Down by 15 to the bucks at halftime. They will have lost 3 out of the last 4 after this game. My Prediction: Rockets 7th seed Phoenix 8th seed Lakers watch from home.
Oh well, Bucks blew a 18 point lead. What more can you ask for in a win against the Lakers, 20 point lead? 30 point lead? If you ask me, if the lakers let you get ahead by 18 points, you hold on and never let go. Choke.
Even though I'm the cc.net resident Laker "fan", I don't think anyone should be writing off LA. Especially since we are Rockets fans. Does the 1995 season ring a bell? Until LA is out of the playoffs/don't even make the playoffs, they are still my pick to win it all. I'm sure this will provoke rockets03 to go into some rant about how bad ass the Rockets are, but oh well.
hey laker fan, what pray tell are the lakers going to do when Shaq retires? LOL! In his last year or two he'll get abused by Yao anyways. The new Dynasty is in Houston.
Is Shaq going to retire before the playoffs? And I AM a Rockets fan. Fact is that LA is king of the hill, until someone knocks them off. If YOU were a true Rockets fan, you would be the first to acknowledge that from the 94-95 season. Even if I were a Laker fan, your "smack" is so weak. "We'll beat you in 2-3 years. We'll just wait for your best player to retire."
I am a Rox fan that resides in Los Angeles. I watch both Laker games and Rox games (via Season Pass). Many of the Laker fans here at the bar I frequent are adamant (even confident) that Yao will become a Laker when his rookie contract with the Rox ends. I know that this topic has come up but the reason I raise this again is in response to one of the comments a poster made earlier about what will happen when Shaq leaves. The fact is that LA will always attract top talent and I am sure the Lakers will try to tempt Yao. I am still a bit worried that Yao will leave us and a Yao-Kobe duo can mean many more championships for the Lakers. My hope is that we can get deep into the playoffs or even acquire some better supporting cast players and win a championship before that day comes. Thus, it will entice Yao to stay...
If you were a true Rockets fan, you would know that we won that year due to a major trade (for Drexler), meaning our team was completely different by the time the playoffs rolled around. The same LA squad that has been underachieving during the season will be the same squad that squeaks into the plaoffs. Just because the seedings are similar does not mean the two situations are comparable.
As I recall, Washington was fairly sure that Steve Francis would be smoking Michael Jordan's pipe right about now, so I'm not too worried about losing Yao...provided the team improves/is improved.
That's one reason I hate the Lakers so much. (I live in LA too, BTW.) They think they can just snatch star players developed by other teams simply because it's glamorous to play in LA.
We didn't exactly kick ass after the Drexler trade on Valentine's Day. Not until the playoffs began, did we paly well that year. Also, LA has been "underachieving" in the regular season the last 2 years before this year. Arguably, they should be a #1 seed every year, but they have not been since 2000.
I have seen enough of your posts to believe that you know this, but I will say it anyway. The Rockets have Yao Ming for three full years on his rookie contract. The 4th season is a team option...he has no choice in this matter. For the 5th season (2006-2007), the Rockets will have something called (full) Bird Rights for Yao Ming. IOW, they can pay him up to the max allowable contract. There is no team that can outbid the Rockets. If the Rockets (and/or Steve Francis and/or Cuttino Mobley and/or Rudy T) have not figured out in 4 full seasons how to incorporate a potentially great low post threat into their game, the Rockets as a business entity have bigger problems than Yao wanting to force a S&T to LA. There are fundamentally 3 reasons why I think Yao will finish his career as a Rocket. The first is honor. I think culturally Yao will want to remain with a team that has treated him respectfully. He will reciprocate that trust and loyalty. Secondly, once the Rockets as a team and Yao as a player have established the inside-out game, the Rockets management will do anything reasonable from a trade or FA signing standpoint to improve the team. Lastly, Shaq and Kobe together tie up some serious cap space which could make rebuilding or even remaining competitive during Yao's 4 years as a Rocket very difficult for LA. Contractwise, Kobe + Shaq is very similar to the TWolves situation where they can not afford to sign (compete) for FA's due to cap issues. Right now, other than extending Kobe (or Shaq) the Lakers have no players signed for 2006-2007. The Rockets have Francis (extended), plus MoT and Moochie in their final years (valuable expiring contracts like Rice next summer). And maybe a re-signed Posey. IMO, good contract management will allow the Rockets to tweak the roster...and the Lakers no longer have Jerry West.
The last bidding war between LA and Houston resulted in the Houston Texans. You don't stand a chance. Houston is Jerry Maguire. We love our players. LA doesn't know how to show Yao the money. Nor will they ever.
As long as we are contenders by then, I don't see Yao leaving. He definitely seems like the type that will stick with a team as long as they have not totally screwed things up. If he did leave, I would be interested(Not interested enough to see Yao leave) to see how KC performed in his old role, as a starter.
