Sorry about the locked thread before. I'm pretty sure this is new. It used to be easy to figure out the whodunit of the Rockets' success when Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady left their fingerprints on the team. This season presents the Case of the Unknown Rockets Eventually, for better or worse, the Rockets will know. The mysteries will be solved. All the questions they now have will be answered. For now, however, the Rockets can only wait and wonder. A team filled with changes and questions, still dramatically impacted by the health of Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, the Rockets have ideas how it all can work but really only know that they can't possibly know — yet. “We don't know what our identity is,” Shane Battier said. “That's probably the biggest question we have. We don't know who we are. I don't think we're ultimately going to know who we are as a team or individuals for a few weeks into the season. It's not going to be like on opening night, we're going to go, “Oh yeah, we're the Rockets, this is our nine or 10 (rotation) players, this is how we play.' “That's something you have to work at it and practice and go through the fires to determine.” To a degree, this is always true, but rarely as much as it is for the Rockets, who will ask virtually every member of the rotation to take on responsibilities beyond any they have had before. For the Rockets, the mystery is not so much a whodunit. The question is ‘Who'll do it?' “Usually, every team has one All-Star or two All-Stars or someone you rely on who has been the main guy who knows that role and has done that role,” Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. “We're going in to this trying to find out who that's going to be. That's not an easy step to make, not that they can't do it. I've seen guys make big steps. That's what we have to have happen. “I've always said it's a players' league. I learned a long time ago, you're a lot better coach when you have better players. That's why I say we think we have some young guys who are going to step up and make a stride but you have to put them in positions and give them an opportunity, give them a chance to grow and see what they will be.” Questions, questions Almost every position comes with a question. Aaron Brooks is entrenched as the starting point guard, but he will be asked to be a more consistent scorer and effective playmaker than he has been in his first two seasons. Trevor Ariza moves from the Lakers, where he blossomed throughout his fifth NBA season and helped key a championship run. But he will seek a more difficult jump from solid role player to go-to scorer. Luis Scola might have been the Rockets' most consistent player last season. But he often took advantage of defenses twisted to stop Yao and will have to exchange that advantage for getting more touches, especially in the low blocks. Even veterans Chuck Hayes and Shane Battier will begin the season not just as the team's most reliable defenders but asked to be more aggressive offensively. “Yao was a pretty nice person to have when things were going very good. You throw it in to him, and everyone lived off that and everybody was better because of it,” Adelman said. “Tracy was the same way when he was healthy. We don't have that now. What you have to do is you have to make them believe, and I really believe in the last two years when we had injuries, we've been able to believe we could still win. “The way we're going to have to do it is we're going to have work harder than everybody else; we're going to have to be very consistent and play well as a team. This will be a progression for us. That's what I told them. No one knows right now, but we feel like we have some really good pieces, some really good young players. If we compete and we're consistent, we'll be OK.” The Rockets have won in recent seasons without McGrady, Yao or both, including two postseason wins in four games against the Lakers after Yao joined McGrady on the shelf. They have since made changes that were not caused by injuries, with Ron Artest and Von Wafer leaving as free agents and Brent Barry not returning. More puzzle pieces Those sorts of changes are typical, part of the business. With the Rockets, however, they seem to add to the mystery. “You have to see how the new guys react to playing the new season,” Brooks said. “When the season comes, it's going to be a little tougher. We're still going to have a lot of unanswered questions, but a lot of teams are. Even the Lakers — how are they going to adapt to Ron — and Cleveland — how are they going to adapt to Shaq (O'Neal) — have questions. Everybody does, and we do. “It seems like every team, except maybe two or three, makes roster moves to improve. But they are not improvements until you see how they play on the floor. Everybody's roster looks better. Unfortunately, we're without Yao and without Mac, but we added a lot of pieces. It just depends on how we all react to each other and how everybody plays together.” Into the unknown The Rockets know, however, that it depends on more than that. They are confident that the plans will work, that they will be retooled into a more up-tempo style and that the young, key players will progress as needed. But until then, it is all something of a mystery. “There is a lot of uncertainty; there is no doubt about that,” Adelman said. “We lose all those points from people who are used to scoring those points, used to being the main guys. Now you just turn it over to people and try to get them to do more. I think it's going to happen in some guys, like it did for Aaron last year. It will for Trevor. But it's a consistency question, night in, night out, knowing Yao is there or knowing we had Ron or we had Tracy. We knew what we had, and those guys stabilized us. “We don't have that right now. We're still looking for it. That is going to cause us some uncertainty.” dingaaa
