I just had lunch with a friend who attended a lecture Daryl Morey gave at his business school. A couple interesting things I took away- you may have already heard many of these from various interviews Morey has given.

• The Rockets spend 10 times as much on analytics than any other team in the NBA. Not sure how Morey has that detailed of information on how teams allocate their budget, but if he said it publicly, there must be some truth to it.

• The Rockets as constructed are a good team with good players, but no matter how many good players you may have you need two superstars in this league to be an elite team and be competitive for tittle. This point isn't earth-shattering or anything, but I think the point is that the two superstar model is what has worked for 99% of NBA title winners. There have of course been exceptions (94 Rockets obviously come to mind), but DM understands that he needs another star alongside Yao for the Rockets to compete for a championship. Having a bunch of above-average, good players alongside Yao will not be enough.

• He mentioned specifically by name, Chris Bosh and Joe Johnson, as two of his favorite players, namely because he views them as severely underrated. This comment really caught me by surprise, because Bosh and Johnson are players I've always viewed as very good, but will always be overpaid since they fall into that second-tier superstar category. Combined with the Bosh trade rumors makes this comment quite interesting- I don't think DM would trade away promising young (and cheap) players unless he thought he was getting exceptional value in return and all signs for me point that DM highly rates Bosh (and JJ apparently as well). Even if we can't get Bosh in a trade, it seems plausible we will be targeting both him and JJ in free-agency this summer. 

I usually loathe these types of posts, but given it comes from a fairly credible source I thought it made sense to share it. Marc Stein at ESPN is reporting chatter around the Rockets targeting a trade with Toronto for a half-season with Chris Bosh believing they can entice him to stay in Houston with a new contract in the summer. Rumored packages are supposed to include some combination of Brooks, Scola, Ariza, and Landry. The story is here.

If the Raptors are seriously considering trading Bosh instead of letting him walk in the summer, their asking price cannot be that high given his impending free agency. Would a package of Ariza, Scola, and Cook (plus any min. salary player to match numbers) get it done? Do we need to throw in a draft pack? If the Rockets are confident of keeping Bosh past this year, we are really just trading Ariza for Bosh from 2010 and on, since Cook is just an expiring contract and it is up in the air whether it would be worth paying Scola what he will probably get on the open market with how Landry has played so far this year.

I have never been a huge fan of Bosh. He seems like that classic inbetween player, who is exceptionally good but is not a true franchise cornerstone but always seems to get paid like one. That being said, I trust Morey on player evaluation far more than myself and if he believes Bosh is worth the asking price I am 100% in favor. I think many on the site have noted this before, but a trade is likely the only way we can get an All-Star type player before the end of 2010-11 season. Some obligatory next season rosterbation:

PG: Brooks/ Lowry (if brought back)

SG: Budinger/Taylor

SF: Battier/Landry?

PF: Bosh/Landry

C: Yao/Andersen

We'd be a little thin at SG/SF but we would still have the draft and the mid-level to sort out some depth there. That being said, I wouldn't mind going into next season with that lineup.

Also interesting, Stein mentions this:

 It's likewise believed that Houston can put a decent package together without insisting that McGrady's mammoth $22.5 million salary has to be part of it, which complicates matters even though it's an expiring deal because so many more players have to be included to make the trade math work.

It is then not of the question for Morey to look to put two blockbuster trades before the deadline, one for Bosh and perhaps another with McGrady. As unlikely as it may be, if Morey can also find a way to get a decent return on McGrady (Chris Paul anyone?), we could be looking at a vastly different Rockets team in the second half of the season, one which could be very competitive in the playoffs this year and a potential title challenger next year.

Just saw this on BP, thought I'd share it:

Sergio Llull, Real Madrid

Age: 21.4 | Translated Stats: .407 Win% | .566 TS% | 13.4 Usage | 3.9 Reb% | 4.31 Pass Rating

Comps: Deron Williams (92.6); Delonte West (92.5); Daniel Gibson (92.4); Tony Parker (90.6); Ray Allen (90.1)

A likely second-round pick, Llull also looks like a potential steal. He’s got a diverse offensive game with the ability to really shoot it (95.5 percent from the free throw line; 33.6 percent on threes, albeit at an extraordinarily high volume) and very competent ballhandling skills. That draws comparisons to some elite players. The question mark with Llull, and what holds down his translated winning percentage, is the other end of the court. He’s a complete non-factor on the glass, gets few steals and fouls at an astronomical rate–a translated 5.1 per 40 minutes. (Actually, all of these guys foul a great deal, though Rubio in particular has more of an excuse because of all the good he’s doing defensively in the process of drawing those fouls.) Surely, someone will take the gamble that Llull can figure things out and live up to his offensive potential.

It looks like another great pick from Morey. If Llull has another strong year in Europe, we'd then have the option to renounce our rights to Lowry and bring over Sergio to back up AB, giving us more cap space next summer...Or he could a nice piece in a trade next summer as well...

Anyone else have a huge man crush on Morey right now? He is AWESOME!

According to this article on mlb.com, the Giants are interested in Melvin Mora. Thoughts?

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070531&content_id=1996773&vkey=new s_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

      I think an important factor that's being ignored regarding Zito's contract is general salary inflation across MLB. (Note: Inflation is not really a proper term to describe MLB players' salaries, but let's just use it here to simplify discussion). While 7/$18 m is a a large committment regardlesss of inflation, MLB salary inflation has averaged about 10% over the past decade. With that in mind, Zito's contract is really worth more around 7/$12m (today's dollars).

     Again, with a payroll in the range of $90m (today's dollars), spending 13% of your payroll on a top-of-the rotation starter is a bargain. Most of the negative comments on the site have been regarding the length of the contract and the size of the committment, weighed against the risks of injury and general skill decline with age. However, considering the Giants are in the top 10 of team spending, a seven year comittment at $12m is not a significant risk. On the other hand, if we were the Twins or the A's, the contract would be a huge financial risk.  

     To put these numbers into more perspective, consider that seven years ago (2000) the Giants total payroll was only $53m. If the Giants (back in 2000) had signed a Zito-type player to a similar contract, we would be looking at something worth $9m/year (today's dollars), which would be a bargain, especially for a player that some (not all) project into a Glavine/Maddux type starter as he ages.

     To summarize my point, general payroll inflation actually self-corrects Zito's contract (assuming it's paid in equal payments) for age-decline and increased injury risk. We're not actually paying him $18m a year for the next seven years in terms of financial actual dollars. But rather, $18m/$16m/$15m/$13m/$12m and so on, when total payroll and player inflation is considered. And for someone with consistent career numbers, a healthy history, and enough star power to attract fans to the gate, I don't think it will develop into the disaster that many on the site are predicting.