Daryl Morey will hit the four-year mark as general manager of the Rockets in May and is at a crossroads. He inherited a thin team centered around superstars Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady and he now has a deep, young team without a superstar.

Kevin Martin and Luis Scola, however, are two solidly above average starters at their respective positions and are on favorable contracts. The tandem combines for over 47 points per 36 minutes, with Martin notoriously doing so on tremendous efficiency.

Chuck Hayes is one of the NBA's seven wonders, negating all types of super athletic bigs that tower over him. He has been one of the most overlooked defenders in the game ever since his breakout campaign in 06-07 as a sophomore and he has even added efficient offense this season in the occasional post opportunity. Hayes always is assigned the opponent's better offensive big and specializes in forcing extremely difficult shots by using his low center of gravity and active hands. Fortunately for Hayes and Houston, most bigs aren't good enough shooters to go over him for jumpers when he is in their body. He does everything well defensively except contain the pick and roll.

While the Rockets clearly are gifted offensively and have an excellent defensive specialist in Hayes, they rank a pedestrian 24th in points allowed per 100 possessions. Houston has several weaknesses on this end of the floor, but have been particularly exposed by ISO scorers.

The Rockets have an intriguing situation at point guard in Kyle Lowry and Aaron Brooks. They are the kind of point guards that a team like the Heat or Lakers would love to have starting, but there is a talent deficit at the position that 48 combined minutes of two starter quality point guards can't overcome against 40 minutes of Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Steve Nash, etc. This isn't a classic Rick Adelman team in terms of ball movement and spacing, even though offense is their strong suit.

Desperation Meter: Morey has made a lot of pawn moves while flirting with a bold move here (Amar'e Stoudemire at last season's deadline) and there (Carmelo Anthony this season) and we're all getting a little impatient to see where this thing eventually goes. He has become the Billy Beane of NBA GMs, but more 2010 Billy Beane that makes smart lateral move after smart lateral move rather than 2001 Billy Beane that has a small payroll team a win away from beating the Yankees.

The primary concern for the Rockets is the age of their two best players. They have the look and feel of a young, developing team when you consider the collective age of their rotation players, but Martin and Scola are on the backside of their prime seasons. Neither player should decline too quickly since they don't rely on their athleticism to be successful, but 'Waiting For Godot' can only last so long and we have been promised a fireworks spectacular of a trade.

The Yao Ming situation is fascinating, as Morey has an opportunity to do a major move for a player on a max contract while packaging some sort of collection of Brooks, Courtney Lee, Jordan Hill, Terrence Williams, Chase Budinger, etc. He also has Jared Jeffries EC burning in his pocket if he finds something less ambitious to execute.

• Click here for the latest trade deadline rumors.