIS IMPACT: THE ATHLETIC's David Aldridge wrote Morey "led a revolution that remade the NBA during his 14 years in Houston." The league is "now shaped in his vision, the advanced stats revolution complete." Every team "has a robust numbers/research/analytics department full of number crunchers who sift through Second Spectrum and Synergy and NBAMiner and any of the dozen or so advanced stats websites, and pore over shot charts and cutups, and seek players' sleep patterns from their Oura smart rings, to find patterns in the noise, proprietary info that will give their teams a potential edge." As a result, the NBA is "unrecognizable from just a decade ago." Morey "wasn't alone in this revolution; he was just its most vocal advocate." But Morey's reign in Houston "had other consequences, too -- unintended ones, perhaps." Aldridge: "When you look at analytics departments on teams throughout the NBA, two things stand out: they are, still, overwhelmingly White and overwhelmingly male." Moreover, almost no former NBA players are "currently employed by NBA team analytics departments." The "reason it matters is this: NBA teams, rather consistently over the last decade, have chosen the next generation of team executives from video rooms and/or their own or other teams' front offices." And analytics people "now dominate those front offices." So it "shouldn't be a surprise that less than a third of NBA teams are run by Black or minority executives" (THEATHLETIC.com, 10/18).
