I was able to go to Day 3 of the Rockets training camp in Austin. This was my first day to attend since I had been out of town the past 1 1/2 days, and Yao Ming isn’t scheduled to arrive until Friday anyway. The Rockets will be in Austin through Sunday, which is one day longer than last year, so that gives me 3 more days to check things out.

Since I was able to go to a couple of days of camp last year, and it’s being held in the same fantastic facility on the University of Texas campus, it was much easier this time around since I was familiar with everything.

Unlike last year under the helm of former coach Jeff Van Gundy, new head coach Rick Adelman doesn’t have a problem with opening up the last 10-15 minutes of practice to the media. When the media was allowed to enter, I was surprised to see former GM Carroll Dawson on the sidelines. I guess it’s hard for him to pull himself away after serving the Rockets for so long. I don’t blame him.

The players were scrimmaging fairly hard, but several players like Tracy McGrady, Chuck Hayes, Dikembe Mutombo, and Bonzi Wells were resting on the sidelines (later the media learned that Bonzi did get some action on the court).

You could tell the players who were on the sidelines had worked hard by how fatigued they looked. Hayes had one of his socks off, and it looked like he was nursing his ankle. GM Daryl Morey went over to him to see how he was feeling. It didn’t appear serious.

Click here for more photos from Thursday’s training camp activities.

I didn’t get to see much since we saw the tail end of the scimmage, except new power forward Luis Scola did draw a charge.

Soon the practice ended with a team huddle on the court, with Adelmen in the center of it for a few minutes. Then all the players spent several minutes on the court stretching, with strength and conditioning coach David Macha in the middle conducting the various stretching routines.

While the players stretched, I had some time to talk to new VP of Basketball Operations Sam Hinkie. Hinkie, who was an assistant to Daryl Morey last year, took over for Dennis Lindsey who accepted a front office job with the Spurs this summer.

Hinkie was a great interview. I asked how the team was getting along without Yao in camp, and he said the offense has really been missing Yao in their drills. He said the players that are present are surprisingly getting up-to-speed fairly quick with the offense, so not having Yao there makes it hard for the offense to get to the next level since the offense is still going to revolve around him. For example, he said it’s difficult right now for the cutters entering the lane to get a feeling for how much room Yao takes up, which is an important adjustment they will need to make.

I asked Hinkie just how much they think Yao will be playing in the high post, and he said it will be frequent when the offense starts a possession, but if a shot attempt hasn’t happened early in the possession, then Yao will slide down in a low-post position to be a higher percentage shooting option. Of course, many wrinkles to this approach will evolve so it won’t become too predictable for opposing teams to defend.

I also asked him about Yao’s monetary fine for being late to camp because of his Special Olympics commitment, and asked if the Rockets would donate that money to the Special Olympics organization. He said he didn’t know where the fine dollars go, and that it may be something the league decides, and that I would have to check with the league to see how they collect that money and where it goes. But he believes most fines the NBA collects go to charity anyway.

After I spoke with Hinkie, I was able to get 3 interviews recorded, and have embedded links to all of them in the little players below.

Here’s the tail-end of a media interview with Adelman I recorded where he talks about his plans for Yao, what has been done this summer with him, the progress of Luther Head, the impact he thinks Bonzi is going to have on the offense, impressions of Mike Harris, and much, much more…

Below is an interview with Luis Scola…

Finally, here’s one with Rafer Alston…

When all the players were finished with their interviews, they all headed to the bus to go back to the Four Seasons hotel. The last player to leave, by far, was Shane Battier who spent several minutes practicing his free throws. He stayed so long after everyone else had left, a few of us were wondering if he was going to have to arrange his own transportation back to the hotel!

On Friday, Yao makes his highly anticipated return with the Rockets holding two sessions, probably so that Yao can have more time to get caught up. I know one thing…it’s going to be a madhouse around Yao tomorrow with the media, so I don’t think there is going to be much time for me to ask the questions I have lined up for him. Hopefully I will have more opportunities with him on Saturday or Sunday.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Rockets training camp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.