Five years ago, Daryl Morey and others in the Rockets front office packed themselves into a musky room at the Embassy Suites in Las Vegas. A no-frills, no-room-service makeshift workspace was just right for the feverish labor of early July in the NBA.
A few miles away, nearly everyone else in the league had parked themselves into seats at the Thomas & Mack Center for Summer League, the league’s annual bazaar. The Rockets staff never went to a game; it was busy trying to sign Chris Bosh.
The Rockets, like few other teams, are big-game hunters in free agency. Morey has made it clear he lives by a simple doctrine: Get stars whenever you can. By then, Houston’s general manager had already traded for James Harden and signed Dwight Howard. This was the second time he was trying to attract Bosh, who had spurned Houston in 2010 to build a super team in Miami. This time, however, Morey was confident, and it seemed as if a union might be possible.
No…
