I also believe our attendance had to a little in the decision because with the All-Star game being here, it will rejuvenate NBA here in Houston. I've read a lot of Chron users response when they had the article why Houston can't draw at home with a winning record, a slight majority of them don't care about NBA. The Rockets will be represented in the All-Star game in Fri, Sat, or Sun game(s). It is going to be fun 4 days.
The all-star game always goes to warm weather major cities, the only way a small town or cold weather town get it is as a reward for building a new arena. Between the weather, infrastructure, and business connections in Houston we're a safe pick.
I'd say they've had the worse luck in terms of lottery pick success. Oden was selected number one and barely played enough games to amount to a full season during his tenure there (possibly getting waived). Brandon Roy played great and was an All-Star, has knees of an 80 year old and as a reslut had to retire. If it weren't for the idiocy of the Bulls and T'wolves front office Aldridge would not be there as an All-Star (after the trade for Tyrus Thomas) and Roy would have been doing what he did in Minny. They have good rotational players but if it weren't for Aldridge the writer would have no argument. We haven't had enough lottery picks to be able to select the players they selected, since Tracy was traded here.
He destroyed his own argument here: I don't see how "Houston doesn't have an All-Star" and "Portland hasn't had an ASG in forever" and "Houston fans arrive late" (actually, they don't show up at all, but it doesn't even matter because locals can't really buy tickets to the ASG anyway) can compete with this. Those things don't matter at all. What does matter is the last time Houston hosted, it was a great success and Houston has a track record of doing a good job with these events. Houston has the sports facilities, the hotels, restaurants, strip clubs, and infrastructure needed to make everyone happy. When Portland builds a new stadium, they can probably get a ASG weekend as a reward for spending hundreds of millions of dollars (lol).
