Errors stack up as it looks like a messy divorce is following dubious signing

One word to describe Rockets general manager Daryl Morey: Smart.

Very intelligent guy. Clearly knows the league, the modern game, the game within the game, new math, and how to convince flashy NBA superstars that Houston can be home.

James Harden. Chris Paul. Dwight Howard.

The best regularseason team in Rockets history and Mike D’Antoni.

All of that is because of Morey.

So why does it feel like the Rockets are so clueless right now when it comes to Carmelo Anthony? And why did Morey insist on telling the media that Anthony will soon return to the disappointing Rockets, even though all signs — local, national, logical — point toward Melo’s imminent departure and his career in red topping out at just 10 games, two starts, 21 made 3-pointers and 134

total points?

Morey rarely speaks in front of rolling TV cameras and recorders en masse pregame; that’s D’Antoni’s job. But the GM who wanted Melo so badly for years kept talking and talking Sunday, yet never said that Anthony is officially still a Rocket and will definitely be in uniform on Thursday night when the reigning champion Golden State Warriors play the Rockets on national TV — even though that should have been the simplest thing to say, if Anthony truly was returning.

Illness.

Illness.

Illness.

That’s all the information that the paying masses have received about Anthony in recent days, despite ESPN reporting that the team believes No. 7 is already done in Houston and his representatives are currently searching for a new organization.

Nothing about this makes sense.

Thanks to the Rockets, “Where’s Melo?” has suddenly become the hot, new thing in a league that feeds off daily drama. And if Melo does play for the Rockets again — um, awkward — Morey will have even more questions to answer.

No matter what, this is not how you take down the Warriors in May. And this isn’t how you answer 65 wins and falling short on your home court in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.

This is also becoming eerily reminiscent of the Rockets’ previous missteps under Morey. Risky experiments that go wrong. Tinkering too much. A franchise that keeps collecting stars but can’t capture another championship.

I’ll never forget the Rockets proudly backing Kevin McHale for NBA Coach of the Year … then firing him 11 games into a new season, the year after reaching the conference finals. I also remember Morey standing in the middle of a practice court fiercely defending the Rockets, following a disappointing season when they failed to meet their own internal expectations.

He turned that fire into D’Antoni, Paul and 120 wins the last two seasons. But the Rockets have again fallen backward in their endless pursuit of Golden State and now are on the verge of turning Melo — sick (?) and stuck in NBA limbo — into a sympathetic figure.

Do you know how difficult that is to pull off after everything that went down in Denver, New York and Oklahoma City?

“Trying to make my guy @carmeloanthony the fall guy huh!? Man y’all need to stop,” Dwyane Wade tweeted. “That’s the easy way out instead of addressing what the real problem.”

It’s much more complicated than that.

I wrote pieces the last two offseasons cautioning the Rockets against signing Anthony. This 5-7 team needed a serious change. And I’m sure that the franchise’s Advanced Analytics Department ran the same elaborate equation it did when McHale was axed after just 11 games. Probability of winning an NBA title if this keeps up: 0.0 percent.

But this is a bad look for the Rockets and, if Anthony doesn’t play for the team again this season, there will have been far too much time and mental space wasted on an aging, declining veteran.

Harden and Paul have endured infinitely worse drama. CP3 was a Clipper under Doc Rivers. The Beard was attached to a Kardashian.

But a team that basically got championshipor-bust tattoos in the Bahamas?

D’Antoni’s roster is Morey’s responsibility, and what remains in a likely post-Melo world is not title caliber.

All the calculations and projections. Trades, picks, signings, more trades and franchise-changing acquisitions.

Morey’s Rockets often get it right and school the rest of the league. But they should have been smarter than this.