Ordinarily, the departure of another NBA team’s general manager wouldn’t generate enough ripples to reach Dallas.
Houston, however, is only 250 miles away. And Daryl Morey wasn’t just any general manager, but rather Mark Cuban’s most vocal NBA adversary.
And the Rockets' leadership cleanout of first coach Mike D’Antoni and now Morey likely will result in philosophical and roster overhauls, which will enhance the Mavericks' chances of improving last season’s seventh-place Western Conference finish.
Make no mistake, though: The West’s pecking order remains Lakers, Nuggets, Clippers and Jazz, pending developments between now and the 2020-21 season’s tentatively projected Martin Luther King Jr. Day start date (Jan. 18).
Newly elevated Rockets GM Rafael Stone still must hire a coach — with Jeff Van Gundy, John Lucas and Mavericks assistant Stephen Silas as the finalists, according to ESPN — but logic indicates that salary-cap-pinched, veteran-laden, draft-pick-poor Houston will need to unload one of its 31-year-old, $41 million guards.
Those guards of course being James Harden and Russell Westbrook. Mavericks fans salivating at the thought of a Luka Doncic-Harden backcourt shouldn’t get their hopes up. Dallas has few draft picks to offer and outside of trading Kristaps Porzingis (not happening) would have trouble stacking enough attractive talent and salaries a trade feasible.
It’s far more likely that, after finishing 21/2 games behind Houston last season, the Mavericks will be the Southwest Division title favorite by virtue of the fact their arrow is pointed upward and the Rockets are entering a rebuild phase.
On Friday I reached out to Cuban to get his reaction to Morey’s departure.
“Wish him the best,” Cuban replied. “Nothing else really to say. I’m a fan of all other NBA teams losing their GMs and Coaches.”
That’s a reminder that at age 62 Cuban is as competitive as ever, that he regards all 29 other teams as rivals, some seemingly more so than others.
Such as during his first decade of ownership, when he often made a point of saying, “I hate the Spurs.” And when he wrote a web log in 2006 titled “I own Phil Jackson” in response to Jackson complaining that Cuban’s criticism of NBA referees made them “nervous nellies.”
Cuban a few years later referred to Jackson as Jeanie Buss’s boy toy, and when that era’s Lakers took a downward turn Cuban said, “I hope the Lakers suck forever.”
Cuban somewhat got his wish. Before this season’s title run, culminated last Sunday, the Lakers hadn’t won a playoff series since 2012.
The Rockets last won an NBA championship 25 years ago, but they have won the last three Southwest Division titles and four of the last six, playing in two conference finals since 2015.
It was during the Rockets' rise, and the Mavericks' descent following their 2011 NBA title, that Cuban and Morey began exchanging verbal jabs.
Both men would later say their rivalry was rooted in competiveness and mutual respect, but emotions certainly turned testy when the Rockets in the summer of 2013 beat out the Mavericks in the wooing of free agent Dwight Howard — and Morey, in a moment of panic, thinking Howard might go to Golden State, texted Cuban to inquire about the availability of Dirk Nowitzki.
Cuban assumed it was a case of Morey trying to rub it in and capitalize on the Mavs losing out on Howard.
Cuban opined that Morey had little regard for player chemistry, instead relying on analytics and math. Cuban then hired Gersson Rosas away from the Rockets, as general manager, but Rosas quit a few months later and returned to the Rockets.
Morey retorted to Yahoo that if Cuban cared about player chemistry “he wouldn’t have busted up a title team over cap space,” adding that that Cuban had “directed his bully pulpit onto us.”
“But let’s be clear,” Morey added. “If money’s equal between the Rockets and Mavericks, I think players are picking Houston. Every time.”
After purchasing the Mavericks in January of 2000, Cuban eventually elevated Donnie Nelson to general manager in 2005, succeeding his father, Don.
During the past two decades the Mavericks have earned a reputation for being aggressive in the trade market, though it was Morey in recent years who made the bigger headline-grabbing acquisitions: Harden in 2012; Chris Paul in 2017; Westbrook (for Paul) in 2019.
Now though, the Mavericks' acquisitions of Doncic and Porzingis, ages 21 and 25, have them positioned to contend in the near future while the Rockets most likely recalibrate.
Fourth-year Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta has a new general manager and is looking for a new coach. The Mavericks, conversely, have the NBA’s sixth-longest tenured owner; the fourth-longest tenured head of basketball operations (Nelson); and third longest-tenured coach (Rick Carlisle).
Yes, the Lakers just won the championship with a third-year general manager and first-year coach, but the Lakers have LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The Rockets are not the Lakers.
The Rockets are what Cuban wants as many Mavericks opponents as possible to be: A franchise that has lost its general manager and its coach.
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