Rockets GM Morey talks about rolling dice on Royce White

Rockets GM Daryl Morey is an interesting interview.

And when you put him on a podcast with the interesting questions and discussion run by the people at Slate, you get good insights.

Morey was on a recent podcast and discussed Jeremy Lin, the state of analytics in the NBA and more, and relatively openly. (You can listen or read the transcript at the link above.)

He also talked Royce White, the No. 16 overall pick of the Rockets who is not with the team right now as both sides try to figure out how to deal with his anxiety disorder. The Rockets knew of the disorder before the draft and it is the reason Young was still around at 16 and not taken higher in the lottery. Morey discusses why he made that pick and the risk involved.

Basketball is sort of an interesting sport that, you know, the top player on your team makes so much more of an impact than the top player in any other sport. Any other of the major team sports, I should say. There’s no other sport where LeBron James can have a team winning three out of four games or 60 games out of 80, and then when he leaves, that basically the same team wins 20 games out of 80. That kind of a swing just shows you the impact. You need these elite talents to win in this league. We think Royce is an elite talent—top five talent in this last draft, which was very deep. Obviously if we’re getting him at 16 in the draft, there’s going to be something wrong, or something that’s a gamble with the player, and really you’re just choosing the gamble. Maybe they’ve got an injury history. Maybe they’ve got a particular part of their game that could be an Achilles’ heel that would make them fail. Maybe they’ve never gone against that level of competition. So there’s going to be something wrong, so you’re really just picking among things that are potentially going to derail that player and which ones you’re most comfortable with. Royce was someone who played every game at Iowa State, played it well. So even with his issues, he showed that he is very functional. We knew going in that potentially there could be issues and right now obviously things are bumpy at this point, I’d say, but you know it takes a little time for him to get going at the various stops he’s had in his career to this point. We’re trying to work things through with Royce, and hopeful that we can. That’s sort of the current state.

It’s in Morey’s and the Rockets’ interest to take the long-term view here. Morey is right, it’s about talent. And has Morey has described it in the past, the NBA is more like an “elephant mother” — you have one baby every few years and you have to nurture them for two years before they can really take care of themselves.

White could still be a productive, quality NBA player. This isn’t about his rookie season, it’s about who he can be three years from now as the Rockets rebuild. You don’t write the book on a player less than a month into his rookie season (good or bad).

This may not work out for the Rockets. But it was a smart gamble. And making those is how you eventually win in the NBA.