Here is my writeup for ESPNLosAngeles on Blake Griffin’s subpar performance last night.

Now, to the actual game:

I went an hour early last night to ask that very question above.  When I reached the visitor’s lockerroom, I was told that neither Blake, CP3, nor Jordan took questions prior to the game.  I then wasted the next hour on my phone downloading apps I’ll never use.

The man in the photo above is Houston Texans linebacker Connor Barwin.  Yes, he was really dressed like that.  You can’t tell from the picture but his jeans were also rolled up nearly to around the knee.

Barwin arrived at some point in the third quarter.  The section immediately came alive, almost as if there was a professional basketball game going on at that same time.  He arrived with a friend, a younger gentlemen probably in his early twenties who looked to weigh about 110 lbs.  The sight of the pair was almost cartoonish, especially with Barwin attired in full homeless garb.

They made their way all the way down to near the floor…only to be rebuffed by the usher!  If a guy that played a large role in bringing football back to this town can’t nab a free seat, then noone can.

The pair then made their way back up, only to be recognized by even more people.  At one point while Barwin climbed the stairs, he even did what seemed to be some variant of one of his sack celebrations.  Barwin appeared to be inebriated.

For the next ten minutes, he then posed for pictures in the aisle with fans flocking like ants.  At one moment, suddenly, he disappeared, and I feared the worst, only to realize he was standing literally a foot behind me, posing with some Marines.

I like the end where he kind of looks at me blankly.  I had more with Paul, but that will go in a separate post on the game itself, to be published probably later tonight.

As seen above, Blake Griffin has this dry sense of humor where he almost always seems to be struggling to keep a straight face , holding back a smile, through his interviews.

The above was my interview with Jeremy Lin some weeks ago before he ceased being Jeremy Lin and became ‘God disguised as Jeremy Lin.’  Watch it.

As I type this, Jeremy Lin just got done dropping 38 points on the Lakers on national television in a winning effort.  The Knicks have now won 4 games in a row and are 1/2 game back of the 8th seed at 12-15.  I hadn’t written anything about Lin up to this point, and had felt the Knicks would eventually right the ship and recover, but this is just sickening.

A couple of points:

First, as evidenced by the video, we cut Lin because of Flynn.  Flynn had guaranteed money, makes over $3million, and Lin didn’t seem to be enough of an upgrade, at the time, to warrant swallowing that cash.  Add in the fact that neither was going to see time regardless due to Goran Dragic, and you can completely understand why the Rockets made the cut.  So don’t think they cut Lin because they somehow thought Flynn was better – that’s not the case.

Second point – I don’t really care so much about Lin.  He’s playing amazing, but whatever.  Many of you are pissed that we lost out on talent, but that’s not the issue.  I’m more than happy with Goran Dragic who has maybe been our team MVP during this recent stint.

The issue is that draft pick.  It’s looking like even money right now that the Knicks will make the playoffs.  The part that makes you want to hurl is that its on the back of Lin, the former Rockets reject.  If it happens, its one of the cruelest twists of irony in the team’s history.  Missing out on Lin means little, if anything, in the grand scheme; he’ll come back down to earth.  But if he plays some role in helping the Knicks to the playoffs when they were all but dead…wow.  In the Les/Morey era, there wasn’t going to be another opportunity for a high draft pick.  They won’t tank and there will always be too much talent.  And as we know, high lottery picks are one of the most valued commodities in the NBA landscape.  For a franchise starved for blue-chip talent, either to build upon, or trade in a megadeal, its painful to watch a likely pick slip away like this.  Even if it were just in the 7-9 range, given Morey’s draft record, that player could have really helped this franchise take the next step, or of course, helped acquire someone else.  Of course, the season’s still young, so we’ll have to see.

At this moment, one has to give serious weight to the possibility of this franchise being cursed.  From T-Mac, to Yao, to the Gasol trade, to now possibly losing a lottery pick in such a way…is Hakeem still that angry about being dealt?  The stories all along were that he had initially requested a trade, but maybe that’s not the case?  He’s apparently upset about something because there really is no other explanation for this string of bad luck.  Stay tuned.

• Our own Kyle Lowry, the one with the puppy-dog face and tenacity of a giddy child, accused of battering a woman? Of course, in the midst of a season that seems quickly headed for a middling lottery pick (is that a good thing? Isn’t that what we want, sort of?), the Rockets’ only semblance of a bright spot has quickly dulled as the stud point guard was formally charged with one count of misdemeanor battery in Vegas Thursday. I kind of wish I had more to say about this besides, “What in Christ’s name else could go wrong?”, but even that invites the kind of “luck” for which this team’s been famous in the last few years. Perhaps this will lead to nothing, but it’s certainly strange that Lowry’s been playing throughout while waiting for the other shoe to drop.Work can be a man’s sanctuary in a time of crisis, but no one could be happy that the climax of said situation comes concurrently with his or her own peak of personal success.

