- It seems the rest of the league has caught wind of the Houston Rockets’ dirty little secret: no one knows what the hell is going to happen this season. Yes, every NBA team will enter this new season, particularly after the seismic shifting of the plates beneath any NBA fan’s feet this summer, with a host of questions, but Rockets fans possess a special blessing in that regard: a shaky superstar. Matt Moore wrote at length about the Rockets and its “foundation” yesterday for Hardwood Paroxysm, noting that for all the depth, cheap young talent and cheap veteran acquisitions Daryl Morey has made, Houston’s future looks about as clear as a Chris Andersen drug test. Moore talks about the team’s inability to move the big fella, a stipulation that seems counterintuitive given the kind of maneuverability Morey has seemed to value so greatly in his time as GM; this is a question that, sadly, if Yao flails instead of mounts a steady recovery, will never stop being asked: why can’t the Rockets trade Yao Ming? Answering that query may cause even more heartache than trying to explain why the current team probably won’t win a chip.
- While many of us hopeless doubters may be staring downward, kicking the dirt, some human beings actually think positive things about the Houston Rockets’ chances in 2010-11. In SLAM Online’s preview for the Rockets’ season, Lone-Star-state-centric basketball writer Maurice Bobb sees the crazy glut of talent the Rockets have assembled for what it is: a crazy glut of talent. While the Rockets may have to field more hypothetical questions than any other team in the league, with that will come a knowledge that, given the variables falling Houston’s way for once in this era, this could actually turn into something more than the sum of its parts (that sounds familiar, in a good way): “Injuries seems to hang around this team like unwanted house mold, but if Yao, Miller, Budinger and Lowry can bounce back from injuries, look for this squad to at least land the No. 7 or No. 8 spot in the playoffs. Should Houston find a way to make all of their shiny new pieces gel, they have a legitimate shot at reinvigorating Rudy’s rallying call and returning to the Western Conference elite.”
- You know, this team will really be a Western Conference power if it can keep its star healthy. Too bad he’s already on minute limits, trying desperately to get healthy before the season. The team in question? The reigning, back-to-back NBA champions.
- Rick Adelman hates the Rockets’ preseason schedule. In fact, he finds it so abhorrent, he’s convinced that NBA schedule-makers (actually, I think it’s just one guy. That kind of seems absurd now) don’t really understand time or maps or really understand that Houston and Los Angeles are two different places: “Adelman’s major gripe is the timing of the trip, which is coming late in the preseason. When the Rockets return, they will finish with back-to-back road exhibitions against San Antonio and Dallas before beginning the season with a West Coast trip against the Lakers and Golden State. ’If you are going to send us (to China) and give us a week, don’t put us on the road on the West Coast for two games back-to-back to open the season,’ Adelman said. ‘I’m sorry. It just makes absolutely no sense, unless they don’t know Houston is a 3½-hour (flight) from L.A.’”
- In “other Chinese guys play in the NBA” news, Yi Jianlian seems to be continuing his career resurgence (although, I think it’s just a “surgence”. And yes, I know the real word. Quiet, you) that he began at this year’s World Championships. He apparently does more than chuck up off-balance 20-footers these days, and Washington fans may have just gotten one of the biggest steals of the offseason if he actually learned to “race the floor”, as he says to The Washington Post.
- FreeDarko‘s “Dream Week” takes a very weird turn, as AOL Fanhouse’s Ranky Kim puts together a (somewhat vulgar) memo-book tribute to Houston’s finest, letter by letter.
- Looks like The Basketball Jones‘s Tas Melas saw what I did in Sunday’s exhibition against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
- Playing for last year’s New Jersey Nets seemed pretty awful; however, watching that mess from the sidelines night-after-night had to be all the more infuriating. Bobby Simmons had to endure such misery, stuck as a veteran presence on a team trying to desperately get its youth some run so that it could gel quickly enough to not allow it to be the worst team of all-time. This time around, Simmons wanted to be a part of something real, so he went to San Antonio on a non-guaranteed contract. Flan Blinebury digs into what made Simmons opt for such uncertainty after a year of similar hell.
- If you’re like me, you’ve probably bought a great deal of stock in PEAK shoes. I mean, if Shane Battier’s wearing them, what intelligent, enterprising Chinese youth wouldn’t be? Well, I’m pretty sure I’m in for a big payday after reading this tweet.
