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About The Houston Rockets

What do they have then? Well they do have Howard, a great third banana. Except of course the Rockets aren’t starting him, thereby making him the de facto top-banana when he’s on the court which Juwan hasn’t been good at since he stopped shilling fries for McDonald’s (Again, Juwan Howard was on the dream-team? Back when the dream-team actually beat the crap out of teams from places like lower Slobvoldia? How did that happen? Did Juwan just get progressively worse? Did he get the bizarro world Christian Laettner spot? Why am I caring about Howard when there is McGrady to skewer?)

Good point.

So T-Mac, welcome to your new home. You actually are expected to defer to a teammate this time (and we saw how well that worked in Toronto). By the way Tracy, if you thought the rest of the Magic team was thin, then don’t turn around on the Houston charters. You’ll need at least five screwdrivers to calm yourself back down.

A very good point was made by the Raptors TV analysts as I headed into my seats on Wednesday. The colour guy was pointing that out that Yao Ming (Yao Ming, Yao Ming, Yao Ming!) averaged 12.5 shot attempts a game last season. Which just isn’t enough for a player like him. He then pointed out that Stevie Franchise took an average of just over 14 shots a game last season as a Rocket.

Meanwhile, T-Mac took almost ten more shots a game last year than Francis did. And before you go saying that that was such a bad Orlando team T-Mac had to shoot it all the time, know that T-Mac has never averaged less than 21 shot attempts since he became a full time starter. The insinuation is obvious – how does Yao end up with significantly more touches a game now? And if that was the biggest problem in Houston before T-Mac, how does a thinner Houston team on which Yao will have to struggle more for his shots, improve?

The fact of the matter is I wonder if Yao is aggressive enough, or ever will be, to really become the mega-star everyone is waiting for. He’s so nice, he’s so willing to defer, he’s so good at seeing the court that I really doubt if Yao will ever demand the ball as much as he should. Seeing the court is great – but it’d be better if you weren’t seeing Charlie "frickin" Ward.

And oh, yeah they added Bob Sura, who was good enough to start precisely 18 times last season, all for the Atlanta Hawks. That and he's not all that adept at hitting the open jumper. He, of course, likes to have the ball in his hands and attack the basket. So, he should be a perfect fit in the "spread the floor and give the big guy room to work" philosophy that the Rockets say they are trying to instigate. (If you were Yao would you just start fouling somebody real hard, each and every game, just to get through the day? I would.)

Sure some nights T-Mac and Yao will have it cooking, Juwan will be on, the rest of the Rockets will look good – and if they were in the East you’d say this team was a dark-horse – but I don’t think the Rockets make the dance in the West.