• Looking at the league’s top 10 defensive teams can be downright befuddling at the beginning of this season, even though the vast majority of the list makes perfect sense. Orlando and its human pendulum round out the list, topped by Philadelphia, Indiana, Miami, Chicago, Milwaukee and other teams with sterling defensive reputations. But at the top of this list? The Denver Nuggets. What statistical aberrations a few games playing the selfish Kings, flailing Mavericks and confused Jazz can produce, but still, something strange must be brewing behind a George Karl  team leading the league in defense even just two games into the season. Given the losses of well reputed defenders Kenyon Martin and Wilson Chandler to Far East, a Nuggets D that had not ranked in the top 10 for years seemed less than primed to make the jump this year. Alas, after a closer viewing of the Nuggets against the Kings Wednesday night, little was clearer than that the effort of the Nuggets has changed. Against a team ready and prone to taking bad shots, Denver’s perimeter defense shined, chasing shooters off of their spots and (more often against a team full of mindless gunners like Sactown) putting the hands in the faces of all men daring to pull up for one behind the arc. Add to that center Timothy Mosgov’s nimble feet that are more than capable of showing hard on PNR plays before getting back to his assignment, and suddenly the Nuggets’ emergence, at least given the competition, is less surprising. Still, let’s hope that calms down before the mighty Northwestern Division soon swallows this entire conference whole.

• Where the hell is Marcus Morris? Chase Budinger’s experience makes sense to ensure the volleyballer the starting spot, and Terrence Williams needs to get as many reps in as possible before he is piled onto the rest of the screw-ups and jokes from the 2009 NBA Draft class sitting on Houston’s bench. Still, Morris looked to be a major part of the rotation coming into the season, especially after that breakout preseason game against San Antonio, but somehow high-flying white boy (sound familiar?) Chandler Parsons has found his way into a lineup desperately lacking a true wing. As Morris waits patiently on Houston’s pine, I can’t help but wonder exactly what the hell happened to the kid or whether Kevin McHale’s good graces are really that fickle.

Photo via comrade jason from Flickr

• After gobs of Rockets bashing, let us all remember when giant stars roamed the Toyota Center floor through the inspiration power of David Banner’s new single, “Yao Ming”. *****, may we all be as tall as Yao Ming.

Catch me on Twitter @JacobMustafa and in this weekly notebook every Friday. Thanks for spending your time here.

While I may be ashamed to admit such things amongst respectable company, I spent the better part of the last decade trolling around on hip-hop websites, picking e-fights with anyone interested in debating the merits of Dipset or Outkast; given the dog days of 100-degree-weather and style-nullifying sweat, staying inside and feigning expertise seemed as fit a way to spend this summer as any. When last week brought the release of hip-hop’s own summer blockbuster, a supergroup consisting of Kanye West and Jay-Z’s debut album, Watch the Throne, I instantly reverted to belligerent mode, assaulting all with whom I disagreed, ignoring the insignificance of the entire matter and generally making an ass of myself. This, however, is not my regret. Rather, I was almost immediately reminded of the futility of Internet debates about art. The unquestionable, solid-gold proof of a major argument by one party could just as easily appear to serve the purpose of the former’s opponent, if skewed the right way. That is the beauty of a game that meticulously records its statistics: all will be remembered.

Obviously, sports arguments can just as easily, if not more so, be derailed by moments of ignorance, emotionally-tinged memories that tell far different stories than either the record books or the scorecards (“Dude, I promise that Reggie Miller would have been the best player of  the 90′s if it weren’t for Mike.”). In fact, asking for a return to the inanity of NBA ball on sports radio (*shudder*) and “LeBron sucks” seems masochistic, if not just dumb; however, one more argument about why samples should be more obscure or the validity of an independent music publication’s “cred” could melt all that remained of your trusty scribe away. A salute to a world in which silences can be created by the rattling off of PERs, bets can be won because a guy happened to remember exactly how many more rebounds Joakim Noah averaged last year than the one prior (one more), contests won because Jimmy Jackson actually played for 12 teams. A salute to certainty in a world where there is rarely any. And a beggar’s plea for some damn basketball.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hHDxlm66dE

