- Where Rockets fans see a real opportunity for the team’s best player to get healthy on his own terms, the rest of the NBA smells weakness. It’s the reason the 24-minute minute ceiling caused such hubbub; here appeared to be an NBA team admitting its supreme talent couldn’t hang all game, blood in the water for a league and conference suddenly full of predators. Today, though, marks the first contest of many in which the Rockets can use Yao’s vulnerability to the team’s own advantage. Yao Ming will likely sit out tonight, the first game of a back-to-back, as the team prepares for some of its first semi-regular-season-speed exhibition ball and gears up for the reality that will sit Yao for plenty of contests this year. None of that is particularly remarkable, but the choice of whether to play Yao on night 1 or 2 of a back-to-back invites a great deal of manipulation that can go on with the schedule. Will the Rockets always just decide to sit him on whichever night the other team will lack a serious post presence? Can his absence on either night be seen as a cocksure move by a team sure it can extinguish another’s hopes without its finest player? All exciting ideas, to be sure, but tonight is no such case; he’d have seen the twin-headed monsters of Brazilian rookie Tiago Splitter and elder statesman/all-time great Tim Duncan, and tomorrow he’ll be facing similarly stiff post opposition in Dallas’ Brendan Haywood and Tyson Chandler. No, tonight, Yao’s weakness simply allows Brad Miller to get more run in his legs and likely give the big fella-less Rockets some experience without His Largeness. One can’t be blamed for eyeing the possibilities, though.
- Embodiment of all that is the Rockets ideal Chuck Hayes will miss the last two preseason matches with a sprained ankle, a non-serious hiccup Rick Adelman says he expects to be ready come opening day. That all sounds well and good, but the reason for his injury (stepping on the large man’s foot) brings up a minor concern: Yao’s lack of mobility posing injury concerns for not just others, but most obviously himself. Yao told Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle exactly how frightening the proposition of filling the paint with his sizable feet really can be: ”‘It’s still a little bit (of a concern for) me, honestly,’ Yao said. ‘I get into (physical situations with) a lot of guys in a small area. I’m a little bit afraid people will step on me or I will jump in the air to try to get a rebound and land on somebody. That gives me a little to worry about. That goes slightly away day-by-day. I have a size 19 foot. That happens. I step in the paint; a quarter of the paint is full. Honestly, I already got a couple in the China Games. You see me fall on the ground. It was not because I really fell. I stepped on people’s feet and shifted the stress. I was rolling my body on the ground to shift my weight.’”
- Speaking of the Chronicle, one of its fine photographers, Billy Smith II, snapped some great shots of the Chinese youth hooping while in the People’s Republic for last week’s Rockets/Nets matchups. Weird generalization derived from four really great photos: Chinese players are totally into balling in their long pants. Maybe it was cold? Still strange.
- Kevin Durant Epitomizes Goodness Watch Day 4,281: have you been a bit put off by the choice of cover-starring teammates for the Oklahoma City phenom’s Sports Illustrated cover this week, the talented but less than prominent Nenad Kristic and Thabo Sefolosha? Well, Durant handpicked the “other guys” for the cover shot in a move of team solidarity because he didn’t feel they had gotten quite enough shine. Christ. This guy is 22 years old as of a month ago. The maturity he exudes can’t help but make every single human being everywhere love him, further proof he is a basketball cyborg.
- There are so many reasons to disparage Rasheed Wallace and his career. Please, don’t ever allow those to color your feelings on him so much that he isn’t appreciated for the genuinely idiosyncratic voice he brought to this league of T-Mobile pitchmen and VitaminWater peddlers (love you guys, too). Appreciate the man.
- For those who were cool enough to listen to the latest Rockets.com podcast with our esteemed leader Rahat Huq and Tom Martin of The Dream Shake, some may have wanted more insight into Martin’s thoughts on the team’s future (because you’ve read everything Rahat has written on the subject, right?). He posted his cautiously optimistic season preview already, and it leaves a great deal of hope for those who see the Rockets as outside contenders in the West: “I think the Rockets can get to the Western Conference Finals. Too many things have to fall into their favor, but if they happen to stumble upon some good luck for once, they can certainly get there. As always, the primary goal is to win. The Rockets would like to develop their young players, build up more assets and place themselves in position to win in the playoffs, but amidst all of those goals, they will still be trying to win each game. That doesn’t mean they’re trying for 82-0. The big picture approach matters more to us than to them. Each game day, they’ll suit up and do their best to win the game. And if they lose, their goal suddenly becomes to win the next game. We tend to lose sight of that sometimes, simple as it sounds.”
- Avery Johnson really likes Terrence Williams. He’s also noticed what many Rockets fans did last week: that kid likes taking shots, and lots of them.
- Harlan Schreiber has been putting together some fantastic transaction assessments all summer on his well penned Hoops Analyst blog. He recently posted the last for this summer, which features such bottom-of-the-barrell talent that almost every bit of analysis becomes a joke. Here’s one of my favorites: “Washington Wizards; 9/25 Signed Mardy Collins, Adam Morrison, Sean Marks; I know they are better than I am but I figure a post-practice game of Horse between these three might take a while and not in a good way.”
- If you don’t know about FreeDarko‘s “Dream Week” and read this blog, you should be beaten with a sock full of pennies. After that, though, catch up with this week’s crop of Hakeem-related articles, featuring NBA Playbook‘s Sebastian Pruiti breaking down the differences between the oft-compared title-winning Rockets and current Orlando Magic (along with awesome Seattle-based writer Nate Parham), a eulogy to Olajuwon’s lost chances at NCAA titles by Paul Flannery, and basketball genius and Pro Basketball Prospectus 2010-11 co-authoir Kevin Pelton’s take on the Rockets’ constant demon of the nineties, the Seattle Supersonics. And this!
