Topic: Daryl Morey

Daryl Morey (born 1972) is an American sports executive. He is the current general manager of the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association. He was named Assistant General Manager on April 3, 2006 and succeeded Carroll Dawson as General Manager on May 10, 2007. Morey came to the Rockets after serving three years as Senior Vice President of Operations and Information for the Boston Celtics. While with the Celtics, basketball operations was a key part of his responsibilities, including the development of analytical methods and technology to enhance basketball decisions related to the draft, trades, free agency and advance scouting of opponents for the coaching staff. His hiring follows the recent Moneyball trend of adding more advanced statistical-based analysis to the tradition use of qualitative scouting and basic statistics. Several teams have hired executives with non-traditional basketball backgrounds, but the Rockets are the first NBA team to hire a general manager in this vein. He continues to be the chairperson for the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

Morey received a bachelor’s degree in computer science with an emphasis on statistics from Northwestern University, as well as an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Morey also served as the professor for the MIT Sloan class, “Analytical Sports Management.”

Morey has built a Rockets team that has won about 59% of its games over his first four seasons as General Manager, 2 playoff appearances and 1 playoff series win. The Rockets had won about 55% of its games in the four seasons prior to his becoming General Manager, with 3 playoff appearances but no playoff series wins.