General managers of professional basketball teams are a stubborn sort, the kind of men who like to go down with the ship and save the lifeboats for all of the lucky guys on short contracts (or, in Otis Smith’s case, take an entire city down with him). Too often teams stand by a faulty decision, sometimes for lack of better options but occasionally out of sheer doggedness in proving just how right the original decision was. Daryl Morey lacks the misguided machismo usually guiding such lines of thought, and because of this, Morey’s been able to unload some of the worse contracts in his tenure just a year after signing said deals, at once owning up to his mistake while almost always bringing in superior talent at lower costs. Maybe Morey still hasn’t caught the whale of a star this team’s fanbase (myself loudly included) has been crowing for ever since the realization that Yao Ming’s feet and ankles were made of yogurt pretzels and Silly Bandz, but all of the low-risk gambles and sub-radar maneuvering that evoked these fans’ love still make the Rockets the kings of the low-stakes transaction in the NBA, something even I can appreciate.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about when I use the words “indie cred” or “hipster appeal”, allow me to clarify my nonsense. Similar to an earlier discussion this year about “buzz teams” in the first round of the playoffs (when all was right because everything was wrong, and Chris Paul could be easily mistaken for God), the idea of an “indie” team runs along the same vague, arbitrary path, although while “buzz teams” generally need some respectable level of success (a winning record, a trip to the playoffs in the East), a team that appeals to the scenesters need only have some fascinating angle, such as a star with strange tattoos that thinks he’s Jewish or a collection of screw-ups assembled by a mad man. Oh yes, almost any team can have its own crowd of Tweeples and bizarre devotees… except the Houston Rockets.

For some reason, Houston, with its band of brothers that has continually put together contextually impressive seasons and never seems to give up, seems just a little too earnest and nondescript to gain the cynical gazes of those in the oversized spectacles. Where the blue-collar ethos that pervades the Rocket locker room may have endless appeal to the Sunday-paper-columnist crew, there is no room for cool in Houston. Because of this, I’m determined to make the Rockets a hipster favorite, a regular ’06 Golden State Warriors, if you will. So, without further ado, some tips to make all things Rockets cool, or at least make the team easier to fit into those forever-topical-”Which character on The Wire is your favorite player?”-blog-posts:

• Make the players more distinctive. Besides the atrocious, grease-laden hair of Luis Scola, few Rockets possess the kind of accoutrement that generally gets the hipsters hemming and hawing; to fix this, the Rockets need only tap into their creative sides. Perhaps Jordan Hill could have one of his eyes surgically removed so as to wear an eye-patch nightly; this would certainly add character to his face, while not really changing his natural ability to find the ball. Chase Budinger’s forays into the white-guy afro have been half-hearted at best, so some sort of headband/fro combo could really raise his Vice Magazine-quotient considerably. Kevin Martin, with his innocuous personality and ho-hum name, has been one of this league’s hidden All-Stars, so hidden that he hasn’t ever actually been an All-Star (even if the Internet said he was one this year); one likely way to change that perception (or non-perception as no one is perceiving Martin) would be a nickname switch. Being called K-Mart in 2011 is akin to eating at an A&W restaurant this decade; it’s just passé and dorky enough to elicit laughter without being quite old enough to enter “so old, it’s cool” territory. Ideal name changes would be “Floppy Joe” or “Light-Skinned Killa”.

• Make all things retro. Do you know how to your make your jeans cooler? Get some older ones. Your Audi’s nice, but a bit on the gauche side. Get an El Camino. All things are made cooler through oldness, obviously, so the Rockets need to make some efforts in that direction. One clear room for improvement is the team’s jerseys; they look as if they were designed after the 1970′s, a classic hipster no-no. Instead, Houston should probably skip the half-stepping of the team’s current alternate faux-retro and go all in by mandating goggles, short shorts and handlebar mustaches. To really kick it up a notch, heavily distressed jean cutoffs may be the next logical progression.

• Marry a Kardashian. There are more of those, right? One for each unmarried Rocket. I mean, people like Kris Humphries now; that’s got to be worth something. Oh wait, I’m sorry; no one likes Kris Humphries.

• Be indifferent. There is nothing even close to as hipster as not giving a flying hoot about anything. The Rockets have already shown a natural predilection for this on the defensive end of the ball, but it’s time to go further. Hiring Kevin McHale seems a natural step towards this, but did the Rockets ever consider just not hiring anyone for the head coaching job? It would be cheap (super hipster), plus the sharp decline in indie cred for President Obama after his election proves that the apathetic hip masses can’t get down with any older authority figure in suits telling them what to do, even a comparatively younger black guy who claims to like hip-hop. Nothing is cooler than a complete and utter lack of authority; just ask Don Nelson.

