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Tiny Iota: Rockets’ new manager makes odd trades, saves franchise

Faced with revitalizing a team that looked old and sluggish, first-year Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey entered this offseason armed with only a mid-level salary cap exception and a low first round pick. He’ll leave the off-season with one of the deepest teams in the league.

While the Rockets can’t be considered favorites in what is expected to be a loaded Western Conference, they finally added enough pieces to be considered in the top tier of teams along with San Antonio, Phoeni and Dallas.

Morey, who is considered the NBA’s first "Moneyball" GM, has made it his mantra to stockpile assets and try to trade or stay away from the bad contracts that are handed out by 80 percent of NBA teams. With Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady already in tow, the Rockets first tried hard to get hometown product Rashard Lewis.

Lewis would have been the third star player for the Rockets, a number that only the Spurs (Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobli), Suns (Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion), and Mavericks (Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Josh Howard) can claim. However, when acquiring Lewis appeared fiscally unfeasible, Morey didn’t mope. He stuck to his plan.

His first move was to trade the aging Juwan Howard for veteran point guard Mike James and small forward Justin Reed. On one level, this rectified the disastrous Rafer Alston for Mike James trade, which has turned out to be one of the worst Rockets moves in the last decade. But on the other hand, it left the Rockets without a real power forward signed for next year, and Rockets fans groused about Morey leaving the team in such a poor position.

The complaining was magnified when the Rockets bypassed power forwards such as Nick Fazekas of Nevada, Josh McRoberts of Duke, and Glen "Big Baby" Davis of LSU to take speedy Oregon guard Aaron Brooks with their first-round pick. Brooks’ speed fits in well with the recently changed NBA rules about hand-checking. It appears he just can’t be guarded, as he demonstrated by averaging 21.4 point per game in the NBA Summer League, en route to being named the league’s most outstanding rookie.

Still, the Rockets had no power forward. Not to worry, because Morey, as usual, had a plan.

He persuaded the Spurs to trade Argentine power forward Luis Scola and reserve center Jackie Butler to the Rockets for reserve point guard Vassilis Spanoulis, a future second-round pick, and cash considerations. Scola, 27, is the perfect combination of age, skill, and salary for the Rockets.

The 6-9, 245-pound Scola, universally regarded by scouts as one of the best players in Europe for years, was a two-time Spanish league MVP for club Tau Ceramica (Vitoria, Spain). While it might be a stretch to call him a star, he’s a bargain for the Rockets, especially since all they had to give up to get him was a disgruntled third-string point guard and a second round pick. Former Sports Illustrated writer Kelly Dwyer said that "…on paper [it appears] to be one of the more lopsided NBA deals in the last decade."

Never one to rest on his laurels, Morey then convinced former Rockets guard Steve Francis to return to Houston. While Francis has lost a step, and seems no longer capable of being "Stevie Franchise", he will bring instant offense to a club that needs it badly. Witness Game 3 of the Rockets-Jazz first-round playoff series last spring where only four players scored for the Rockets, and even a past-his-prime Francis looks like a good addition.

The Rockets may not have three stars like other elite teams, but the depth they’ve built this offseason clearly gives them their best team since 1997. Most of the credit for that should go to Morey, who has put on a show in his first three months as GM.

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