Boogie Down – In the midst of the schedule-release catharsis of the week, Zach Lowe wrote in depth about the enigma wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in DeMarcus Cousins. In the column he notes that some folks “would have Pete D’Alessandro, the Kings’ new GM and (for now) Boogie booster, chase a shot-blocking center who would seal the gaps on defense and accept a secondary role on offense,” with this footnote attached:
The most popular suggestion: A Rockets-Kings trade that would either send Omer Asik to Sacramento as part of a Cousins-Asik pairing, or in exchange for Cousins, setting up a long-term Cousins–Dwight Howard front line in Houston. I don’t see either happening, but I’m also skeptical of Houston’s professed commitment to keeping Asik in the long term.
I can’t think of a package that wouldn’t involve the Kings sending McLemore, Patterson and Chuck Hayes to the Rockets. Go crazy thinking about that for a minute.
Pitfalls – With the ink barely dry on the 2013-2014 schedule, ESPN’s J.A. Adande has an eye out for some trap games. Unfortunately for the Rockets, they will be heading into one game this fall in which the cards are stacked against them: playing Denver on the second night of a back-to-back.
It’s doom for visiting teams that play in California or Oregon at night, head to the airport, take a 2½-hour flight, lose an hour due to the switch from the Pacific to Mountain time zone and take a 45-minute drive from the Denver airport to their downtown hotel. It usually means hitting the pillow at 4 a.m. then having to play later that night, with minimal time to adjust to the thinner air at high altitude.
The Nuggets get the benefit of nine of those games this season. . .April 9, versus Houston Rockets, the night after the Rockets are in Los Angeles for a TNT game against the Lakers.
Those TNT games typically start later and last longer, so you can add an extra half hour to the departure times.
The Ex – Israel Gutierrez on what may the most hyped matchup of the regular season: Howard’s impending encounters with the Lakers”
Howard gets his first crack against the Lakers on Nov. 7 in his new city of Houston. The pregame interview with Mike D’Antoni will be a must-listen, but it’s doubtful Kobe Bryant (Achilles) will be back on the floor by then.
Fortunately for everyone, then, Bryant should be plenty healthy by Feb. 19, when Howard and the Rockets make their first visit to Los Angeles (Coincidence that Bryant gets plenty of time to recover before Howard’s first visit to L.A.? I think not).
The entire city called Howard a coward when he chose Houston, and Bryant did worse. He unfollowed Howard on Twitter (gasp!).
The L.A. crowd won’t be quite as merciless as Cleveland was in LeBron’s first trip back, but there will be so much to read into in that game, you may have to watch it multiple times to absorb it all.
Waiting, Anticipating – The column idea du jour is listing the games you want to see and why. The Point Forward’s Ben Golliver has taken that to the nth degree. His list is 50 games long, so for sake of space I can’t include all of the Rockets games he highlights, but makes one of the more unique selections:
Nov. 20: Mavericks host Rockets after missing out on Dwight Howard
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is probably already preparing his pithy pre-game remarks for Dwight Howard’s first trip to the Big D after passing up on the Mavericks to sign with the Rockets. With any luck, Dirk Nowitzki will be in top form so that Dallas’ free agency whiffs in recent summers won’t need to be rehashed for the umpteenth time.
But the crown for putting the most interesting spin on otherwise unremarkable matchups goes to Jason Friedman on the team’s official site. For instance, why should I care about the Rockets playing the Kings on New Year’s Eve?
The Rockets’ annual New Year’s Eve home date has become a fan favorite and for good reason: the 6PM tip-off allows those attending to catch the game and still have plenty of time afterward to revel in their preferred ways of ringing in the new year. Then there’s this: the Rockets never lose on New Year’s Eve (so long as they steer clear of the Warriors, that is). Houston has won five in a row and is 9-2 overall since it started its tradition of hosting games on December 31. The team’s only two losses during that stretch came at the hands of Golden State, so assuming the bugaboo is not a NorCal thing (or, you know, nothing more than some completely random and irrelevant bit of trivia) then the Rockets and their fans should like their chances to get the party started early when the Sacramento Kings come a-calling.
Ok. What about a tilt against the Clippers on November 9?
Their matchups with the Lakers may very well attract more national attention, but from a big picture perspective Houston’s showdowns with the Clippers figure to be far more meaningful this season. The Lob City crew had itself a pretty decent offseason; heady stuff given the fact they won 56 games last season while finishing with the league’s third-best point differential. From a Rockets’ perspective, these two home dates should provide not only quality insight into how Houston matches up with one of the West’s heavyweights, but also a keen glimpse at the team’s in-season growth, development and evolution.
Yeah fine. But I’m skipping that Indiana game on March 7.
Speaking of possible NBA Finals participants, one can’t overlook the Pacers who gave Miami all they could handle in the Eastern Conference Finals then followed that up by making a handful of understated yet savvy moves (including the acquisition of former Rocket and rightful fan favorite Luis Scola) that should help them become an even bigger threat in the season to come. Indiana’s squad might not come with the glitz and glamour of some other teams, but a matchup that includes Howard vs. Hibbert and Harden vs. George is way too good to miss.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jason Friedman: the man who could sell snow to an Eskimo.
White on Black Mamba – Former Rocket Royce White recently appeared on a Land O’ Lakers podcast to talk about mental health and other things. The conversation turned to Kobe’s extreme competitiveness, White had some interesting thoughts on the line between competitive drive and mental illness:
“I think the tough thing that we have to deal with is that there may not be a difference,” responded White. “And I think in the mental health community — obviously, confidentiality is a huge piece and why there is such a disconnection between what we know about people who deal with mental heath disorders or who we know deals with them. Because of the stigma, people don’t want you to know, therefore [we] don’t know, because they have that right to privacy. But I think if you just opened up the book and could see everybody who deals with a mental health disorder, you would see a lot of people that are highly successful, like a Kobe Bryant. I went to Nike camps as a high school prospect, and I heard stories of Kobe Bryant working out until he blacks out. Right? And that’s definitely — and again, I don’t want to try and diagnose Kobe Bryant, but that definitely sounds like symptoms or traces of an OCD. Just straight obsession with the game or with success or being better or whatever the idea in his head that he wants, he’s obsessed with getting it. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can be a dangerous thing, obviously, if you’re blacking out, but if he can do it, he can do it. Right?”
White goes on, and I think his insight is–for once–definitely worth the read (or the listen).
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