I hate it. I was involved in New Age junk. Big mistake. Though I'll support the team, I won't be buying anything having to do with this marketing. That's all I'm saying.
What!? Nothing pertaining to Lin!? You can't put that on a shirt without Lin on it and expect it to sell.
Rockets embrace slew of young players, prepare for “A New Age” JONATHAN FEIGEN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE - Rockets general manager Daryl Morey watched another day of voluntary player workouts at Toyota Center one week before training camp would begin in McAllen, but sounded ready for the real thing. After a spectacularly eventful off-season brought more than the usual uncertainty, it’s been a long wait. Answers, he knew, would unfold slowly, but with a nearly entirely rebuilt roster with little NBA experience, he was ready to begin to learn about his team in ways no amount of off-season sessions or advanced analytics could provide. “I think we’re probably going to be the hardest team to know where we’re going to end up in the league,” Morey said. “Really, I think we’re going to learn a lot about all the players in their first, second and third year. Frankly, the only known commodities are Kevin Martin and Carlos Delfino.” With the training camp roster set – guard Courtney Fortson was released with guards Kyle Fogg and Demetri McCamey added with non-guaranteed contracts – the Rockets’ 20 players will have an average of two NBA seasons of experience. That provided the Rockets with their marketing slogan for the season – “A new age.’ But while the marketing department might be embracing the change in the Rockets roster, bringing rookies Royce White and Donatas Motiejunas to the logo unveiling event on Tuesday, Morey seemed simply willing to accept that the unpredictability that comes with a roster of prospects also offers potential to work out eventually. “If you’re a championship contender, you want to feel like you know what is going to happen,” Morey said. “If you are a team trying to get back to that status, you want a lot of unknowns, a lot of guys with talent. The worst thing to be is to very consistently win 35 games. We won’t do that. Our goal is to get into playoff contention. How that will happen will be hard to know. It will be who steps up from this group. “I think we know pretty much everyone we’ve got has shown some sort of elite skill on some level. Really, what our team comes down to is can they add to those one or two skills into (becoming) an all-around player that helps us win at a very high level.” The Rockets had a much more set rotation heading into the past few seasons, but Morey said this is not a change in philosophy after three-consecutive seasons finishing one spot shy of the playoffs. “Ever since Yao Ming went down, we’ve been very consistent,” Morey said. “Every move, every player is someone who can develop into an All Star or gives us the flexibility through free agency or trade to add an All Star level guy.” Even the veterans signed the past two off seasons – Delfino, Samuel Dalembert – have come with contracts loaded with team options in the name of that flexibility. But after going into last season with the NBA’s most inexperienced team, the Rockets have even less experience this season. The roster is likely to have four or five rookies and eight players in their first or second year, many who do not yet have a defined position. Training camp could be as much about evaluating and experimenting as preparing, which Morey said will “absolutely” slow the process. But he said the priority of training camp and the preseason will be to ready the Rockets for the season opener Oct. 31 in Detroit. During the season, he said, the emphasis will remain on choosing a rotation to win as many games as possible, rather than playing the young players solely in the name of development. “Philosophically, we’re about every year winning as many games as possible,” Morey said. “That’s the mission of the coaching staff. My job is to look at the bigger position and figure out how to weave that into the highest probability of winning a championship over time.” The preseason will also be about final evaluations on contract decisions. The team will have until Oct. 31 to extend the contracts of Patrick Patterson, JaJuan Johnson and Marcus Morris for the 2012-13 season. Patterson is likely to be the Rockets starting power forward. Morris and Johnson were first-round picks in 2011 and it is exceedingly rare for teams to not exercise their first options on extending rookie contracts. Those answers and many more will begin to come next week. In the final week before a long off-season made way for a much-needed preseason, Morey sounded as if he had waited long enough.
My first reaction is that you were kidding ... but you are not one to kid. Maybe on opening night the Rockets could hand out ... crystals. Or maybe they can hand out ... Yanni CDs. What a horrible marketing idea. I hope they can get their money back.
