Didn't know where to put this, so I figured the Hangout was just as good a place as any. Anyway... cursed? I'm starting to think so. It would be one thing to have mediocre teams and get mediocre results. That way you have no expectations, no letdowns. But it's another thing altogether to consistently have high hopes for a team in the off season and then to have those hopes CRUSHED during the regular season. I love rooting for these teams and can say the highs are high - 22 win streak and getting passed the 1st round in forever for the Rockets, the best WR in the game plus exciting finishes/miraculous wins over the Colts and Redskins for the Texans, playoffs followed by a World Series appearance for the Astros, a great QB and high hopes for the Coogs. We even had a couple of championships for the Dynamo. But man... the lows are LOW. From injuries, to horrible defenses, to just plain suckage. It takes a toll on one's health... mine, specifically. Or am I looking at things pessimistically and overlooking the (small) successes that we've had?
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/7342510.html ??? Man, I almost cried when I read this news story.
Football, in general. 92, 93, and 94 were still worse collapses than anything the Texans have done so far.
no only one team/city wins a championship each year in each sport. there are plenty of other cities that haven't won anything in the 15 years since our NBA titles, or the few years since the dynamo won.
Don Wilson, J.R. Richard, Dickie Thon, Ralph Sampson, the Cocaine backcourt, the Renfro catch/noncatch, the Buffalo game, Bud Adams, the moving Malone pick, the Mets series, the 2008 Laker series, and now more Yao. Yes, we're cursed. But we still have two Dream-led championships and we're not Cleveland.
Don't believe in curses just bad management. Rockets in the 2nd half of this decade have tested that theory, however.
It sure as hell feels like we are. I love Clutch City, I love Dream, I was never scared of the Bulls, and nothing can ever take away that feeling of watching your team win it all, yet Clutch City doesn't get the respect it deserves. Even when we win, we lose.
The Astros have have a good amount of success. The Texans have been poorly managed. The Rockets have had plenty of success, and more recently took a risk and built their team around a 7-6 freak of nature in a sport where every previous person that size had major leg and foot issues. It's unfortunate, but not a terrible surprise that he has had the same issues - that's the risk they knowingly took.
You could say that their "curse" was that they got the #1 pick right before Lebron and Dwight Howard. That said, 3 of the Rockets 4 best seasons came directly as a result of tanking. So it's not so much luck that's involved, but human manipulation of "luck".
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CMNry4PE93Y?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CMNry4PE93Y?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> How is "I like turtles" not winning???
At least the Oilers were fun to watch before they collapsed. And those were PLAYOFF collapses. I'll still take them over regular season collapses that keep us from even MAKING the playoffs. I'm with you on all those (don't forget Phi Slamma Jamma), but the Rockets championships put an end to any curse that may have been on the city itself. Individual teams, maybe. But not the entire city.
Success means winning championships. It's been one big void from the Oilers and their backstabbing owner, the Astros who finally made it to a World Series after decades of futility only to get blown away in four straight games and now the Texans who are light years away from a Super Bowl, much less a Super Bowl win. I think we're definitely cursed here. I don't know if Houston was built over an Indian burial ground or what, but I can't think of any other city that has had such futility with both their NFL and MLB teams.
