I can only imagine how mad Mark Cuban gets when he sits in his seat on the baseline when the Houston Rockets come to town. He gets a front row seat to watch the team that had the same idea as him — they just pulled it off way, way, way better.
That plan was to rebuild without tanking, to transition from one era to the next. The Rockets had to move on earlier than they wanted from the Yao Ming/Tracy McGrady core to the next one. They moved to James Harden and Dwight Howard and eventually Chris Paul and they did it without a losing season.