Daryl Morey has received a lot of skepticism and criticism over the past 4-5 years for his strategy in rebuilding the Rockets.
In essence, contrary to the conventional wisdom of tanking for high draft picks (i.e. the "OKC plan"), Morey chose to field a reasonably competitive team without compromising the future. He sought to build up assets, even though he was consistently drafting at the end of the lottery. He's been aggressive the past few years trying to trade for stars like Pau Gasol, Carmelo Anthony, and most notably Dwight Howard, striking out in all instances ("basketball reasons").
Still, his persistence paid off and now he has a franchise star (Harden) and a talented, young supporting cast that is only going to get better (Lin, Parsons, Asik, Morris, Patterson, etc).
The Rockets aren't contenders yet, but they appear to be one complimentary piece away (a #2 scorer, probably at PF). Morey should be the favorite for Executive of the Year this season for the fabulous job he's done turning the Rockets into an exciting competitive team after mostly blowing up the roster this off-season.
So the question I have is:
Should Danny Ainge try to follow this model in rebuilding the Celtics? Can we as fans remain patient through multiple years of borderline-lottery finishes and seemingly non-sensical amassing of assets (e.g. how the Rockets often have a major surplus of point guards and power forwards)?
I think it's an interesting question. Is the "Morey plan" one that can be replicated, or did Daryl get lucky? I think this plan would seem to be more palatable to ownership, since it would mean the team would try to stay quasi-competitive. However, there's a difference between this plan and an "instant reload" plan which would entail immediately using cap space to pick up second tier free agents to put around Rondo and try to field a top 10 team pretty much right away. The Morey plan involves amassing assets but not spending money or making trades for quick fixes.
There's some question whether this plan could work in the Eastern conference, since those Rockets teams of the last few years would have made the playoffs pretty much every season and wouldn't have gotten lottery picks.
In any case, I think it's worth discussing. This and similar questions will be crucial in the next few months as the team determines how it's going to proceed as the Pierce / KG era wraps up.