• Add players who can do everything, even if they don’t do it any of it well. Most teams worth their salt in indie cred (the English language hates this article) are well versed in the ways of the potential-laden, do-it-all-but-none-of-it-at-a-meaningful-time-types who constantly frustrate the hell out of NBA front offices with their ostensible myriad abilities that appear to all malfunction at once at the most inconvenient times. Take Anthony Randolph. Even without playing for almost the entire first half of the 2010-11 NBA season, the gangly 6’11″ center found himself on not one or two, but three indie teams within the span of a year. He was abused by the aforementioned Nelson in Golden State (where his ability to play aggressive interior defense, handle the ball and shoot jumpers were all supposed to coalesce perfectly), shipped to the Knicks (where all of his gifts were supposed to work perfectly) and promptly given a seat on the bench, and finally hurled thoughtlessly over at that island of misfit toys in Minnesota (where his all-around gifts kind of worked out perfectly. Huh); without doing anything in two of those spots, his very presence on those rosters made those delusional, idealistic teams seem a hell of a lot cooler, if simultaneously dumber.

• BRAD MILLER. When you’ve got it, flaunt it. And when you have a big, country guy who loves to wear headbands, shoot ill-advised threes, pass like a point guard, get cornrows, hunt things with his teammates while on the road, seem to cry after almost every one of his hilarious blunders, make hilarious blunders all of the time, and look terribly uncomfortable doing all of it, it’s time to strut that thing. Let’s face it. Trey Kirby loves him. The Internet loves him. Hipsters love him. More Miller time means more headbanded, Supreme-rocking bloggers fawning all over the Rockets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELvr_rUiNQ

Maybe hipsterdom should be avoided at all costs, but if the Houston Rockets are going to continue to find themselves in a holding pattern, it would only make sense to look cool doing it. Making sense, though? Totally not hipster.

First: the following thoughts are in no way endorsed by ESPN and are completely my own.  I am not attempting to make any political statements and am merely passing personal observation.  With that said, how is high fructose corn syrup not outlawed or regulated?  I went two months completely free from soda and have never experienced so much mental clarity and overall energy in my adult life.  I’ve been drinking soda again for the past month and feel absolutely horrible.  My God it tastes amazing but I feel like hell, as if some sort of foreign substance has invaded my body.  It’s literally like night and day.  To those of you who drink soda regularly, I challenge you to give it up for a few weeks and observe the difference.  I’m constantly sluggish and wanting to take a nap; my overall daily sleep requirements have substantially increased.  Just fascinating to me how big a difference this stuff makes in how you feel.

Second observation which is freaking weird as well: I am an absolute machine with background noise/activity.  This is really weird and counterintuitive.  It is also extremely unfortunate that it took me until the near age of 26 to figure this out.  Let me explain: as you all know, I’m a law student.  If I’m studying in my room or even in the library, I lose focus quickly and either give up entirely or feel the urge to take a nap.  I usually give in to the urge.  But if I’m somewhere loud, with a lot of people talking at once/moving around, I’m a rock and can read for hours.  This is just fascinating to me as one would assume the mind functions best in quiet areas.  Though I guess I overlooked the component of losing interest if there’s no outside stimulation.  Conversely, if there are only a couple of people talking, or if I have music on, I can’t study at all – it has to be background ‘noise.’  I think it’s fascinating how the human mind works.  One of the things that has always interested me is ascertaining what circumstances work best for me for different tasks.  Life optimization, if you will.

Ok, that’s all for now.  Sorry at the complete randomness of this post, but I have a final in four hours and my brain is completely fried.  Thank god for Red94.

So maybe this summer won’t bring relief for the ketchup & mustard faithful, but at least, thanks to the lockout, we can all indulge in something almost as American as greed, overpaid athletes and professional sports: attack ads.

(Via The Basketball Jones)

Yes, these could be the last three games of Rockets basketball for a while, yet lockout paranoia has not particularly permeated the Houston fanbase. Could Rockets fans possibly eye an advantage for their team in all of the brouhaha ensuing from an extended battle over a new CBA? Revenue sharing seems like it would directly counteract with the interests of Houston, a highly profitable franchise; however, Commissioner David Stern has talked far more frequently about hard salary caps and contract scale decreases than greater reforms in the league’s current revenue sharing model. A hard cap also does not seem particularly friendly to a Rockets franchise that has found its owner’s large and open pocketbooks a great boon as most franchises cower away from the guillotine that is the luxury tax. In fact, a massive salary cap overhaul might hurt the Rockets more than most franchise given Houston’s obvious knack for acquiring talent and assets at lower values than when inevitably shipped for even better parts; for those teams that have assiduously studied and mastered the current cap system, the dismantling of all of that expertise seems devastating.

