Daryl Morey says he and the Rockets deserve the heat.

And he isn't talking about the standard summertime temperatures for which this area is known.

The Rockets general manager is referring to the disparagement he and his team endured as they floundered about in a season-long funk.

No NBA team performed more poorly relative to expectations than the Rockets, who won 41 games, a whopping 14 games below a winning sports book bet on the over for the season.

With a big man that has an "S" on his chest for sensitive, a high-scoring star, whose look-at-me flair begs for attention, so he gets it, and a cast of role players who regularly rolled over, last season's Rockets were fair targets for critics.

Then there is Morey, who despite nearly 15 years in the NBA, is considered by many to be an outsider.

When the computer science nerd and statistics geek put together a squad that produced the worst winning percentage of his tenure, those who question his methodologies (even if they don't know what they are) were quick with "I told you so."

Accepting blame for slide

To his credit, Morey hasn't run from his hand in the team's slide. He said the slew of team issues were "all on me."

"We had relative success (the year before) and none of us handled it well," Morey said. "We had a slow start, and I think that slow start eroded the belief in how well we could be. And then … it was a vicious cycle almost. We tried to break out of it with some trades and some moves, and nothing we did seemed to break us out of it."

This is an important week for Morey and his long-term future with the Rockets, as he tries to extirpate the losing culture that grew like a weed through the season.

Free agency begins Friday. Thursday's draft was all about the future.

The Rockets had only two second-round picks and took fliers on a couple of big men who probably won't have an impact in an NBA game before the next president is in the middle of his or her first term.

Louisville's Chinanu Onuaku, 19, is a big man who rebounds and plays tough defense, skills that will land him a spot after some D-League seasoning.

Zhou Qi could be a significant difference-maker when proper nouns are allowed in Scrabble - remember the panic when that rumor hit a few years ago? - but the Rockets didn't even know what it would take to buy the 19-, or 20,- or 24-year-old (depending on your source) out of his Chinese Basketball Association contract when they drafted him.

Trader Daryl had hoped to move into the first round, but the players he targeted were off the board when the spots to which he could deal came up.

Little with which to work

Thus, Morey's work to improve next year's roster for new coach Mike D'Antoni will have to come via trades and free agency.

Unfortunately for him, this summer's free-agent list is below average.

"No, it's not a great free-agent year, it isn't," Morey said. "It's a lot of money chasing obviously quality players, but there's way more money chasing way too few players. So I think it's going to be a very difficult free agency to navigate, outside of the few top guys who you know day one you're handing them all the money that you possibly can."

Last year's major acquisition - a trade for Ty Lawson - was as big a fail as any move Morey has made since he came to Houston in 2006 (he took over as general manager in 2007).

Morey thought Lawson, who was third in the league in assists the year before with Denver, would be the answer to the Rockets' offensive sluggishness.

Vegas set the over/under on points and assists for Lawson at 14 and seven, respectively. He averaged only 5.8 points and 3.4 assists, and he was waived a little more than halfway through the season.

"I don't know what happened," Morey said. "I wish him well. I think he's going to have a turnaround year. But he had as rough a year as all of us did, if not worse."

Failed Lawson experiment

Maybe not worse, because Lawson wasn't forced to stick around until the bitter end, when it got hot.

It was surprising. A team with Dwight Howard and James Harden, a team that advanced to the Western Conference finals in 2014-15, shouldn't have to struggle to make the playoffs.

"Last year was very frustrating as an organization," Harden said.

Though Harden says he will help recruit free agents and showed up at the draft hoping to provide insight on players if needed, turning the Rockets' arrow from down to up is Morey's job.

That will be a challenge.

"We think we can take a big step forward," Morey said. "We think we can get back to that 50-plus win level, if not more. That's going to take some moves.

"It's a high bar in the West, a high bar for a team coming off 41 (wins), but unless we're advancing (in the playoffs), we're not very happy."