Cato: "I've got the same fire that I've had the last two seasons"

Thank goodness we got Jackson... but you have to admit, the "no comment" quotes were hilarious!

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/bk/bkn/1069719

With chance to start anew, Cato shows he hasn't gotten message

By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle

The door opened to the bright afternoon sun and the hulking, brooding figure stepped across the threshold and squarely into the Rockets' future.

He came down the flight of stairs, across the practice court and sat slouching on a stool so the team photographer could take an official portrait as part of the media day routine.

"I don't do smiles," said Kelvin Cato.

One more thing.

The Dream is gone. Meet the Hallucination.

On the first day of the new brand new era, Steve Francis bounced into the gym like an overinflated basketball, full of enthusiasm, and that made him only the second-most energetic person in the room behind Cuttino Mobley.

Francis talked of being more relaxed entering his third season as a pro, promised to do whatever it takes to get his first taste of the playoffs, even swore that he wouldn't get a single technical foul this season. Mobley practically crackled like a downed power line -- his talk of his love for the game made you half expect to see sparks fly out of his ears.

Across the way, rookie Eddie Griffin went nervously through the experience for the first time, answering the poking and probing, trying to be confident, but attempting not to oversell his own goods.

Glen Rice, by far the elder statesman at 34, talked giddily like a kid who had just discovered a new playground. He is over, he thinks, the foot problems that limited his production last season in New York and ready to add a combination of outside shooting and a splash of veteran leadership to what is mainly a cocktail full of youth.

Even Maurice Taylor, his season already ended by a torn Achilles tendon, hobbled around on crutches wearing a grin.

Cato scowled.

"I've got the same fire that I've had the last two seasons," he said.

So is that a good thing or a bad thing?

"I have no comment," said team owner Leslie Alexander.

"Uh, no comment," said Francis.

"Well, I like the word `fire,' " said coach Rudy Tomjanovich. "When he's been healthy and when he's in the right frame of mind, he's proven to be effective for us."

Two very big "whens."

Over the past two seasons since arriving from Portland in the great Scottie Pippen fire sale, Cato has played just 100 out of 164 games. Last year, it was a high ankle sprain and then a partially torn rotator cuff that kept him on the sideline.

But for two years, it has been Cato's attitude about about being a professional that has been a bigger pain to the Rockets than any aching ligament or muscle.

When the front office rewarded Cato with a six-year, $42 million contract after he blocked a dozen shots in one exhibition game back in 1999, the talk was of how he could take this young team in a newer, faster, stronger direction.

What it has gotten the Rockets since is every penny's worth of production, minus only $42 million or so.

He can run the court, when he wants. He can block shots, when he tries. But he spends his time before games launching 3-pointers.

Once last season, when his teammates were playing shooting games after a practice, Rudy T walked by and asked Cato if he would get in on the action.

"Why?" he asked. "You won't let me shoot in games."

Cato spent the next two games on the bench, even though he was healthy.

Now when the greatest player in the history of the franchise has left a void, when the nucleus of a young, exciting team has been assembled, when a franchise is trying to get noticed amid Texan-mania, it just seems so masochistic to let it all hang on Cato's whims.

If he played half as mean as he scowls, Shaquille O'Neal would quiver in his size 22 high tops. If he worked out on the court and in the weight room half as hard as he does at posturing, there would be no question or critics.
In essence, Cato holds the entire season hostage, not with a shortage of talent, but a lack of commitment.

"Cuttino Mobley's in midseason shape," Cato said. "He's crazy. He loves basketball, plays every day in the summer. Why do I need to do that? I'm in preseason shape. Don't worry, I'll get there."

But maybe the Rockets do, which is why they've signed free-agent center Marc Jackson to an offer sheet and await Golden State's decision whether to match.

"Hey, I didn't think I was ever supposed to be a force in the league when I came out of college," Cato said.

By that standard, then, already a whopping success.

No more Dream. Just a Hallucination.

Is this any way to start an era?

 

Actually, I thought the same exact thing... it sounded a lot like an April Fools Joke that Clutch does every year. It's almost too pathetic and stupid to believe.