Do the Rockets want a quick resolution to the potential lockout more than most teams? Maybe, but the real work that needs to be done with this team definitely cannot start until it is.

This is my favorite time of year. Don’t get me wrong, I love the (NBA Playoffs and NFL and NCAA football). I mean they rev my engines, but they don’t belong in the newsroom!

March is awesome. Let me tell you why:

-Golf season, which admittedly is year round in Houston, pretty much officially begins for me the first Monday after the Sunday of Daylight Savings. Arbitrary as it may seem, it is the day I can put in a full day at the office and still play 18 holes before sundown, if everything goes smoothly (no traffic getting to the course, good pace on the course, no searching for lost balls, no searching for thrown clubs, etc.).

-St. Patrick’s Day Weekend in Dallas is the best weekend Dallas has to offer. You’re probably thinking that the Red River Shootout deserves some consideration if not an outright declaration of its supremacy. Go ahead and continue thinking that; enjoy your crowds of out of towners and relish in your inability to get into bars or get anywhere in the city in a reasonable amount of time. I’ll stick to the weekend that Greenville becomes Bourbon St. and every house around the M Streets is having a party that spills into the parties right next to it.

-St. Calzone’s Day (my Italian friends in college made up a retaliatory holiday to St Patty’s to celebrate their heritage – not knowing that niche had been filled by March 19′s St. Joseph’s Day) is on its 8th annual celebration and acts as an informal college reunion because after college you don’t have enough day parties in your life.

-Men’s college basketball conference tournaments. Outside of those risque lingerie shops, you cannot find a better warm-up and lead-in to something so great as March Madness. Teams with no chances are given hope and every underdog is fighting for its post season life.

-Which leads us to March Madness itself. You don’t even have to have your own team in the fray to get wrapped up in the excitement of the first weekend of Madness. Buzzer beaters, upsets, heroes – nothing matches the first round (not acknowledging the play in games as the first round).

This year’s Tournament is a new experience for some personal and public reasons. For all of us, four stations, rather than just CBS, broadcasting the games takes some adjusting. I personally loved having Greg Gumble and Jim Nance sherpanavigate  me through simultaneous games. Yes, we could miss some moments, but the work was done for us. On the other hand, with the staggered games, every ending is theoretically in play to be seen live. And with the internet, channels and times and scores are easy to find and monitor.

Now, my own experience this year has,regretfully, lost some integrity. Undermined by a good deal, I put aside my rule of “one tournament : one bracket : same bracket for every pool” and bought the right to play 3 brackets for the price of $10 rather than $5 for 1. Does this make me less of a man? Absolutely, and I want to apologize to myself for giving up the “moral” high ground that is granted by one bracket status.

This year, I will have no one to scoff at but myself as I flip through my brackets checking and crossing and highlighting much longer than necessary. With hedges in play, most games’ outcomes are mitigated by the choices (betrayals) on another of my brackets.

Eventually, I will succumb to the inevitable confusion that flows from having picked both teams to win a game. Cheering against one and for another is an unbridgeable abyss of self-division, and a Connor divided against himself cannot stand!

I may not be able to regain the moral ground I surrendered in filling out 3 brackets, but I can regain my sanity. I am tearing up all but my first bracket, an act lessened in significance by their electronic form being stored on a website, and lessened further because I will happily reap any rewards they bring.

Written by Connor Winn, ‘Cap Backwards’ is a discussion column on the NBA’s salary cap and its many intricacies.

Upon initially hearing of the trade, my immediate thoughts gave cause for concern over my favorite Rocket. At present, I have all but resigned my attachment to Shane Battier so as not to create a scene when I see Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey walking out the farmhouse door with a shotgun in his hands and tears in his eyes.

Yes, I believe William’s arrival is a death knell for Battier’s run as a Rocket, if not before February’s trade deadline, then surely in the offseason when his contract expires. The Rockets have no immediate title hopes and appear headed into a yet unknown level of rebuilding mode. With Yao pretty much down for the count, it will be rebuilding and not reloading. Battier’s time in the league is waning and would be more valuable elsewhere. I hope he contributes to a deep playoff run before he retires.

BUT T-WILL, MY GOD!!! The kid is amazing and a source of unlimited comedic potential. I am predicting interviews along the lines of Clinton Portis. I do not think he is a bad person, but rather, affably eccentric like the great grandmother who gives you a catheter for Christmas because she knows you go on road trips. That is not the type of personality that jives with Avery Johnson, his former coach in New Jersey.

