Yahoo rosters 25 players on the Rockets'! They've crashed and burned on their efforts to land Dwight Howard, but have been successful landing Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin. It's likely their roster will be pared down to:

PG Jeremy Lin, Toney Douglas, Courtney Fortson

SG Kevin Martin, Carlos Delfino, Jeremy Lamb

SF Chandler Parsons, Terrance Jones,Gary Forbes

PF Patrick Patterson, Royce White, (Marcus Morris or JaJuan Johnson)

C Jonas Montiejunas, Omer Asik, Josh Harrelson

That leaves 10 players to be set adrift. These players include:

PG Earl Boykins, Shaun Livingston, E'Twaun Moore

SG Jon Diebler

SF Diamon Simpson

PF Sean Williams, Jon Brockman

C Jerome Jordan, Greg Smith

Although they have several really good looking young players, and perhaps a special spark plug with Lin, it just doesn't look like it turned out all that good for the Rockets.

What I really wonder is whether the weaknesses of this squad might prove to be in some way a match for some of the excess small forward talent on the Pistons. Is Parsons really the top small forward option? Is Carlos Delfino likely to grab the starting role? Is Jones better than a back-up? Or, could Royce White be the wild card that moves to the small forward position?

Or, could it be that Austin Daye and, or Tayshaun Prince might prove appealing? I continue to be intrigued by the versatility of Royce White, the lineage of Patrick Patterson (a nephew of Ben Wallace), and the potential of Jeremy Lamb as another guard rotation scoring option.

There is that pesky contract value clause of the collective bargaining agreement that gums things up, but I think Houston is far from done reshaping their roster.