Last night’s game against Seattle was obviously a late one, having ended close to midnight. I also had a very long travel day that got me in way past that, so I haven’t been able to watch the game on my DVR yet. But I plan to check it out because the Rockets’ scoring binge continues to amaze. Here Yao Ming shows his pleasure during an easy 117-94 win.

Yao made room for his teammates by taking only 8 shots, and making just two of them, to finish with 9 points and 5 rebounds.

Filling it up was Tracy McGrady, who came back strong after missing a couple of games, scoring 30 points on 10-of-20 shooting. And since rookie Aaron Brooks was making his return to his hometown, he had to get some minutes, and he ended up taking 7 shots to finish with 12 points.

Then throw in Shane Battier taking 12 shots and scoring 19 points, Luis Scola scoring 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting, and a total of 15 Rockets getting playing time, it didn’t leave much time for Yao to play big minutes.

It looks like coach Rick Adelman is going to continue play as many guys as possible before the first regular season game against the Lakers on October 30th, so don’t look for Yao to rack up big numbers for awhile. With the depth and talent the Rockets have, it will be interesting to see if they even need Yao to score as many points as last year.

Like I mentioned the other day, the Rockets could create a ton of frustration for fantasy leaguers this season who will think their players will consistently rack up big stats this season. There are just too many options for the Rockets to turn to if anyone struggles, or has a minor injury and needs to rest when normally they wouldn’t.

Click here for more photos from the game.

I know it was only a preseason game against a Dallas team that didn’t play hardly any of its starters at all, but the way the Rockets looked on Thursday night, it look like it’s going to be a fun season.

The Rockets proved to many people tonight they are absolutely stockpiled with talent. They remind me of recent Dallas teams that had big-name players come off the bench, but maybe even better. And tonight, the Rockets were, cruising against Dallas 104-90.

When you’ve got a lean and motivated Bonzi Wells (11 points on 4-of-7 shooting) being a threat offensively with his impressive array of moves and setting up Yao Ming for easy baskets, and can bring Mike James (17 points, 6-of-9 shooting) and Steve Francis (8 points) off the bench, and where you haven’t even had to factor Tracy McGrady (8 points) into the equation, it’s incredible how unstoppable they could be.

And we haven’t even talked about how much better Luther Head (8 points) is this season, how solid Shane Battier is (14 points on 6-of-9 shooting), how the Rick Adelman offense fits Rafer Alston‘s (6 points) game better, how great of a talent Luis Scola, is, or about Yao’s constant greatness in the middle (19 points, 8-of-11 FGs in 20 minutes).

I watched the game on Thursday night, and I was reminded just how difficult it is to stop Mike James, Francis, and Bonzi when they take it to the hole.

There has been a little bit of hype about how the Rockets could be the most improved team this season. Not only do I believe that, but they could be the best. I know it’s just one game, but I haven’t been this excited about the Rockets’ chances in years.

I hope you haven’t puked yet the way I’m fawning all over this team right now, but it’s rare that I do this, so enjoy it (or deal with it) while it lasts.

This season you’re not going to have to worry too much about a big drop-off in offensive production when the starters go out. The only Rocket fans who might be unhappy this season with the team are those fans who play fantasy leagues and are disappointed how each player, other than Yao, won’t rack up a lot of points for their fantasy teams. That’s how balanced they are.

I also enjoyed watching Yao play in the high post and hit some easy outside jumpers, as pictured below. Every basket won’t be a big chore this season, and he won’t have to worry about his head coach this season getting on his back for taking those shots.

Here are some very encouraging post-game comments regarding Yao’s play:

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Here’s an article from ESPN’s Marc Stein, who wrote this piece after talking to the Rockets the afternoon of October 7th at their Austin training camp the same time I was there. I could tell Rick Adelman and many of the other Rockets players recognized Stein and respected him, which is evident by the quality of his work as seen in this article.

We already knew Yao Ming was an awesome center, and we had heard Rockets new power forward Luis Scola was good from what we had seen and heard in the media. But we had never seen them in action together as much as we did Thursday night when the Rockets played Greek team Panathinkainos at Toyota Center.

I know it’s just Panathinkainos we’re talking about (which is actually hard to ‘talk’ about literally), but Yao and Scola showed how daunting a force they can both be when on the court together.

Yao scored 21 points on 7-of-14 shooting and grabbed 8 boards, while Scola scored 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting and 6 boards in a 107-70 blowout victory. I can’t wait to see how Scola does in the Rockets’ next preseason game against NBA-quality competition and a bigger front line.

To see highlights of Yao from the game, click here for the video.

Click here to see more photos from the game.

Since Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady had missed the Rockets media day on Monday, October 3rd, they were able to get their official photos taken yesterday for the 2007-08 season.

Also on Monday, the Rockets practiced at Toyota Center. Click here for photos from the practice as well as some more photos of Yao and McGrady together.

Tuesday night Yao Ming had an interesting game in the Rockets first preseason game, dishing out 3 assists Vlade Divac style. He also hit 4-of-11 shots (most from the outside) and scored 13 points in 17 minutes of play. Here he goes up strong over New Orleans’ Hilton Armstrong…

I wasn’t able to see the game, which the Rockets lost after holding a 30-9 lead. But most of that lead was given up in the second half long after Yao and Tracy McGrady were gone.