My infatuation with T-Will stems by proxy from a great friend from college, who we will call Johnny, because that is his name. Johnny, who calls Louisville, Kentucky home, loves the University of Louisville. I mean, the guy literally bleeds U of L’s school colors, something I would like to see Orange Bloods try. He has eaten at the table next to this table!!!

Johnny is also an incredibly thoughtful and intelligent man of the mold who typically chooses his words with purpose. So when I asked for his opinion on T-Will’s impending arrival to the launch pad, I hoped I would get something I could at least hang a hat on.

But when Johnny’s response incorporated phrases like “freakish athlete in a league of freakish athletes” and “worked his (butt) off,” I glee’d all over myself. Such praise made it very easy to rationalize other words, like “immature” and “eccentric,” which Johnny wrote. But instead of me taking his words out of context, have a gander for yourself:

Of course I’ve never met the guy, so this is all hearsay and my own opinions from having watched him closely for his four years at Louisville.

He really is a freakish athlete in a league of freakish athletes, so watching him play is always fun.  In Louisville he just had/has a reputation of being a free spirited/eccentric guy.  He was never arrested or in any trouble with the law….my impression is that a lot of people think he’s a trouble maker or has been arrested a bunch, or at the least a bad egg, but i don’t think that’s the case (again, never met him, but anecdotes you hear around town of the way he treated kids, greeted fans, etc, were always positive…like he went out of his way to be nice).

Obviously, that’s a tough story to sell now given that he’s apparently not been the best teammate in NJ.  My educated guess about all that is that he had some personality conflicts with team management and simply took that out in really immature ways….not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it’s definitely different than being a bad guy or someone who is looking for trouble.

It was cool to watch him develop over his 4 years at U of L.  His first 3, he basically just got by on his athleticism…the book on him was that you couldn’t really stop him in transition or getting to the rim, but if you sat back and let him shoot, you’d have a chance.  But by his senior year, he was doing everything for the team, basically ran the offense, and worked his (but) off to improve his outside shot, and it really showed.

I should note, however, that the last game of his career was in the 2009 Elite Eight when Michigan St. just blew us out.  He left a bad taste in some people’s mouths because he and Pitino apparently got into an argument at halftime over the way he was playing….he didn’t play much the second half as I recall.  Pitino apparently still loves the guy though.

My feeling is that if he gets put in the right situation, he will thrive and really contribute.  Bottom line is that he’s probably immature, but he’s not a bad dude, and my feeling (hope?) is that his best basketball is in front of him.

As fans, this trade is the second step toward understanding the meaning of the 2010/11 Rockets’ season. On the first step, we watched the team jam a toe on the doorframe and stumbled into mediocrity: a team not good enough to compete for anything of consequence or bad enough to be competitive in next summer’s lottery.

This trade signals something more than just Morey’s usual opportunistic snacking on another team’s quandary. Juxtaposed against the news of Yao’s (final?) setback, the Rockets took a definitive step toward a different future than what had been optimistically planned at the outset of the season. The acquisition of Williams suggests player development will be a higher priority. Williams, like Jordan Hill, Chase Budinger and Ish Smith, is a player in crude form in need of refinement.

This is no longer Yao’s team in absentia. Without the foundation of a superstar (even if it was one of hope against further injury), a new identity needs crafting around Houston’s young players.  Crazy thing is, the Rockets’ average age is 26. Houston is mainly a bunch of youngsters!  These are the ages on Houston’s roster:

Patterson: 21

Budinger: 22

Smith: 22

Hill: 23

T. Williams: 23

Lowry: 24

Brooks: 25

Lee: 25

Hayes: 27

Martin: 27

Jeffries: 29

Scola: 30

Ming: 30

Battier: 32

Miller: 34

Removing Brad Miller, Battier, Yao and Jared Jeffries, the team’s average age drops to 24. While Miller has another year on his contract, the latter three will most likely not be on Houston’s roster next season. Yao might be, but not at $17 million dollars.

This does not mean that the Rockets are going to be way under the salary cap next summer. The only way that could happen is if Battier, Yao and Jeffries are retained through the end of their contracts this season, and Houston renounces its rights to those players. Renouncing their rights would free the Rockets of the free agent amounts, or cap holds, of those players. Houston would then have to take additional steps by renouncing its rights to Torraye Braggs, Mark Jackson, Maciej Lampe, Dikembe Mutombo, and the legend that was Jake Tsakalidis. All five former players count against Houston’s cap because they have not officially retired.

Far more likely would be a trade of Battier and Jeffries that would bring back some salary obligations. Those salaries would likely inhibit any chance at major cap space. And with a looming lockout, this may all be an exercise for naught. Cap space has an undefined value in this time of uncertainty.

