After hanging with the Lakers longer than any other opponent in the 2009 playoffs, the Rockets were strip-mined of their key personnel during what could end up being the most damaging offseason in franchise history.
It starts as a crack. It develops into a chink, grows into a hole, and pretty soon, it's a crater. Basketball season is fast approaching, but so is another of winter's traditions: pothole season.
The Summer of Big Transactions brought a lot of help to a lot of teams, or so it is hoped. The names in many cases are as big as the expectations.
In Texas, we call it Snipe hunting.
Rockets center Yao Ming's broken left foot could be a "career-threatening" injury.
The lingering question, in the wake of a series that shouldn't have lasted seven games but did, is whether Houston exposed flaws in the Lakers that will eventually cost them a championship, or if the Rockets were just a particularly troublesome matchup for the Lakers and presented problems that few other teams can.
When Kobe Bryant was asked what he learned about the Lakers after a grueling seven-game Western Conference semifinal series against the Rockets that culminated with an 89-70 (RECAP | BOX) win Sunday, he didn't hesitate before answering.
Five playoff observations from a stunning upset and a spectacular last second finish.
LOS ANGELES -- Soft. It was a word that hung over the Lakers like a dark cloud during last year's NBA Finals and continued to haunt them during the off-season. Every time they were pushed and didn't push back, every time they were fouled hard and didn't return the favor, every time someone stood up to them and they didn't stand just a little bit taller, that word would rear its ugly head.
Five observations while wondering why the rust that seemed to be caked all over the Lakers on Monday wasn't seen anywhere on the Cavaliers.
After hanging with the Lakers longer than any other opponent in the 2009 playoffs, the Rockets were strip-mined of their key personnel during what could end up being the most damaging offseason in franchise history.
It starts as a crack. It develops into a chink, grows into a hole, and pretty soon, it's a crater. Basketball season is fast approaching, but so is another of winter's traditions: pothole season.
The Summer of Big Transactions brought a lot of help to a lot of teams, or so it is hoped. The names in many cases are as big as the expectations.
In Texas, we call it Snipe hunting.
Rockets center Yao Ming's broken left foot could be a "career-threatening" injury.
The lingering question, in the wake of a series that shouldn't have lasted seven games but did, is whether Houston exposed flaws in the Lakers that will eventually cost them a championship, or if the Rockets were just a particularly troublesome matchup for the Lakers and presented problems that few other teams can.
When Kobe Bryant was asked what he learned about the Lakers after a grueling seven-game Western Conference semifinal series against the Rockets that culminated with an 89-70 (RECAP | BOX) win Sunday, he didn't hesitate before answering.
Five playoff observations from a stunning upset and a spectacular last second finish.
LOS ANGELES -- Soft. It was a word that hung over the Lakers like a dark cloud during last year's NBA Finals and continued to haunt them during the off-season. Every time they were pushed and didn't push back, every time they were fouled hard and didn't return the favor, every time someone stood up to them and they didn't stand just a little bit taller, that word would rear its ugly head.
Five observations while wondering why the rust that seemed to be caked all over the Lakers on Monday wasn't seen anywhere on the Cavaliers.
The final stats didn't tell the whole story. They never do with the Rockets, a team that has shined since losing its leading scorer (Tracy McGrady) and is captained by a player (Shane Battier) who averages around seven points and five rebounds a game.
While the Bulls and Celtics choreograph a series that mauls on and on like a Rocky Balboa fight, the rest of the playoffs have played out in the shadows by rote.
Observations and analysis of the NBA playoffs, which is all the Cleveland Cavaliers figure to be doing, too, for a few days now:
Five observations from three NBA playoffs games Friday evening, each scrutinized closely with the understanding that teams that win Game 3 historically go on to win 76 percent of these first-round series:
5. The Celtics without Kevin Garnett. Think back to the 1993-94 Bulls without Michael Jordan, who was in his first retirement phase to play baseball: They won 55 games without him and took Patrick Ewing's Knicks -- the eventual conference champs -- to seven games in the second round. That's the same kind of effort we can expect from the Celtics.
