Although I have followed basketball most of my life, I find it difficult to generate any enthusiasm for the Houston Rockets.

It has not always been that way. I moved to Houston in 1972 at about the same time as the Rockets franchise moved to Houston from San Diego, so I have always felt a connection to the club.

My late father and I used to attend Rockets games regularly, even back before the Rockets had their own arena. Until 1975, the Rockets played mostly at Hofheinz Pavilion on the University of Houston campus.

Then, in 1994-5, the magnificent Hakeem Olajuwon led the Rockets to two straight NBA titles, the second of which was achieved with the help of local legend Clyde Drexler, who originally burst on the scene with Olajuwon on the University of Houston’s memorable Phi Slama Jama teams from 1982-84.

With the demise of the Oilers before their exodus to Nashville, and before the Biggio-Bagwell era of the Stros led to multiple MLB playoff appearances, the Rockets were the toast of the town for most of the 1990’s.

However, despite the two NBA titles, Rockets’ management has always had a curious tendency to make poor personnel decisions.

For example, after it was clear that Olajuwon would be a far better player than former number one draft pick, Ralph Sampson, the Rockets delayed trading Sampson until his value had eroded to the point that they could only get Sleepy Floyd and the eminently forgettable Joe Barry Carroll in return.

Even more galling is the fact that Rockets management overlooked talented local players such as Ricky Pierce (Rice), Bo Outlaw (UH), Rashard Lewis (Alief Elsik HS), and Damon Jones (UH), the last three of whom could be playing significant roles on the current Rockets club.

To make matters worse, the Rockets management decisions over the past several years have gone from dubious to just plain horrible.

First, they used a second overall pick in the NBA draft on Steve Francis — a good player who has limitations that will keep him from ever achieving elite stature in the NBA — who they proceeded to trade over this past offseason to Orlando as a part of the deal for the talented but injury-prone Tracy McGrady.

Rockets management used another number one draft choice on power forward Eddie Griffin, who was more interesting in the daily police report than the sports section during his short stay with the club.

Finally, Rockets management either gave or acquired expensive long term contracts on such mediocre role players as Matt Maloney, Moochie Norris, Brent Price, Maurice Taylor, Kelvin Cato, Juwan Howard — the list of bad personnel moves just goes on and on.

Comparing the public’s waning interest in the Rockets to the popularity of the Texans, one Houston businessman put it to me in this way: “How would you like to be trying to sell luxury suites to the Toyota Center?.”

Had Rockets management not at least had the common sense to draft and sign Yao Ming, things might be utterly hopeless at this point.

So, it is against this backdrop that Peter Vecsey, the longtime NBA columnist based in New York, absolutely lays the wood to Rockets management over the team’s latest move:

[I]t’s beyond comprehension what [Rockets General Manager Carroll] Dawson and [Rockets coach] Jeff Van Gundy are thinking.

Acquiring [New Orleans Hornets guard David] Wesley, 34, isn’t as irrelevant as the Mavericks swapping Dan Dickau (again, at least the Hornets got potential) for dead end Darrell Armstrong, but it’s not much better. . . Wesley will take shots away from Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, and maybe even Hakeem.

. . . Wesley doesn’t loosely qualify as a pure point guard. Wherever he’s roamed he’s been a shoot-first, pass-as-a-last-resort type guard. Meanwhile, Jackson’s a deadlier shooter. Moreover, Wesley doesn’t give it up. I’ll say! He wouldn’t even make a pass at Kobe’s wife.

If Wesley’s arrival in Van Gundy’s starting backcourt isn’t opaque enough, this is the worst he’s played since the bad old days in New Jersey and Boston, his first two pro seasons.

And Vecsey goes on to point out that the Wesley deal isn’t the only bad one the Rockets have made lately:

Not to say Wesley, even in his current state of disrepute, isn’t an improvement on what the Rockets have on playmaking patrol. On second thought, I will say it; at best, he’s a Bob Sura clone and substantially superior to Charlie Ward, whose game is so shabby four houses of worship refused him sanctuary.

These are the two pointless guards management chose to sign last summer as free agents to “complement” Tyronn Lue, exchanged last week for Jon Barry, whose poisonous attitude and bad mouthing of coaches when not playing has led to his last three change of addresses.

Obviously, Van Gundy had some say regarding the recruitment of his perennial pet mistake. Ward got $1.7M and $1.8M guaranteed with a $2.04M team option. Why wait, Jeff? Pick it up right now. Nobody else was offering more than a 10-day contract. But Carroll, who helped Rudy Tomjanovich assemble Houston’s two title teams (’94-’95), has the (last) sway.

Carroll has been groping since, overpaying ineligible receivers as if he were bidding against Warriors whiz Chris Mullin. Maurice Taylor, Shandon Anderson, Howard Eisley, Matt Maloney (on the Rockets’ cap this season, his last, at last, for $3.237,250), Brent Price and Moochie Norris were all rewarded with senseless long-term contracts.

Sura was the latest to strike it rich without earning it, unless you deem last season’s stats (7.5 points, 2.9 assists, 1.3 turnovers and 41 percent from the field) for the hopeless Hawks noteworthy. Thanks to the Rockets’ tainted top talent scout, owner Les Alexander owes the 10-year rent-a-wreck $3.2M/$3.5M/$3.8M this year and the next two . . .

Thanks to Carroll (Van Gundy, too), the Rockets are being forced to restock, if not rethink. That might be asking too much.

So, Rockets owner Les Alexander is in a tough spot.

Both of Houston’s other major professional teams and their owners are more popular among Houstonians than the Rockets and Alexander. While the Texans and Stros play in front of record crowds, the Rockets are regularly having trouble drawing 10,000 people to their games. Although I am a regular target of the Rockets’ season ticket sales staff, I haven’t attended a game in years and have little interest in doing so.

Moreover, given the Rockets management’s dubious track record in player evaluation, it’s hard to be optimistic about the club’s prospects. Yao and McGrady are the only players on the Rockets team around whom a playoff caliber club could be built.

Nearly a decade has passed since the Rockets’ glory years. The club has declined dramatically since then, and the decline has accelerated over the past several years.

Absent considerable improvement in the club’s player evaluation process, my sense is that the Rockets will become even more of an afterthought on the Houston scene than they have already become.