Returning to my step analogy, Terrence Williams is that second step. He is a playmaker and a rebounder, making him the perfect accoutrement to our diminutive scoring point guard. THE ROCKETS SHOULD NO LONGER LOOK TO TRADE AARON BROOKS.

Brooks outside shooting and attacking is a better match than you could ever hope to find in a cigar store for T-Will’s skill set. T-Will is a physical wing who can defend, rebound, and who looks to make the assist. One of his biggest faults is that he too often looks to make the impossible assist. Rick Adelman, you might recall, has some experience taming that lion.

This Rockets team is being reinvented, and Yao’s loss only accelerates that movement. Out from under Yao’s shadow, Morey’s front office team is at long last granted the room to flex its’ creative muscles. As the first move of a new era, Williams better friggin’ realize the gift of a second chance and put his career at the fore of his thoughts.

In this industry, you are your own enterprise.

This Rockets team reminds me of the protagonist in John Knowles’ “A Separate Peace.” Knowles’ hero suffers a crisis of identity after a traumatic injury.* Referring to the asterisked book report below, Houston’s team lost its identity in the spate of injuries early in the season. If Yao’s injury was tragic, the loss of Aaron Brooks to a sprained ankle suffered during a half-court heave to beat a half-time buzzer is Shakespearean (obviously not at the level of Macbeth, but more at the level of crayon doodles from Stratford-Upon-Avon pre-K).

Yes, I am fully prepared to eat the crow I unwittingly began preparing a few months ago.** When I called for the trade of Aaron Brooks, things were different.*** I still think his trade value is inflated by <my presumption that the first metric typically seen on an individual level is> average scoring.  Brooks also has something else, because this team was not as erratic last year with largely the same cast of players.

*I hate this book for the same reason every dumb extremist**** hates books: it’s boring and it pissed me off. Writing from a 9th grader’s memory: The antagonist in this book was actually the hero, albeit tragic. Knowles’ provides a unique vantage as the book is narrated by the antagonist; a consciously flawed adolescent envious of the perception of ease in which the hero conquers life. The hero has grand plans for himself that are literally shattered when he severely breaks his leg and is sapped of his identity. Yada Yada…the book is deep in meaning and metaphor, but the only reason I remember it is because Knowles’ denounces sarcasm as a cheap imitation of real humor, which is funny only in the irony that the book could only be funny to a depression suffering sadist.

**Is this the Aaron Brooks bandwagon? Because I left my favorite hoodie somewhe…is that seat taken?

***Different = full of promise.

****”I was elected to lead, not to read.” –McBain, Simpsons

So many questions.  I can’t think of a more complicated situation since I’ve been following the team.  What would you do if you were in Morey’s shoes?

Not sure where the idea Tor won’t S&T w/Mia came from, but it’s not true. Calderon/Bosh for Chalmers, 2 future 1sts + trade exception: done.

Which part of the above two sentences even remotely gives off the indication of anything but hypothetical conjecture?

Judging from the reaction to this tweet from Ric Bucher earlier today, it’s safe to say we’ve failed as a society.

You can’t tell me AB looked better than Taylor has thus far.

While Scola was by far the most productive of any of the players discussed,  he was also a seasoned international veteran.

While Landry appeared more impressive, having the wow-factor that accompanied those pre-injury springs, Jordan Hill has been just as productive.   (Sidenote: really, before Carl got hurt that year, he looked like he was about to jump through his shoes every time he was near the rim – freakish.  Sad, he has never looked the same since then, despite being a much better player.)  Jordan also has by far the greatest potential out of any of the 6, just by virtue of his physical gifts.

And of course we have Budinger who has displayed a calmness to his game that is rarely seen in players of this age.

I don’t like to throw out labels like ‘future All-Star’ as so few guys actually even ever make it, but it’s really hard to not get the feeling that the Houston Rockets have once more reeled in three impact rotation players from one rookie class.

Many have expressed their reluctance towards a Houston Rockets trade for Chris Bosh given the probable cost being Carl Landry and Aaron Brooks (or two other core components.)  I think one overlooked aspect of such a deal is a potential follow-up Tracy McGrady trade.

Allow me to explain:

First, a trade for Chris Bosh would most likely require gutting this roster of at least two core pieces.  This is because it is highly unlikely that the Raptors would accept a deal involving Tracy McGrady – Bosh is an expiring contract in his own right, so there would be no motivation for such a swap.

Secondly, a trade of Tracy McGrady for anyone of any significance (ie: Iguodala) would almost surely push the Rockets over the luxury tax for next season.  This is because the motivation for the other team in such a trade would be to also unload some unwanted albatross (ie: Dalembert/Brand.)