OVERVIEW: The Blazers are giddy about their 10-1 finish to the regular season, the way they nabbed home-court advantage in this round on the final night, and the franchise's return to the postseason after a five-year absence. The Rockets rallied after losing Tracy McGrady in early February, going 22-8 down the stretch and remaining in contention for the No. 2 seed in the West until the last day of the season. Houston has not advanced in the playoffs since reaching the Western Conference finals in 1996-97.
HOUSTON -- What follows is the strangest path in the West to earning home-court advantage in the playoffs:
Every time you hear those words these days -- "Do more with less" -- you want to snap the pencil in your hand while imagining your boss with a yellow, No. 2 neck. It is management by Dilbert, a hollow dictum that strains credulity as much as it strains a dwindling workforce. When you think about it, if your department, crew or shift actually was capable today of doing more whatever with less something, then yesterday it must have been doing less with more. Nice message there, boss.
The Washington Wizards were finishing a shootaround before a recent game against New Orleans when Gilbert Arenas emerged from the home locker room. Dressed in black sweat pants and a long-sleeved Wizards T-shirt, Arenas walked without a limp. When he spotted Hornets guard and former Wizards teammate Antonio Daniels making his way toward the visitors' locker room, Arenas ran toward him (again, no limp) and gave him a quick chest bump. He looked strong. He looked healthy. He looked like a player ready to make his season debut.
5. Stars are high maintenance. I was on the phone last month with Pacers president Larry Bird, who was telling me what everyone already knows: To win a championship, you need an elite player.
SI.com NBA writers analyze the latest news and address hot topics from around the league each week. (All stats and records are through Monday's games.)
Ask a handful of NBA scouts about Houston's Tracy McGrady and you will still hear phrases like "more skilled than Kobe" and "as smooth a shot as Ray Allen." But you will also hear the same old qualifiers -- questions about McGrady's heart and effort level.
There was no bigger story for a month or so in 1999 than Steve Francis' refusal to play for the Vancouver Grizzlies, the team that drafted him, and the maneuvers required to send him to Houston. "Stevie Franchise,'' as he came to be known, had a stylish run of five seasons -- largely lacking in substance -- with the Rockets, before bouncing through Orlando, New York, Portland and back to Houston. Ultimately, Francis was the centerpiece in trades and personnel moves affecting nearly 30 players' lives, if you count the draft picks involved.
SI.com NBA writers analyze the latest news and address hot topics from around the league each week. (All stats and records are through Monday's games.)
Dwight Howard and LeBron James have the early lead in the Eastern Conference, while Kobe Bryant and Yao Ming top the Western Conference after the second returns of 2009 NBA All-Star balloting. Howard, the reigning slam dunk champion, is the overall leader with 1,421,882 votes.
Unscrew the face plate of the Houston Rockets these days and you'll find Aaron Brooks inside, like one of those itty-bitty aliens at the controls of a Men in Black behemoth. The NBA isn't exactly a Hollywood sci-fi league -- Shawn (The Matrix) Marion, Wall-E Szczerbiak and Minnesota's The Day the Earth Stood Still victory total notwithstanding -- but that's the imagery that comes to mind when you see Brooks, maybe 6 feet tall in sneakers and 160 pounds, having an urgent, on-court, eye-to-midsection conversation with 7-6, 310-pound Yao Ming: little guy, big machine.
In the NBA, assistant coaches are like backup quarterbacks: They are beloved for the abilities they show in practice and praised for how well they support the man in front of them on the sideline. But like many backup quarterbacks, assistant coaches don't always live up to the hype.
SI.com's NBA writers offer six different views on what they're most looking forward to this season.
SI.com will analyze each of the NBA's 30 teams as regular-season tip-off approaches. For a complete list of team-by-team breakdowns, click here. The information in the "Go figure" category below is provided by Roland Beech of 82games.com.
You take Greg Oden, I'll take Andrew Bynum and we'll find out, maybe, whether the Western Conference will provide us with a new millennium version of Russell-Chamberlain over the next 15 years or so. Tall order, right? Fine. Then let's just hope it's not a decade and a half of some regurgitated, pulse-deadening Erick Dampier-Adonal Foyle showdown.
