Daryl Morey is confident in the Houston Rockets' title chances this season after keeping most of their core in tact and adding Ty Lawson.

"If you look historically, championship teams have two or three elite-level players, and they're usually together for a bit," Morey said. "I expect this group to be together for a while.

"If this year we don't make it as far as we want, which is all the way to the LOB (Larry O'Brien trophy), I would expect to bring most of this group back, because the group we assembled is good enough to win. We have to prove that on the court, but I don't think you look at it and say there are obvious things that need to be changed for us to be a championship team."

The Rockets' title chances begin with James Harden and Dwight Howard.

"Let's be clear: There's a lot of execution to go from here to there," Morey said. "We have what we think is the top player at two positions (Harden and Howard), and we have very, very solid pieces to work around them all the way to players eight through 10.

"A lot of teams that look good on paper, like I think we do, don't finish it. But we have all the components."