Just a little respect Mobely signing important as Rockets build for future Aug 6, 2000 10:40 a.m. ET GETTING INSIDE The Rockets celebrated re-signing Cuttino Mobley as if Michael Jordan himself had signed on the dotted line. This might have seemed odd to those that looked at the Rockets last season and saw a 34-46 record and looked at Mobley and saw a reserve scorer. The Rockets see things differently. The clue that should have been obvious and certainly was to Mobley was that when he was on the court, the Rockets treated him as if he was Jordan. He was given the ball. Teammates, including young star Steve Francis got out of the way. As Francis and Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich pointed out on Wednesday, teammates have deferred to Mobley since he was a rookie in the playoffs against the Lakers and the teammates getting out of the way included Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen, the latter Mobley's basketball hero. Mobley's ability to beat almost any defender off the dribble — and he used Pippen and hi mentor Eddie Jones last season — offered the Rockets something of an equalizer. Teams — better teams — might be stronger up front. Virtually every contender is. Many are deeper. Many are far more qualified for a May and June run. But if they cannot defend Francis and Mobley off the dribble, the Rockets have a chance to beat anyone. They split with the Lakers, Trail Blazers and Heat last season, largely by forcing teams to radically alter their defense to defend the Rockets' one-on-one prodigies in the backcourt. "We have changed our style of play," Tomjanovich said. "Cuttino is an aggressive attacking player. We want to run. We want to be an exciting team. He fits right in to that. He also is one of the handful of players in this league that can be called a go-to- guy. By that, I mean we can get the ball in his hands and something positive is going to happen. Those guys are hard to find." With the moves toward oversized backcourts, few teams have the quickness to match up with the Rockets' young greyhounds, almost to the degree that the Rockets cannot match up with the in the paint strength of the Lakers, Blazers, Spurs or Kings. The Rockets still have work to do to counter Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace or Chris Webber, but even the Western Conference powers have to scratch their heads about Francis and Mobley. "We have some things other teams don't have," Tomjanovich said. "That's Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley. Those guys are primary guys already and they're young. You can put the ball in their hands and something is going to happen. There are other teams that are pretty good. They have a whole bunch of talent. But you see it in the fourth quarter of games they don't have a guy that can get by somebody or create a situation. We've got that already. "Now we fill in the other pieces. A little bit of this, a little bit of that and we're on our way." QUOTE TO NOTE: "Basketball should be about love and loyalty. — Rockets guard Cuttino Mobley ------------------ "The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life." ---George Carlin [This message has been edited by BobFinn* (edited August 06, 2000).]
Where did this article come from? Interesting read... ------------------ Nederland 2002 Qualifying Campaign (Damn those penalties!!!) Houston Rockets Space Center- Not just another ClutchCity.NET clone. We're that and more!
oops, here's the link: http://foxsports.com/southwest/stories/sw000806rockets.sml ------------------ "The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life." ---George Carlin
