[Chron] Meet The Rockets! The Next Generation of Professional Basketball in Houston

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Oct. 27, 2007, 10:33PM

Rockets say changes hit right chord

Team believes it's poised for sweet sounds of success after adding to already potent roster

By JONATHAN FEIGEN

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Mike James was there. He saw it, and even before that, he felt the change come over a team headed to a championship. It is the quest of every team, the search of every general manager. The bulk of the NBA teams might rightfully consider themselves to be good, but few can lay claim to greatness.
So they search for just the right roster change, the addition that will alter everything it touches and elevate it to something greater.
The Rockets have been good, but not great. They won 52 games last season, but lost again in the playoffs' first round. They had their nucleus of talent, but needed more. So they brought in Luis Scola at power forward, returned James and Steve Francis to their backcourt and brought Rick Adelman back to the NBA as coach. And James, the only Rockets player with a championship ring, already has felt the sort of surge of hope and possibilities that came when he was with the Pistons and Rasheed Wallace was the new face that made a good team complete.

Building an aura
"It's definitely early, but definitely," James said. "You want each other to rub off on one another. You want that feeling, that aura, toward the end of the season. "Like in March, we really started believing. We started looking at each other and started saying, 'You know what, we can win this championship this year.' We started believing it. "I think once that feeling comes along here and once everybody starts believing it's going to trickle down from TMac, (Tracy McGrady) and down from Yao (Ming), and down to the 15th player. I saw it happen before." Adelman has seen it happen, too. His Trail Blazers added Buck Williams, plugged him in as the perfect-fit power forward, and by season's end were in the NBA Finals. The Rockets' additions, however, are not that simple. James and Francis play the same positions, with the Rockets bringing back everyone from last season's backcourt. Scola, though a Spanish League veteran and twice its most valuable player, is not the proven NBA veteran that Wallace and Williams were.
Yet each said that because of their experiences they can bring the most vital characteristics needed to be the sort of difference-makers that elevate good teams to real contenders. Each said they have had individual successes and received sufficient acclaim. They have reached a point in their careers and lives in which team success is all that is missing, the only accomplishment that still matters. "That's what we all have to have," Francis said. "That's the mindset we have to have. We all came here to win. Nobody's looking to outshine Tracy or Yao. It's reality that they are going to be doing the bulk of the scoring. For us, for Luis, myself and Mike, we have to fit into what they do."

Francis returns
Of the Rockets' new faces, Francis' is the most recognizable, his celebrity the greatest — particularly in Houston, where he became a three-time All Star known as 'Franchise' and twice was the focal point of blockbuster trades.
When he returned as a free agent this offseason, he said he could feel teammates checking him out to see what sort of attitude he would have in his undetermined, but certainly diminished, role, and to measure the state of his game. That, he said, brings an opportunity to demonstrate the priorities he has developed over the years, and be the sort of influence a new face added to a good team can be. "I think if guys see me willing to take a back seat, everybody will fall in place," he said. "This league has been great to me. Financially, of course, it's been great to me. The only thing left is to win. That's the way we can do it, if we can all come together."
Scola has not played in the NBA, but he has tasted victory. He won Euroleague championships. He took home a gold medal from the 2004 Athens Olympics. Like Francis, he noticed new teammates checking out the addition to the frontcourt, and like Francis, he considered that only natural. But the source of the curiosity, as with the rest of his career to this point, was very different than with Francis. "Most of the players don't really know me," Scola said. "You don't get a chance to see the games from outside the U.S. here in the U.S. I know they don't know me. Hopefully, I surprised them for good."
He has done well enough to win consistent playing time, sharing power forward with Chuck Hayes, last season's starter. He has quickly found scoring opportunities next to Yao Ming and the defensive attention he draws. He took to the Rockets' emphasis on high-post passing and moving without the ball. But he also has struggled to adjust to NBA officiating, to rules prohibiting moving screens, hand checks and defensive three seconds — all either allowed or less sternly called in Europe. "I feel like a rookie somewhat because of the refs, the way the rules here are a little bit different," Scola said. "I feel like a rookie when they call fouls everybody knows are fouls. I feel like a rookie when I don't know the cities, the hotels, the restaurants, the airport, or how we do stuff at practice or after practice. But I feel like a veteran, an experienced player also. "The game naturally assigns roles for everybody. It's going to happen. You can't control that. It will happen. The team will put me in the place that will help the team the most. You'd always like to have a really important role, but you can't always get what you want."
But the idea of all roster additions is that if you try sometimes, you get what you need. "If they are all on the same page and have a positive attitude, that can be accomplished a lot quicker," Adelman said. "I think going through the process with all the different people they had last year and then adding to it, it's going to be a process, but there's no reason we can't be successful right away. Our goal is to get better as the year goes on so when April comes, we've prepared the team and we're ready to go no matter who we face and who we play."

It starts at the top
As much as the Rockets hope their roster changes lift them to something greater, the even more obvious change comes from the coaching change from Jeff Van Gundy to Adelman. Adelman brings a new offensive philosophy, some tweaks to the defense and a different personal style. But if the additions to the team might be the key to the Rockets' quest to become something greater, or at least advance past the playoffs' first round, the most important job might be putting it all together. "That's probably the biggest thing this team is going to face," Adelman said. "You look at it on paper and there is a lot of talent. But I think talent has to come together. Guys have to be willing to sacrifice and do things that are going to be best for the team. Time will tell with that. "It's an unusual situation because we have a lot of guys that have been successful. Obviously, not all of them can play. "It has to come from within the team. The teams I've had that have been very successful, guys have come together and have done something or sacrificed for what is best for the team. That's what this team has to do."
The players who have been added say that won't be a problem, citing their past successes and experiences as reasons they would be ready to accept the role they are given. "You've got to just go out and play," James said. "Just go out and have fun; don't try to do more than you're capable of doing. "Anybody might have a big night on any given night. There's going to be consistency with Yao, consistency with T-Mac. But there are going to be other guys that will have to step up and play their role. One night it may be me. One night it may be Steve. One night it may be Scola. Whoever it is, we have to believe in each other." One thing is certain: The Rockets have been altered, and they believe the changes are for the better. "It will change," Scola said. "The team will change. It will change a lot. It may change for good. It may change for bad. But it definitely changes. ... I think these changes will be for good."


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The Chronicle has a special section K for The Rockets in the Sunday paper that’s based on “Meet The Beatles!”, hence the music motif that runs throughout the section….
So important questions arise:
Who on our team is a Mod, a Rocker, or a Mocker? Who is the Walrus? Which one could be Yoko and bring tension? Is a working class hero something to be for Francis? Will Mutumbo’s long and winding road end on a positive note?
Overall, the outlooks are rightfully positive. With recent sewing circle gossip about Francis' place on the team, I particularly noticed a lot of the good things the season preview had to say about Francis. He’s noted as one of our scoring threats, and he has quotes of how he’s ok with taking a backseat role.
Feigan predicts us to go 56-26. He says we have 18 back-to-back games, but I’m only counting 17. And he says 16 of these are in streaks where we have 4 games in 4 nights, but I think he meant 3 games in 4 nights. Anyways.
With all the commotion of who is in the rotation, what if we used our depth to keep legs fresh during back-to-back games? Tell certain guys to run and jump their legs off for extended minutes for one game and rest them on the other while a fresh crew of certain of players get extended minutes. Just a thought.