Feelin' the love

Good things are (rest, rest) happening ...

If anyone actually got that, I'm sorry for subjecting you to such awful music. If you didn't, consider yourself lucky.

ANYWAY, watching ESPN last night, I think the basketball world outside of Houston is beginning to recognize we have a playoff-caliber team on our hands. For one, I saw a nice little diddy on Steve Francis (3) immediately following a little Tracy McGrady promo. The commentators were really talking Stevie up. Which is nice.

Then, while announcing what's in store for next week, I swear the announcer said it like this, "HOUSTON ... (versus Phoenix)."

I think what we really need now are some new rivalries. In the Dream era, it was Utah then Seattle. Huge games, and when we'd play those teams it was hard for me to determine whether I loved the Rockets more or hated Utah/Seattle more. Now it's just I love the Rockets, and every game is, as they all say in interviews, "Just another game." Well, I, for one, want some of them to be more than "Just another game."

We need to establish some serious rivalries. Sure I still hate Utah, but actually I really kinda like Payton these days. And we have the obvious interstate rivalries of San Anton and Dallas, but San Anton's about to rebuild around Duncan. I think we should start hitting Dallas hard and make a huge rivalry out of that. Then, I'm hoping when Charlotte gets it's new team, New Orleans will move into our division and we can get a good rivalry there as well. Baron Davis-Steve Francis is already a bit of a rivalry for us fans. But the key is being good enough to beat those rivalry teams on any given game. Otherwise we can't love to hate our rivals.

Okay, that was long winded.