Before the start of the season Rockets management decided to put all of our eggs in one basket carried by T-Mac and Yao. Didn't seem to be a downside - Ming didn't have a history of aggravating physical problems, and T-Mac had allegedly worked hard all summer to be ready physically. One of the "eggs" (Sura) had a serious crack but his problem didn't seem to be a show stopper. Then McGrady dropped his handle and Yao couldn't pick up the slack. Then Yao went down, McGrady carried the entire basket by himself for a few games, then went down again. Now, not only did our two basket carriers fall down hard, but now there are more cracked "eggs" in the basket. Alston breaks a leg and has since returned. Funny how his fracture healed faster than the strained calf mucles of JB and DA Deke dislocates and cuts a finger on his shooting hand, misses a couple of games but is still soldiering on (thank God!). Stromile gets poked in his eye and seems to have developed a terminal case of pink eye Heck, my granddaughter had pink eye and only missed a couple days of school! Our undersized roster can't keep up the pace playing with their taller adversaries. The other night, with the exception of Deke, the other four guys didn't average 6'3"! Our consistent inability to rebound is just killing us. Howard has played fairly well, albeit inconsistently. Kudos to both him and Wesley - they're carrying the Rockets, but always seem to run our of gas late in the game. Lonnie Baxter is just cannon fodder to give Mutumbo a few moments of rest; every one in the league is turning him inside out! Most of the time we're rooting for the "gang that couldn't shoot straight", from almost anywhere, including the free throw stripe. Can't denigrate the rookies' desire, but it seems that we have more turnovers with each passing game. Can't compete playing "give away". Not to mention the officiating has just been atrocious. I haven't seen this many phantom traveling, palming, 3 second, illegal block calls since 8th grade! I know I'm biased, but it sure seems one-sided to me. So right now we have a very big omelet and no one knows when one of both of our basket carriers will be back to keep it from getting any worse, let alone to rise like a souffle No one could have possibly foreseen the calamity that has been the Rockets season up until now. Is there light at the end of this long nightmare?
I don't understand how the Rockets put all of their eggs in the same basket when over the last few years they acquired two all stars in Yao and TMac, and completely revamped their roster with, when healthy, mostly quality role players such as Sura, Barry, Alston, Swift, Wesley, and Mutumbo.
every championship team (except for the pistons) have kept thier eggs in one or two baskets. one superstar basket will win more games than 3 good baskets. our problem is our baskets (tmac & yao) are broken, and thus our eggs (stro, DA, JB, rafer, deke, sura) all cracked at some point. even though our eggs are healing we won't be able to win until they are collected in baskets, and since our record is so bad and we need our baskets for the future we will tank. since eggs don't do well if they aren't properly contained (especially with the bird flu the rockets seem to have this season) i say we make some omlettes and relax.
The problem is our "role players" are a support cast with no principals to support right now. For example, of the six you mentioned, only one has been healthy and he constantly is at a disadvantage, heighth-wise, on defense. Then we a couple of inexperienced (and small) rookies in Head and Lucas, and a couple of CBA rejects in Moochie and Baxter. The "bird flu" has been pandemic with the Rocks. maybe we should empty the basket and start over . I love the Rockets - I ;iled their roster (on paper) before the season (even though I thought we gave up too much in trading James for Alston, and I was never confident in DA contributing). Watching the Rockets over the last month has been about as much fun as twin root canals (w/o anethesisa).
I thought Yao and T-mac were the basket CARRIERS, not the basket/s themselves? Isn't that what he said..? But then.. who or what would be the basket..?
all i know is that we're playing like scrambled eggs, not an omelette. and oh - i know this is bad to say, but if his contract were worse, i'd wish that stromile's pinkeye was terminal. at least we'd get an exception from the NBA.
agreed. we are just having bad luck with all these injuries. A few years ago moochie was our go to backup guard, now he's lucky if he gets to carry the towels out.
