Daryl Morey claims Houston almost acquired Chauncey Billups from Pistons to team with Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming

Reflecting on his career as a longtime general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey delighted Kelly Iko of The Athletic with an anecdote that could have changed the balance of power in the West back in the day.

Asked of the most audacious acquisition that never materialized, Morey was quick to point out a clear instance.

“You know what? We almost got Chauncey [Billups] in his prime to go with T-Mac,” said Morey. “At least it felt like almost. You’d have to ask Joe Dumars if it was actually. You never really know if it’s close. Sometimes you’ll act like things are close, but I think if we had Chauncey, T-Mac and Yao, it would have been pretty awesome back in the day.”

Billups wasn’t traded from the Detroit Pistons until early into the 2008-09 season, shipped to the Denver Nuggets in an early exchange for Allen Iverson.

Considering it was around that same time that the Pistons started to shop their starting point guard, it’s unlikely they would have made a strong trio, as T-Mac started dealing with injuries of his own, averaging only 15.6 points through 35 games that season.

Yao himself would have been a great pairing for Billups during that 2008-09 season, but he would soon experience career-altering knee degeneration, which ultimately caused him to miss the following season and play only in five games in 2010-11 before retiring from the game of basketball.

Who knows how things would have turned out if the Rockets acquired Billups, but as history played itself out, the duo of T-Mac and Yao Ming wouldn’t last too long after, as the Rockets traded him to the Knicks after his storied injuries slowed him down over time.

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