In such a scenario, after re-signing Kyle Lowry and Luis Scola this summer, as well as their draft pick, the Rockets would then be over the tax limit next season.  (It is highly, highly unlikely that the team would prefer the return on a McGrady trade over Lowry/Scola and let the latter two walk – they won’t gut their nucleus for someone like Iguodala, in my opinion.)

In my opinion, at status quo, it’s highly unlikely that Les Alexander would sign off on an Iguodala/Dalembert package. From a business-risk perspective, such a team just wouldn’t be worth paying millions in luxury tax.

Because of the financial implications, any trade of Tracy McGrady goes through Les Alexander.  This is the key point.  Daryl Morey has stated numerous times that this team will not exceed the luxury tax threshold unless presented the opportunity to acquire a “special” player.  In my opinion, Andre Iguodala does not fit such a description.

If you are still following me, we now come to Chris Bosh and Marc Stein’s insistence of a Morey Bosh push.

I think it’s highly unlikely that Daryl Morey would gut his roster in a Bosh trade unless he had been given clearance from Alexander to re-tool through a follow-up McGrady trade.  A team of Bosh, Yao, and the holdovers from our current core after a Bosh trade probably isn’t much better than the current status quo.

So we’ve ruled out Iguodala alone, for financial concerns, and Bosh alone, for asset concerns.  But what about making both trades together?

That would give the team a core of Yao, Bosh, and Iguodala, the latter two both still 25.  That is a nucleus, which, in concert with Morey’s now proven ability to find cheap assets, would almost surely be considered worth paying the luxury tax.  In addition, such a combination would make use of the asset that is Tracy McGrady’s contract.

There is merit to the argument that Chris Bosh is not worth both Carl Landry and Aaron Brooks (or a similar package.)  However, if my previous assumption of Les’ reluctance to pay the tax is true, then just through actually enabling a McGrady trade, a Bosh trade is the best course for total asset optimization, regardless of cost.

If this team maintains the status quo, I do not think they can gain maximum potential return on Tracy McGrady.

Thus, Mark Stein’s insistence of a Morey Bosh push makes me wonder if a dual-blockbuster two-step may indeed be the plan.  For the reasons I have outlined, I think it would be the best route for this franchise’s future.

Edit***:

I think I did a poor job explaining my thought process on this last night.  The important thing to remember is to view these transactions not through the lens of personnel management, but rather ownership.

What I mean is that a team comprised of Yao, Iguodala, Scola, Landry, Battier, Ariza, Brooks, and Lowry may very well be better than one with Bosh replacing Landry and Brooks.  I don’t agree with the sentiment, but taking chemistry into consideration, the argument has merit.

However, what’s important to keep sight of is the risk factor.  If you’re Les Alexander, you’re willing to trade for Dalembert (and thus Iguodala) in the second aforementioned scenario because Chris Bosh is just a sounder financial investment than are Landry and Brooks.  Bosh is proven while Brooks’ and Landry’s production may be inflated by their current roles.  (I don’t think production inflation is the case, but from a risk perspective, it’s not a safe bet for ownership.)  So even if Morey might think a team with Landry and Brooks is superior to one with Bosh, I just can’t see Les signing off on the tax implications of Iguodala/Dalembert, and thus, you lose out on the return from ‘The McGrady Asset.’

So the main point regarding Bosh is simply to enable the acquisition of a second star like Iguodala.  It’s not to actually improve the team in and of itself.

Finally, it’s been proven that Morey can find cheap assets from the dumpster.  Budinger looks to be the next in this line.  With this being the case, it’s just a smart decision to trade two uncertain commodities for a proven one in Bosh.  The next Landry and Brooks can easily be found once more, and at a fraction of their expected future cost (once the pair hit free agency.)  Sell high.

Edit II:

Peter Vescey is now reporting that the Lakers are exploring a deal to send Andrew Bynum to Toronto for Chris Bosh.  I can’t see either side turning down such a deal.  And I feel ill.

You can expect essays pertaining to the team, such as my season preview or my retrospective assessment of management’s free agency decisions.

I will often provide in depth player evaluations such as my article on Trevor Ariza or my reflection on Ron Artest.

And of course, one can expect a review of each game such as this one.

Overall, my intent is to take a greater macro approach to my analysis of the Houston Rockets.  I’m not particularly concerned with the outcome of each game but rather the factors that are conducive to future growth.  What do we observe in the present that will bear impact upon tomorrow?  That is the lens through which I will proceed.

I am ecstatic to be joining the TrueHoop network and am looking forward to providing fresh content pertaining to the Houston Rockets.