Heading into the free agency period of the 2012 offseason, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey set his sights on landing a star player, and understandably so. The Rockets knew they would need star power in order to have any chance of contending in the Western Conference and they had just lost two of their best players in Kyle Lowry and Goran Dragic.
The biggest sensation in the league at the time was Jeremy Lin, who sparked a global Linsanity movement, as basketball fans everywhere gravitated to the unheralded Harvard product.