Sam Amick

USA TODAY Sports

Daryl Morey, not surprisingly, was smitten with Mike D’Antoni when he saw him at the Sloan Conference.

For the Houston Rockets general manager who co-founded the NBA’s annual analytics affair, and who had long admired the coach who rose to prominence with the “Seven Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns so many years ago, this was like seeing the pretty girl from the neighborhood in your favorite dive bar.

D’Antoni and Morey were on friendly terms, having shared a double-date lunch with their wives seven years earlier in Beijing during the Olympics. But there was a break in D’Antoni’s schedule in February 2015, what with his early exit from the Los Angeles Lakers and their “hostile environment,” as he had deemed that Kobe Bryant-Dwight Howard world, nine months earlier.

So Morey, after years of hoping D’Antoni would take part in this think-tank event, finally got his wish. D’Antoni, who helped revolutionize NBA offenses with those Steve Nash-Amar’e Stoudemire Suns and who Morey says is on the Mount Rushmore among the pace-and-space forefathers who helped shape today’s NBA, would speak at Sloan.

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“Mike was like the ambassador,” Morey, the Rockets’ general manager since 2007, told USA TODAY Sports, referring to D’Antoni’s appearance on the “Push the tempo” panel at the Boston event. “He was like the hero of the conference that year. It was awesome.”

A basketball bromance was born that day. And now, more than six months into this hoops partnership between a 44-year-old executive, a 65-year-old coach and a 27-year-old superstar in James Harden, this is the honeymoon they hope never ends.

Quite a welcome

Based on the headlines after D’Antoni’s hiring, the notion of the Rockets starting 14-7 and sitting in fourth place in the Western Conference doesn’t quite compute. By the sound of it at the time, you’d half expect D’Antoni would have been fired by now.

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The skepticism was understandable, if only because D’Antoni was coming off two failed stints (with the New York Knicks and Lakers) and the Rockets had a roster that included a dysfunctional dynamic. On the heels of Howard clashing with Bryant in Laker Land, the strained relationship between Howard and Harden had everything to do with Houston plummeting from the 2015 Western Conference finals to a first-round exit a year later.

That D’Antoni and Harden already had what Morey describes as a very strong relationship from their time together on the 2012 Olympic team was mostly overlooked, even though it had everything to do with the hire.

“(It) might be the most critical relationship you have when you’re building a team,” Morey said of the coach-player dynamic.

What’s more, Morey — in the eyes of some — had led a bait-and-switch search after saying the defense would be a major focal point when it came to picking the next head coach. Instead, with owner Les Alexander co-signing and footing the bill on a four-year, $17 million deal, they opted for the coach who Harden calls an offensive genius.

What came after the D’Antoni hiring would change the landscape in his favor, with Howard signing with the Atlanta Hawks in July and Morey signing shooters Ryan Anderson (four years, $80 million) and Eric Gordon (four years, $53 million) to surround Harden with options that could lighten his load. Then came D’Antoni’s no-brainer coaching salvo, making Harden the point guard. And voila, the Rockets — with the GM who was at the forefront of the NBA’s three-point movement, the coach who helped write the book on high-octane offenses and the perfect superstar to execute their plan — were on the road to rehabilitation.

“The good thing about when I took the job was that James wanted to play in the way that I wanted to coach, and that’s taking a lot of threes, getting to the rim, in the paint and foul shots,” said D’Antoni, whose team entered Tuesday leading the league in three-pointers made (13.9 a game) and attempted (37) and was tied for the league’s third-best offensive rating (110.3 points scored per 100 possessions). “And so (it’s) the same philosophy, from the owner to the general manager to the star player.

“It’s worked out better than I thought.…We were hoping that it would get this good, and I think we can get it even better.”

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Said Harden, whose assists have spiked from 7.5 a game last season to a league-leading 11.6, is averaging 28.7 points (fourth in the NBA), a career-high 7.6 rebounds: “(D’Antoni) just told me he was going to make me the point guard and just continue to make me a better player, and he’s doing that. He isn’t trying to control. He just tries to help. And if I see something, I’ll throw it at him. It’s a real friendship; it’s obviously coach and player. And it works.”

Does it ever.

The Rockets have won eight of their past 10, but no win had more worth than Thursday’s double-overtime affair vs. the Golden State Warriors. Golden State had “kicked (the Rockets’) ass the past couple years,” as small forward Trevor Ariza put it, winning eight consecutive regular-season matchups and twice knocking them out of the playoffs (by 4-1 margins in the 2015 Western Conference finals and in 2016’s first round). It was a confidence-builder for a group that is getting to know one another, a sign to the Western Conference king that they’re dangerous again and the latest indicator of how cohesive this Morey-D’Antoni-Harden combination has become.

Perfect timing

All three men were due for an image makeover. Morey, whose style was deemed “Moreyball”, as a nod to baseball’s analytics leader Billy Beane and his “Moneyball” fame with the Oakland Athletics, faced rising scrutiny with the Rockets’ backslide last season. D’Antoni, who spent last season as the Philadelphia 76ers’ associate head coach, was running the risk of being seen as another recycled name if he didn’t land in the right spot. And Harden, who had gone from Players Association MVP in 2014-15 to all-NBA Team no-show last season despite posting nearly identical numbers, had become an caricature of sorts because of his ball-dominant ways and infamous defensive struggles.

But now the narrative is about Harden playing a selfless style that has sparked another MVP push. But now Morey’s pragmatic strategy of prioritizing threes-and-layups as a way of playing the odds isn’t seen as so outlandish. But now D’Antoni, who was doomed by a lack of synergy between ownership, front office, coach and players in previous stops, is at his creative best again.

“With the help of Daryl and those guys, they push my limits too,” D’Antoni said. “(Sometimes) I’m backing off (philosophically), like ‘Oooh ….’ I get scared, too, getting out on the ledge. But it’s wide open. Do it. And if we come up with something that we think is effective and different, then they’re not afraid to do it. And that’s what I really like.”

The chance to click with his star guard has been quite the change of pace, too.

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For all of Bryant’s greatness, it’s no secret that the force of his personality and isolationist ways in D’Antoni’s two seasons with the Lakers made his job much harder and complicated the locker-room dynamic. Bryant believed in “a culture of conflict,” as he often said, and wielded immense power within the organization. It was, in other words, a far cry from those Suns days of D’Antoni and Steve Nash being sympatico in ways we don’t often see.

Fast-forward to this season, and it’s clear D’Antoni is relieved to have a positive dynamic to the superstar relationship again.

“(From) what I’ve seen, (Harden) is taking guys out to dinners, he makes sure that rookies are taken care of; instead of abusing them, he takes care of them,” D’Antoni said. “There’s a lot of good things that he does off the court that bonds (the team). I think from last year, from having him (tell) me he learned a lot last year because it was a bad atmosphere and it didn’t work. And you can’t win that way.

“Why go through a career where you throw years away? And (why not) try to make it the best you can make it, and then enjoy it at the same time … You can’t afford to throw away a year where you’re unhappy all the time.”

A joyful union, indeed.

“I’m happy,” Harden said. “I’m happy (with) the team we have, the coaching staff we have. We work, we focus, we lock in, and we laugh. That’s all.”