It's either a tribute to the security preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics or a reminder of the NBA's soap-operatic tendencies that basketball's next international incident likely will occur not in Beijing but in Houston.
The Houston Rockets may have just punched Tracy McGrady's ticket out of the first round.
Houston Rockets' remarkable 22-game winning came to an abrupt end as the Boston Celtics beat the Western Conference leaders 94-74 on Tuesday night.
A rising tide lifts all boats, John F. Kennedy and assorted economic experts have told us for decades, just as surely as a subprime mortgage tsunami can swamp everything from the dinghy of the guy who used to live next door (oops, foreclosed) to the yachts of Wall Street.
OK, this Rockets thing is getting ridiculous. Nineteen straight wins!? The last seven without Yao Ming? For a team that features Rafer Alston at point guard? C'mon. Are the Rockets for real?
HOUSTON -- The people have spoken and they ain't happy about my recent column discounting the Rockets' chances of making the playoffs without Yao Ming. Those e-mails kick off this mini-mailbag.
Maybe the Houston Rockets didn't get the memo, the one that said their success was supposed to end when Yao Ming could no longer be a part of it. Maybe they forgot that you can't compete in the Western Conference without a dominant center and that their 7' 6" model was lost for the season on Feb. 26 with a stress fracture in his left foot. Maybe they weren't told that their 12-game winning streak was supposed to disappear with Yao; instead they capped off a perfect February and, with a 103-89 home victory over the Denver Nuggets on Sunday, matched a franchise record with 15 straight wins, vaulting them into fifth place in the West.
This was a first for me. As I was standing in line at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport preparing to board a flight to Houston to begin reporting a feature on the Rockets for Sports Illustrated, my cell phone began buzzing. It was my brother, Andy, calling to tell me that Rockets center Yao Ming was out for the season. A quick e-mail to the Rockets' PR department confirmed his timely report and I was left to beg the guy at the JetBlue counter to go out in the pouring rain and get my bag before it went on the plane.
The NBA might want to consider, if only for this season, adding an extra "wild'' to the familiar (and ripped-off classic TV title) description of the left half of its competition. As in, the wild, wild, wild West.
The strains of Auld Lang Syne have wafted away. The confetti has been cleaned up. The hangover cures have run their course. Yes, it's back-to-work time.
When the Rockets convinced veteran guard Steve Francis to return home to Houston and sign with them as a free agent this past summer, they hailed it as more than just a happy homecoming.
Lost amid all the player movement that occurs each summer are the moves that offer just as much room for change -- coaches. Seven teams hired new bench generals this offseason. As many coaches will admit, they not only are hired to be fired, but they're also only as good as the talent at their disposal. So which new hires are stepping into stable situations and who is destined for a lot of sleepless nights? Let's take a look, from those facing the most pressure to the least:
A seven-foot phenom may be China's second hoops star, and the search is on for the third
This Where Are They Now feature and others like it can be found in the July 2nd issue of Sports Illustrated.
No, the Utah Jazz has not disbanded since John Stockton and Karl Malone took their short shorts and their pick-and-roll precision into retirement. Quite the contrary. The Jazz has reached the Western Conference finals, its furthest incursion into the postseason since 1998, when S&M lost to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the Finals.
Sam Mitchell, the NBA's Coach of the Year, has decided to return as Raptors coach.
Beijing organizers have received 230,000 orders for 1.09 million tickets for next year's Olympic Games in the first month of sales, according to the official Web site.
Also in this column: • Importance of the regular season? • Doc's extension a good move • NBA players help one of their own
There's no point in trying to get inside Jeff Van Gundy's head, trying to anticipate his next move or moving into guesswork territory with the Houston Rockets' front office. If either side had made a decision regarding Van Gundy's future with the Rockets, the press release would have already been issued.
HOUSTON -- Jeff Van Gundy is quitting as coach of the Houston Rockets. Or is he?
