{"id":1747,"date":"2007-10-30T10:23:26","date_gmt":"2007-10-30T15:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/houston-rockets\/"},"modified":"2007-10-30T10:23:26","modified_gmt":"2007-10-30T15:23:26","slug":"houston-rockets","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/houston-rockets","title":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Predicted Record<\/strong>
\n56-26 (Tom), 54-48 (Gil)<\/p>\n

Last Year’s Record<\/strong>
\n52-30<\/p>\n

Tom’s Commentary<\/strong>
\nYao Ming has already been ruined by a combination of Jeff Van Gundy and special assistant coach Patrick Ewing, so bringing in the last coach to get mileage out of a talented big man that can play in the flow of the game, Rick Adelman of Arvydas Sabonis stewardship, isn’t going to help much. Although perhaps Adelman can do something with Tracy McGrady no one else has been able to do: make the other four players on the floor with him NOT look like they want to jump out of their skins and run away from the court until they pass out from exhaustion. Everyone on the Rockets except maybe Shane Battier looks like they’re on the worst date they’ve ever been on, all the time.<\/p>\n

This kind of thing sort of worked in the 1990s against other teams that depended on flow and chemistry, kind of like Soviet psychic warfare, but the game this decade is more about pushing certain super-effective moments of playing until the other teams crumple, periods of performance that transcend bad vibes. That said, I think they’ll do better in the regular season because that makes their round one loss to the Clippers that much funnier.<\/p>\n

Rejoinder From Gil<\/strong>
\nI know Rick Adelman coached that Sacramento Kings team that got respectability, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime collection of passing talent. This squad has hands of stone, a top-10 talent who can’t get out of the first round of the playoffs, and a huge player who can’t get up and down the floor. If they’re going to get out and run, it’ll be despite Yao.<\/p>\n

Steve Francis is already complaining that he’s not getting playing time, and the season hasn’t even started!<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Comics Connection<\/strong>
\nHouston is the home of ADV Manga, publishers of Cromartie High School.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Pharma Connection<\/strong>
\nHouston is the third-worst American city for sleep, according to a study sponsored by Sanofi-Aventis, makers of Ambien.<\/p>\n

The Bottom Line<\/strong>
\nThey’ve got the talent and the role players to have a nice regular season, but I don’t see them making too much of a jump from last year, since they’ll play worse defense without Van Gundy. –GR<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predicted Record 56-26 (Tom), 54-48 (Gil) Last Year’s Record 52-30 Tom’s Commentary Yao Ming has already been ruined by a combination of Jeff Van Gundy and special assistant coach Patrick Ewing, so bringing in the last coach to get mileage out of a talented big man that can play in the flow of the game, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Houston Rockets”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1713,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"nba0708index.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1747","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4C7K-sb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1745,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/season-honors","url_meta":{"origin":1747,"position":0},"title":"Season Honors","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"TEAM HONORS NBA Championship Tom: Phoenix Over Miami Craig: Spurs over Dallas and then some eastern conference team, say the Pistons Gil: Spurs beat Phoenix, wallop the Bulls. Surprise Playoff Teams Tom: Charlotte, Portland Craig: NJ and Lakers Gil: Milwaukee, Lakers (post-Kobe trade) Surprise Non-Playoff Teams Tom: Golden State, Washington\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1755,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/tip-off-interview","url_meta":{"origin":1747,"position":1},"title":"Tip-Off Interview","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"To celebrate the Tipoff of the NBA season, I did an interview yesterday on the Adam Taxin Radio Show on WNWR 1540 AM in Philadelphia. You can download the audio (mp3, about about 3mb) or just read this transcript: Adam Taxin: The baseball season ended not much more than 24\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/tip-off-interview#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1746,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/dallas-mavericks","url_meta":{"origin":1747,"position":2},"title":"Dallas Mavericks","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 58-24 (Tom), 62-20 (Gil), 59-23 (Justin Ozuna) Last Year's Record 67-15 Tom's Commentary Devin Harris enters 2007-2008 with a lot of money in the bank and just having had his ass kicked by a fat cripple (Baron Davis in last year\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs playoffs). Trust someone who knows: this is\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1463,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007\/nba-2006-2007-playoff-previews","url_meta":{"origin":1747,"position":3},"title":"2006-2007 Playoffs","author":"Gil","date":"April 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction I'm told that the Phoenix Suns are the odds maker's second pick behind the Mavericks to win the NBA Championship. The Spurs are third. Obviously the Western Conference merely has to show up and they'll be handed the trophy by either Detroit or Miami. But I don't care who\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007\/nba-2006-2007-playoff-previews#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1181,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1747,"position":4},"title":"NBA Preview 2006-2007","author":"Gil","date":"November 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch! ATLANTIC Boston Celtics by Tom Spurgeon New Jersey Nets by Gil Roth New York Knicks by Gil Roth Philadelphia 76ers by Adam Taxin Toronto Raptors by Sam Richezza CENTRAL Chicago Bulls by Tom Spurgeon Cleveland Cavaliers by Tom Spurgeon Detroit Pistons by Tom Spurgeon Indiana Pacers\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1738,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/sacramento-kings","url_meta":{"origin":1747,"position":5},"title":"Sacramento Kings","author":"Gil","date":"October 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 22-60 (Tom), 19-63 (GR) Last Year's Record 33-49 Tom's Commentary You could do a whole commentary on new coach Reggie Theus, a player who once insured his face, maybe the last professional sports celebrity in America to keep an apartment in his town's party district to allow better\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1747\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}