Of course, it was inevitable.  The stats were against them.  But the reality is that the Houston Rockets didn't go to the playoffs, and their reward is a bottom-of-the-barrel lottery pick.  Just like last year.  

It's not like that's keeping Houston from being a better team.  Well, maybe it is.  But in the end, can we really blame the system?  Well, maybe we can.

The thing is, if you compare the Rockets' talent pool to any team remaining in the playoffs, it looks terrible.  The best draft pick we have (not including the incapacitated Yao Ming and the D-League star Hasheem Thabeet) is Patrick Patterson, who we drafted last year at the number 14.  To be fair, Patterson is a good player, and he has a lot of potential.  However, he's not a game-changer.  The simple reality is that the Rockets aren't going to be able to draft a game-changing player, and unless we get exceptionally lucky (or unlucky) we'll almost certainly be staring at a number 14 draft pick again next year.

Sure, we could blame Morey for not getting better players.  But again, we have to be fair to him, and he got some players a few years ago who looked really good on paper but never performed. (Obviously, Tracy McGrady and Yao didn't get to play together enough.)  And Houston isn't an attractive town.  They aren't going to get free agents waltzing in to get in on their franchise.

What they need to do is build some franchise players:  Some players who will happily resign with them because we're their team.  Unfortunately, with our draft picks, they can't get game-changing players to come here.