I had to ask the question. As Tracy McGrady sat at the podium in the bowels of EnergySolutions Arena, barely 30 minutes removed from a crushing Game 6 defeat, he answered questions ranging from the Rockets' shaky performance to Andrei Kirilenko's pesky defense. Then, the thought occurred to me: is Saturday's Game Seven the biggest game of McGrady's career?
There's a difference between being a "playoff upset victim" and a "playoff disappointment." As the first top seed to lose a seven-game first-rounder to an eighth seed, the Dallas Mavericks, obviously, are both. But they are much more disappointment than upset victim.
This is one of the best things ever to happen in the NBA.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah -- The signs were everywhere, like a series of mirages. Perhaps they were not visible to the outsider, but for Jazz fans they were as clear to see as the Wasatch Mountains.
As I watched a replay of last week's absurdly overcrowded, absurdly premature Democratic presidential debate at South Carolina State University, my thoughts suddenly turned to the NBA playoffs.
I should have believed him.
There's just something about a 6-9, weepy millionaire that turns the rest of us into pop psychologists. I'm sure I'm not the only one who spent the first week of the playoffs wondering why Utah's Andrei Kirilenko was so frustrated, and why his play has been so off for most of 2006-07. AK's team is flourishing, finally, but his production has tailed off: he established career-lows in points, rebounds, and steals in his sixth season, playing his third-lowest minutes per game mark (29.1).
No team with a better chance of winning the championship is more ignored or less appreciated than the Pistons. Which is OK with Detroit president Joe Dumars, who has assembled the longest-contending group this side of San Antonio.
HOUSTON (AP) -- Each of the Houston Rockets have to make 10 consecutive free throws before they are allowed to leave the practice floor every day.
In pondering the likelihood of playoff upsets, one must first ponder exactly what constitutes upset. A 5 seed beating a 4, for example, does not necessarily scream upset, particularly since home court skews the whole thing. Division winner Miami is a 4 yet begins its quest for a second straight title on the road, at No. 5 Chicago, so who is, in fact, the underdog?
With the six-month "preseason'' complete, we now enter the two-month real season: Sixteen teams, as many as 105 games, and the best basketball on the planet. Here are a few things to watch for as spring approaches summer:
You say "Serena Williams has reclaimed the mythical title as best pound-for-pound player in women's tennis (insert joke here) right now." I get so tired of the tennis media (white guys) making these pejorative and or sexist statements about female tennis athletes. When will you guys get it? Tennis is a real sport, although it is a "niche" sport (as you call it).
As he leads his Cavaliers into the playoffs against the Washington Wizards on Sunday, Cleveland coach Mike Brown will measure the moment against his NBA beginnings in 1992, when he broke in as a video guy with the Denver Nuggets. He equipped a cubicle off the weight room in McNichols Arena with a pillow, toothbrush and change of clothes, and grabbed catnaps on the training table. When he finished an edit he'd taxi the tapes out to the houses of coaches, who might slip him a twenty as a thank you. "I was going 'deck-to-deck,' all by myself," says Brown, referring to the clunky technology of that era. "But I wouldn't swap the experience for anything. There's been a carryover to everything I've done in this business. Breaking down tapes, I had to be meticulous."
Sooner or later it always happens: The Phoenix Suns run a pick-and-roll against the Dallas Mavericks, leaving Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki to face off at the top of the key. They have been there countless times before, Nowitzki in his awkward defensive crouch, his right arm extended as if a lion tamer's chair, his mouth guard protruding. Nash is in front of him, waiting for the help defense to clear out, for his teammates to space themselves, until it is just the two of them near the three-point line: the two-time MVP and this season's favorite, the two best players on the two best teams in the NBA, two men whose lives diverged but remain intertwined. This time they are playing in front of 18,422 at US Airways Center in Phoenix, but the setting could be anywhere. A YMCA in Dallas. The Western Conference finals. Nash's backyard.
