How Will History Judge These Rockets?

I don't remember exactly how old I was when I stopped really enjoying getting Christmas presents. The moment when I realized that the real, physical actuality of the feeling of looking at the pile of opened gifts never seemed to equal the visions of wonder-filled Disney-inspired joy that my imagination always built up in the days and weeks leading up to the event is inexact to me now...Years later, I have become one of those people whose main enjoyment at Christmas is finding the right gift for the right person, and am usually pretty indifferent to what I receive..I have been told that I am hard to buy for, and I don't doubt it. I pretty much have it or I don't want it...

But looking back at my childhood Christmas mornings, the thing I most remember is the feeling of magic when I would come downstairs in the morning and, for one brief moment, my imagination and reality collided in a uphoric Rockwellian vision of unwrapped presents, stuffed stockings, and the hush of anticipation in my families faces...for that moment, it was as good as I could have wished for...I don't really remember that many actual presents, but I always remember the feelings leading up to them...

The Houston Rockets are seemingly as overloaded as any tree that was ever waiting for me on Christmas morning...They contain the hope and mystery that the piles of wrapped and ribboned boxes represented to my childhood eyes. But will they end up being the toy I had been writing to Santa for, or will they be another sweater from my Aunt May? We are at the beginning of the road, and it promises to be a long and interesting one, but we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the road's ultimate destination is shrouded in uncertainty, and much more likely to lead to disappointment than to celebration.

It all seems so easy now, so...inevitable. One part Mobley, two parts Francis...add an Eddie Griffin here, a Yao Ming there, mix well, bake for a year or two, allow to cool for a month or so, and then begin the feast....But are we alone in this feeling? Wouldn't we feel the same if we were Clippers fans? Or Bulls fans? Doesn't the immediate future seem impossibly bright to both the Mavericks and the Kings? If we had been Blazers fans 4 or 5 years ago, would we have been able to foresee that our amazing collection of talent would one day be synonymous with ego-based implosion and unrealized potential rather than the years of Championship runs it seemed to betoken?

And then there is the indifferent hand of fate...I remember when the Clippers had amassed an amazing young team...Danny Manning was the complete package...Magic meets Bird, but more agile and quick than either...Ron Harper was the next Jordan, or at least the next best thing...Charles Smith, Gary Grant, ...at the time all the pieces seemed to be in place for a long and entertaining run. Arsenio Hall was whooping their future in front of a nightly, younger, hipper audience that seemed perfectly attuned to the Team Of The Future, as opposed to your Daddy's Lakers...Magazine covers, television shows, all of it...Two blown out knees later, and Manning and Harper were just 2 more Could Have Been Greats, Smith was traded, Grant was a bust...The re-built Clippers were, in fact, a house of cards.

Be honest...if you were a Sonics fan with a team just bursting with young talent: Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton, Derrick McKey, etc...would you not have been absolutely convinced that it was just a matter of time? If you were a Jazz fan 10 years ago, and someone told you that you had 2 players on your team who would play their entire co-inciding careers in Salt lake City, and go down as, statistically at least, the best at their respective positions to ever play, would you have envisioned your trophy cupboard bare?

Looking back at the Championship runs in the mid-90's, I usually have a sense that I just knew it would happen...But I have to ask myself, is that the clarity of foresight really just afforded me by hindsight? Is the feeling I remember before those years really any different than the feelings of impending glory I had about the Twin Towers? Or the Big Three?

When it's all said and done, how will the cold eyes of history judge these Rockets? Will we be the latest Dynasty? Will Steve Francis, Eddie Griffin and Yao Ming be Magic/Jabbar/Worthy reborn? Will Cuttino be the veteran sharpshooter that sees us through the dark moments? Or will we be yet another team who reached yearly for the ring, only to find it just beyond our grasp? Will we have in-fighting and ultimate regression like the Blazers? Or years of patient and methodical futility like the Jazz?

Who knows what these Rockets will brings us...years of celebration, memories of winning moments, clutch plays, raised fists...or unending frustration, recollections of opponents big shots, Rockets missed opportunities, bowed heads...It's all out there before us, yet to come. These Rockets are still wrapped, and their ribbons have barely begun to be pulled...Appreciate this time while it lasts...Anything is possible, everything seems attainable...The odds are against us, but we're fans, that won't daunt us...We perceive with our imaginations at full bore, our eyes can hardly see through the glimmer of our hopes to the team we have in front of us today, let alone objectively annalyze the numbers against our future aspirations...

Don't wake up ...it's not Christmas yet...

 

geez...try to go a different way, offer an alternative style, a change of flavour...and all it gets you are sniper shots from the peanut gallery.....sigh...

 

What's that Biblical quote about slivers in abother's eye and boards in your own? Anyways, zz, I have a few responses...

1) I do not believe Manning was a mistake in any way...If Stevei had blown out his knee mid-way though his 1st year, does that make trading for him the wrong move? No...just not a fortuitous one..

2) I was citing those Clippers ( and those Clippers alone) as an example of the indiffernet hand of fate...If I was oblique, I apologize; I thought that mentioning " The indifferent hand of fate" would be self-explanatory...No direct comparison was drawn between the organizations..

3) It was a commonly held belief at the time that the Clippers had amassed a fantastic collection of young talent. While I agree that the Clippers have been a generally atrocious organization, you have to feel for them in this case...Imagine maneovering/sucking enough to land a young Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady...and then watching it all slip through your fingers via severe knee injuries. Was that your fault? The degree to which the Rockets are a better run organization ( they unquestionably are) cannot nor indeed will not protect them from that kind of happenstance...We can only cross our fingers...

 

That makes for an interesting contrast to the usual complaint against me; that I am too academic and fact-based, and don't 'come down to the real world' enough. Either way, thanks for the back-handed compliment, but I disagree that, in this case, I am the one who mishandled the facts. See above post...I feel that you missed my point about the Clippers...Obviously you think that this is endemic to my posts, but I don't know what other examples may or may not back up your contention...

 

Chritstmas appears to be getting closer.....I still haven't come down from last night. I keep reminding myself that it was just one game, but....anyone for egg nog?