Credit brain trust for celebrating Christmas in July

Just when some of you thought they were out … they pulled themselves back in.

Rockets general manager Daryl Morey isn’t playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.

He is shooting marbles, double-dutching, sinking battleships, kicking long field goals with paper footballs … he plays whatever game it takes to keep the Rockets in the discussion of the best teams in basketball.

Owner, er, governor Tilman Fertitta isn’t playing games. He’s about that business.

Fertitta exudes the confidence of a man who knows the lottery numbers before the announcement. Those who have followed him as the chairman of the the University of Houston Board of Regents have learned that when he says it is going to get done, it gets done.

He said something big would happen this offseason. On Thursday? Bingo.

The Rockets pulled off the biggest move of the NBA offseason by trading Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook.

One week after what we all believed would be the most impressive July shake-and-bake

— Kawhi Leonard leaving Toronto for the Los Angeles Clippers and bringing Paul George from Oklahoma City with him — the Rockets traded the believed-tobe untradeable contract attached to Paul for one attached to the generally accepted unmanageable personality belonging to Westbrook.

Let’s try this again. Instead of giving a 34-year-old Paul $124 million over the next three seasons, the Rockets will just give that same amount to Westbrook. Wow.

Leonard helped shift the balance of power to the West Coast, but the Rockets stepped on the scale and moved it toward the center.

Let’s not even debate how many teams the Rockets were

behind in the race for NBA supremacy before Thursday night’s blockbuster.

Computer models already had the Rockets among the top five teams in the league for next season, then they traded a player on the downside of a marvelous career for a player in the middle of one.

Text message from an NBA Hall of Famer: This is like Christmas in July.

Two years ago, when the Rockets acquired Paul to pair with James Harden, they had a backcourt that was arguably the best in the NBA. Next season, the Rockets will take the floor with the most accomplished backcourt in the history of the NBA.

Harden and Westbrook have each won an MVP award.

Harden has finished second in the voting three times and been in the top 10 seven times. Westbrook has four top-five finishes, six in the top 10.

The 29-year-old Harden is a seven-time All-Star. Westbrook, 30, is an eight-time All-Star and two-time All-Star Game MVP.

Featuring two of the most talented and fiercest competitors in the NBA, this tandem is explosive on the floor and potentially volatile.

But the two Southern California natives have known each other for a long time, and they played together with the Thunder for three seasons. There is much respect between these two.

When they tangle, and they will, it won’t be a product of selfishness. It will come from their determination.

This is a pairing that isn’t close to being the best of all time. At least not today.

Harden and Westbrook have yet to play a game together as Rockets. As soon as they do, they will move up the ranks.

From the best in Rockets history to championship-level greatness?

That’s doable. Few would have thought that when the season ended. But Morey and Fertitta talked big and have now delivered.

What a gangsta move. These Rockets are never out of it.