June 2, 2008, 11:52PM
COMMENTARY
Morey eyes new strategy
By. STEVE CAMPBELL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
THE Rockets are the only team Daryl Morey really wants to see play basketball this time of year.
They've been out of sight — though most assuredly, not out of mind — for a month.
Like any self-respecting basketball junkie, though, Morey can't take his eyes off the last two teams still standing. The Boston Celtics have won 16 NBA championships. They're the only team in the way of the Los Angeles Lakers closing to within one title of the empire that Red Auerbach built.
The Celtics also have a chance to at least delay Phil Jackson's dream of winning his 10th NBA title as a head coach.
"I always had Boston winning it all, so I'm hoping I can still be right about that," Morey said. "You might accuse me of a little homerism.
"We'll get to see whether you can guard your way to the championship. Boston has done about as good as you can try at that. They're about as good defensively as any team in a long time."
Heart is with Celtics
Morey spent three years as Celtics vice president of operations and information, which helps account for his NBA Finals loyalties.
The Rockets won 55 games, including 22 in a row, in their first season on Morey's watch as general manager. They did it with guard Tracy McGrady moving from one nagging injury to the next. They did it with center Yao Ming missing 27 games and the playoffs.
Yao didn't miss much in the playoffs. Despite having the home-court advantage in the first round against the Utah Jazz, the Rockets disappeared from the playoff landscape after six games.
The Rockets have been there, done that kind of thing enough for Morey to conclude it's time for the organization to shift its thinking a bit.
"As you can tell, the NBA regular season doesn't matter a whole lot," Morey said. "We've shown that with Yao, without McGrady, we can win. We've shown with McGrady, without Yao, we can win at a high rate — 50 to 60 wins. We've shown with both of them, we're even better. We are focused pretty much only on what are weaknesses that will keep us from winning in the first round."
At this time a year ago, the Celtics were licking their wounds from a 24-58 season. The Lakers were 42-40 and hadn't won a playoff series since the breakup of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. Bryant tried mightily to talk his way out of town before this season began, which just goes to show what he knows about building a championship team.
Now the Lakers look like a team poised to stay on top for a while. The Lakers, after all, have gotten this far with promising center Andrew Bynum on the mend from a knee injury. The Lakers rolled over defending champion San Antonio in the Western Conference finals, and Jackson should have even more of an abundance of talent at his beck and call next season.
"We feel like we're a good player short of being where we want to be," Morey said. "We haven't really earned the right to start worrying about specific teams in the Western Conference and how we stack up against them. Until we've gone a little farther in the playoffs, we're just focusing on us getting better."
Trades are best bet
That one player isn't going to fall to the Rockets when they pick 25th in the upcoming draft. Morey is confident, though, that the Rockets can land a rotation player in that spot. It just might not be next season's rotation.
Don't look for much help from the free-agent market, because re-signing Carl Landry won't leave them much below the luxury tax level.
"We're probably going to have to upgrade through trade," Morey said, "as opposed to free agency."
The Celtics got well in a hurry when Danny Ainge swung a seven-for-one deal to pry Kevin Garnett from Minnesota and packaged the No. 5 overall pick to Seattle for Ray Allen.
Just like that, the Celtics had two All-Stars to complement long-suffering Paul Pierce.
The Lakers, for their part, became instant contenders shortly before the trade deadline when the Memphis Grizzlies gave the gift of Pau Gasol.
Bryant can't win a championship alone, but Gasol and Lamar Odom give him plenty of playmaking company.
"We're really focused on being able to upgrade for next year's playoffs," Morey said. "Don't judge the team on Oct. 1. We think we've got a lot of assets that a lot of teams want — a lot of ways to upgrade. Often the best opportunities to use those come at trade deadlines."
Don't be quick to judge
The labor of this summer, in other words, might not bear fruit until next spring. To Morey's Clutch City constituency, a humdrum summer should be a small price to pay for a playoff run that doesn't plow into a dead end.
"If you look at me, it might look like I've been eating bon-bons all day," Morey said. "I haven't been able to get as much of a workout as I'd like, but hey, I'll get to that after all this craziness."
