The recent tension surrounding Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey comes to no surprise to a few NBA executives, who believed the longtime executive would have a tough time holding on to his job — even before the pro-Hong Kong tweet debacle with China took place.
According to ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz, the”shotgun marriage” between Morey and inheriting owner Tilman Fertitta has been one that's been in rocky slides since the new boss bought the team in 2017.
“Though a couple of NBA executives speculated Morey might have greater difficulty attracting marquee free agents to Houston, few said that his ability to perform his job would be affected beyond having to placate Fertitta, a shotgun marriage that sources close to the Rockets have considered a tenuous fit since Fertitta bought the team in 2017.”
Morey enjoyed the complete trust and the absolute green light from former owner Leslie Alexander — freedom he no longer has under Fertitta, who is known to be quite the public micromanager.
While NBA owners are seldom seen, Fertitta was highly visible during public announcements, following the Rockets' loss to the Golden State Warriors in the last two postseasons — and even as the contract extension of head coach Mike D'Antoni played out publicly in front of reporters, standing shoulder to shoulder with Morey.
The praised advanced analytics genius of the NBA executive ranks can no longer tell a results-based owner to “trust the process,” but instead has had to accelerate it on his own. Morey received a contract extension a season ago, but that was largely in reward for getting the Rockets under the tax line — something that will prove all the more difficult now that the Rockets added another supermax player in Russell Westbrook.
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