With apologies to John Lennon: Imagine there's no conference/It's easy if you try.... In such a world, NBA playoff teams would be seeded 1 through 16 without regard to conference affiliation, meaning that the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks could meet the Phoenix Suns or the San Antonio Spurs (the second and third seeds, respectively) for the NBA championship. In such a world, we would not have to concern ourselves with the likes of the New Jersey Nets and the Orlando Magic, the bottom-feeders of the (L)Eastern Conference bracket.
Move over, Ron Artest. The NBA has a new candidate for Most Volatile Player. He's Rockets swingman Bonzi Wells, and let's just say he makes Artest seem like a model pro by comparison.
Also in this column • Scout's Take: Watch out for Houston • Previewing some stretch-run games • Recognizing the season's best, worst • One regrettable Jerry West signing
HOUSTON (AP) -- Houston Rockets guard Bonzi Wells will sit out the rest of the season, and his future with the team is uncertain.
It happened two nights before Christmas. Six minutes into a game against the Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets center Yao Ming jumped to block a shot. As he did, teammate Chuck Hayes toppled toward him. Yao remembers a great weight bearing down on his right leg, then a sharp pain. He sank to the floor at Houston's Toyota Center, clutching his right knee.
"There are three kinds of numbers: lies, damned lies and statistics."
The birth certificate from the Democratic Republic of Congo makes him out to be 40-years-old. But his NBA colleagues have long joked that the document must be forged because Dikembe Mutombo is years older than that. The punch line? That comes when Mutombo laughs along: Eyes squinting, cheeks bursting, his laughter fills the room like music in a jazz club, and he looks young enough to be a student at Georgetown all over again.
Growing up in Houston, Willie West loved baseball and pursued it with a passion. He was a switch-hitter with good speed, a strong arm and could play all four infield positions. He batted .394 and .495 as a junior and senior, respectively, for three-time Texas black-schools state champion Houston Yates before graduating in 1958.
As previewed by Ian Thomsen on Friday, Sunday afternoon was quite the afternoon for pro hoops. Here's what we learned ... 1. More than any other team, the Detroit Pistons are a walking (not running) example of some of the worst stereotypes regarding NBA basketball.
In between the Final Four semis and the NCAA championship game, the NBA will offer a weekend infomercial of its playoffs to come. The most compelling matchups of April, May and June will be previewed by a trio of regular-season games on Sunday:
The Mavs play at Phoenix on Sunday afternoon in a matchup of the teams with the best records. But it's no April Fools' joke to suggest that it won't be the biggest game on the NBA slate that day. The Jazz-Rockets contest in Houston could feature even greater playoff intensity.
Basketball was never meant to be played to the thumping, mechanical cadence of hip-hop; the NBA is best suited to the impulsive rhythms of jazz, and that is what Kobe Bryant played to last Friday night in the cradle of jazz, New Orleans. From the troubled drama of Bryant's past has emerged a blissful eloquence that, like Dixieland, is both disciplined and liberating. His jump shot is an elaborate riff that holds an audience rapt: Shoes squeak in panic around Kobe as he gathers his breath, his shoulders swaying to the ball-beat at his fingertips, a distracting glance this way as he bursts there into space, corkscrewing as he rises up and up, his right leg splayed like a clarinetist leaning back in full-blown solo.
With Kentucky fans dogging him after another disappointing finish, Tubby Smith is bolting the bluegrass for Minnesota.
The list of max free agents this summer could include Detroit's Chauncey Billups, Seattle's Rashard Lewis and New Jersey's Vince Carter. Until recently, none of them had spoken in detail about their contract strategies.
What was your welcome-to-the-NBA moment?
Also in this column: • Jefferson coming on strong for Celtics • Position change suiting Cavs' Hughes • Pippen still a man without a team • Classic game brings DJ memories
The NBA's hottest team plays in Texas, it owns the league's longest winning streak, and you get the feeling that the San Antonio Spurs are just starting to figure things out.
Also in this column: • Draft prospects for Florida's big men • LeBron's "comeback" fuels Cavaliers • Importance of Dirk's MVP-type season
In any other year, it would be a no-brainer. Coach of the Year? Obviously it has to go to Avery Johnson.
KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR, 59, who scored an NBA-record 38,387 points, was cover material well before his first pro game. Last Saturday at UCLA he was feted for his starring role on the 30-0 Bruins team of 1966-67. Here, Abdul-Jabbar, a special assistant coach for the Lakers, talks to SI's Arash Markazi about eight of the 22 SI covers he has landed on.
It was truly sad (and a little nausea-inducing) to see the Clippers' Shaun Livingston go down Monday with a dislocated left kneecap that will sideline the third-year point guard for the rest of the season. Another significant injury means the Clippers will have to wait even longer for Livingston to truly emerge.
Also in the Weekly Quiz: • Reminiscing about Dennis Johnson • Are the Knicks, Heat playoff teams? • Assessing the Pistons' title chances
Also in this column: • Checking on midseason predictions • Notes on one-time NBA All-Stars • Cliff Robinson's brush with greatness
On a cold winter morning in 1986, Dennis Johnson and his Boston Celtics teammates stood outside of Market Square Arena, unable to get inside for a shootaround before their game that night against the Indiana Pacers. Johnson bundled his coat around him and pulled down his ski cap over his ears.
Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson has seen a lot of trade deadline days come and go in his 27 NBA seasons. He knows that some years are busier than others. But even Dawson was surprised this year's deadline passed so quietly.
Now wasn't that a big waste of everyone's time ...
The expansive swimming pool out back of the Palms hotel and casino in Las Vegas is as curved and shallow as the young women who are layered around its edges on a warm Saturday in October. One by one they swivel their heads and sit up from their chaise longues as two Armani suits stride conspicuously across their concrete plot of post-apple Eden. Even in their most relaxed moments Joe and Gavin Maloof, otherwise known as the owners of the Sacramento Kings, tend to move as if they're five minutes late for a plane. They also tend to be oblivious to their surroundings, whether they're at a Sacramento city council meeting to negotiate funds for a new arena or by a pool of nearly naked women -- against whom they stand out like incarnations of Jake and Ellwood.
For Jai Lucas, serving a McDonald's happy meal with a smile was the most unpleasant option to stomach.
BRISTOL, Connecticut (Ticker) -- It appears two-time MVP Steve Nash will be sidelined for the All-Star Game in Las Vegas.
It's not often these days that one NBA superstar says anything remotely critical about another superstar. With players making so much money, participating in each other's charity events and sometimes even sharing the same agent, most players learn that it's better to keep any such thoughts private.
Listen! Can you hear it? That crunching sound toward the rear of the pack.
One night in September 2000, on a makeshift stage in a resort ballroom on Sanibel Island in Florida, Cablevision Systems CEO Jim Dolan stood before a captive audience of subordinates -- six or seven dozen senior managers from Madison Square Garden and its sports properties -- and began to sing. It was a lark, one of those gags designed to blow off steam after a day of meetings. Still, barely a year had passed since Dolan had taken full control of the Garden and its two main tenants, the New York Knickerbockers and the New York Rangers, and many in the room had had only glimpses of an owner who, for his entire adult life, had been overshadowed by his father, cable-TV pioneer Charles Dolan. The tales of Jim's drug-and-drink-addled past, his volcanic temper, his shifting moods, were already legendary, fueling the image of a spoiled boy who had been handed the keys to perhaps the most prized property in all of U.S. sports. No one expected a song.
Also in this column: • One key for running teams • Best players in the Euroleague • Notes from around the NBA
1. Forward Al Jefferson, a top two protected first-round pick and center Theo Ratliff (Celtics) for forward Pau Gasol (Grizzlies).
A year ago the Minnesota Timberwolves were 19-21 and hoping to surge into the playoffs when they sent forward Wally Szczerbiak to Boston as part of a seven-player, three-draft-pick deal in which they received swingman Ricky Davis, center Mark Blount and guard Marcus Banks. But their newcomers had a hard time fitting in, and Minnesota went 14-28 thereafter, missing the postseason for a second straight year, which brought ever more criticism upon vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale.
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