It's safe to say Hoffman doesn't read cc.net. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/features/2169335 No big mouths among Rockets By KEN HOFFMAN Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle I'm always surprised when anybody keeps a secret longer than two minutes. Remember when Geraldo Rivera took a stick on worldwide television and described (or so he thought) how U.S. forces would attack Baghdad? That wasn't very bright. The Army should have let the Houston Rockets run the war in Iraq. The Rockets know how to keep their mouths shut. All summer the Rockets kept us guessing what their new uniforms would look like. They erected billboards around town with little teases -- a swatch here, a snip of logo there. On Oct. 2, with a ton of fanfare, they unveiled the new uniforms. Last week, I bought the PlayStation 2 basketball video game. After it took me an hour to hook it up (a child can do it in five minutes), my kid and I played our first game. I took the Phoenix Suns. He was the Rockets. I don't even try to win that battle any more. I figure this game was several months in production. It's pretty complex. The graphics are spectacular. The details are very precise down to the brand of soft drink served in the arena. Yet somehow Marv Albert announced the game from "Toyota Center in Houston" (how did he know that?), and when he introduced the starting team, Yao Ming and the players were wearing the new uniforms, right down to swoops around the arms and blood-dripping "R" in Rockets. You could even see the shine off new coach Jeff Van Gundy's comb-over hairdo. He really needs to go Guiliani and slick it straight back. I called the Rockets and asked public relations director Nelson Luis, "How were you able to keep this stuff secret?" "Everybody had to sign a letter of confidentiality," he said. Yeah, those work great. Ask Rush Limbaugh. "The game uniforms are made in China, I think, so we weren't too worried about a leak coming from there," Luis said. "It's a long, time-consuming process. The NBA has to approve the color schemes and the logos and the actual uniform designs. That takes time. So the uniform decision, to be included in that video game, was obviously made many months ago. We were lucky to keep it a secret as long as we did." Luis said there was one clue that not too many people noticed. In the middle of the summer, the NBA filmed a commercial with players sitting behind a table in a boardroom. If you looked closely, Mobley was wearing a prototype of the new jersey. Now I'm going to buy the new baseball video game to see if the Astros trade Billy Wagner and put Craig Biggio on the bench next season.
email hoffman and link him the links, and tell him that he is a moron, and shouldn't be a columunist for the chronicle.
man, we're all pissed off cuz we've seen the uniforms for like 2 months and are just begging them to unveil them, and yet for the general, non-obsessed fan public, they were a mystery and a surprise when unveiled. so apparently the marketing wasn't too terribly leaky like most of us felt.
Let's not criticize this guy here too much. At least he's pretty much upfront with the fact he doesn't keep too up to date with the Rockets. A welcome change of pace from all these writers as of late who think they know so much about the team when they really don't.
Hoffman is a one time sportswriter with the Post. He is strictly 'entertainment' now. He does a good job, give the injured fellow a break (bad choice of words, sorry KH).
I'm sorry, but I'm laughing so hard... Not to mention that every basketball game manufacturer and some sporting good stores had the uni's up in plain view before they were "officially" shown. People in Taiwan knew about it before poor Hoffman. Hysterical stuff.
"With much fanfare." yeah. right. the unveiling of the uniforms was an afterthought, and so anticlimatic it wasnt even funny.
didnt they show that little pic of mobley wearing the new unis from the taiwan nba site all over the news?? i think the pic was in the chronicle too, right??
Uh.... WRONG! He was expelled from Iraq. From CNN link WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fox News Channel correspondent Geraldo Rivera is being expelled from Iraq for broadcasting details about future U.S. troop movements in the country, according to the Pentagon.
