They have not won a playoff series since 1997, and McGrady and Yao have never been out of the first round. But convinced that McGrady and Yao are capable of leading a championship contender, the Rockets made moves that would seem short-term.

They traded their first-round pick, Donte' Greene, and their first-round pick next season for Ron Artest, who is in the last season of his contract. They signed 36-year-old Brent Barry.

"Every team needs to get a certain number of breaks to go deep into the playoffs like we hope," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said. "I feel like less needs to break our way because we do have a deep roster. Anytime you're in that situation, I think the smart thing is to take on some risk but try to push and give up a little future to try to win it all because at the end of the day, that's the goal.

"We feel like this can be a special season. It's hard to say, given we have not really earned the right to say that, not having advanced in quite awhile. But in terms of talent level, one of the top coaching staffs, we feel we have the pieces in place to give ourselves as much of a shot as any team."

Owner Leslie Alexander, however, did not buy the premise that the Rockets have a short and rapidly shrinking window of opportunity. He said he expects the Rockets to be of a championship-contending caliber but did not agree that he is loading up for a one-season run, even suggesting he is open to keeping Artest beyond this season if things go well.

"I think our window of opportunity is longer than people think it is because Tracy (McGrady, 30) is not old, Yao (Ming, 28) is not old and Ron (28) is not old," Alexander said. "We've always signed everybody we wanted to sign. We never lost anybody we really didn't want to lose. And everybody's loved playing here, so I assume if Ron has a good season, we'll sign him, too.

"So I don't think we gambled everything for just this year."