Click here for the boxscore, and here for more photos from the game.

Today was the final day in Austin for the Rockets. It was a long week and I think everybody was ready to go home. Here Yao Ming and Steve Francis are seen immediately after practice…

I was able to cap off the last 3 days with some more recorded interviews (recordings are in embedded players below).

Yao was very accommodating and let me ask more questions than I thought he would be able to give. I had to share the time with other reporters, so I wasn’t able to ask him everything I would have liked, but it was the most amount of time he had ever been able to give to me. So I really can’t complain.

In the part 1 of the interview right here…

…Yao talks about the following (among other topics):

– How his time in the low-post the past few years used to be 90% compared to 10% on the perimeter, the past few days in Austin it has been 65% in the low post, and 35% on the perimeter.

– Yao gets in the low-post different with Adelman’s offense than he did with Jeff Van Gundy’s offense. He’s not just “waiting there.”

– Dikembe Mutombo has given him a lot of pounding the past few days.

– New backup center Jackie Butler is very strong. You have to pay attention to him, especially when the ball is in the air because he is very active.

– Dikembe is in better shape than last year (he’s much stronger). Deke “gets everybody every day” with his elbows.

– Carroll Dawson went over to China during the summer to help Yao train, and he was appreciative that he went all the way over to China to help him.

– One of the funny things that happened during the interview is when I asked him about his free throw shooting percentage. I asked him that since he’s an 80% free throw shooter (he’s 82.2% for his NBA career), if it was going to be easier for him to score since he’s going to be spending more time at the elbow of the lane. Yao made sure to let me know his free throw percentage the past couple of years was higher, then he responded accordingly.

– With the new offense Adelman is putting into place, I brought up comparisons to Yao’s game with Arvydas Sabonis, Yao’s childhood idol.

– I asked him if Rick Adelman’s seemigly positive nature makes a difference to the team compared to Jeff Van Gundy’s demeanor?

Here’s the second part of the interview…

…where Yao addresses…

– No big guy likes to run like Adelman wants him to run, but he knows he has to do it.

– He doesn’t want to say this is the best team the Rockets have ever had because they say that every year!

– …my question if he has changed any part of his game to prevent injury?

– …if he has kept in touch with Colin Pine, his former translator who he used the first couple of years of his NBA career.

Directly below is an interview with Rick Adelman, with the first couple of questions asked by the Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen (who is a fantastic reporter and great guy, by the way), then ESPN’s Marc Stein, then the Yao question asked by yours truly where Adelman beams about Yao. Then Feigen and Stein ask questions again, plus a CCTV reporter.

Directly below is an interview of Tracy McGrady, provided to me by the nice folks who work for CCTV in China. I missed this interview, but they were kind of enough to let me have a copy of it. McGrady speaks fairly soft, so you might need to crank up the volume on your machine to hear him.

Finally, click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for some more audio the CCTV guys let me copy, this one of Steve Francis and Shane Battier.

There is some background noise that arises in the middle of the interview which makes it difficult to hear, though…

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I went to Saturday’s media session after the Rockets practice, and there was considerably less media from Houston there because many went back to Houston for the weekend. You could tell many of the players were very tired. Evidently coach Rick Adelman had them do much more running in Saturday’s practice than previous practices.

After the practice many of the players were drinking cups of Jamba Juice to refresh themselves, as you see in the first picture above. It was Rafer Alston who joked after the practice that Jamba Juice was really going to miss the Rockets after they left town because all the business they had been giving them this week in Austin.

I was able to get some good interviews, which are available below.

Here’s the one with Yao, where you can tell he was fatigued from the practice…

Here’s the tail-end of an interview that Rick Adelman was giving…

I had a good conversation with Kirk Snyder in which I started off asking him about Yao’s alleged disappointment that he wasn’t able to play in the Utah playoff series loss last year. The interview comes in two parts…

I plan to go to the final media session on Sunday, and I’m hoping I will get some time to ask Yao all the questions I have for him, but the media sessions tend to be shorter than expected since alot of players go to the bus early, which puts alot of pressure on them to wrap things up quickly.

I just got back from Friday’s practice. The interview sessions were short, but I was able to get the tail end of Rick Adelman‘s interview, as well as Yao Ming‘s first session with the Rockets media.

Here are some of the audio clips.

Rick Adelman – was very impressed with Yao in his first practice

Yao Ming – He was very funny, like with his responses to questions about married life, as well as “Steve.” Even while suffering from a cold and understandably tired from all the travel he went through to get to Austin, I was pleasantly surprised how upbeat and humorous he was with the media.

Click here for a couple of more photos I took of Yao on Friday.

Yao arrived in Austin late Thursday afternoon, 3 days late due to his commitment to the Special Olympics in China. Jet-lagged from his flight from Shanghai, suffering a cold, and having just driven to Austin from Houston, Yao insisted on getting to work one hour after arriving in town…even though the coaches said he could have the night off. Wow. That’s dedication.

You can read all about Yao’s return to the Rockets in this Houston Chronicle article.

I’m sure Yao will be exhausted, but happy and excited to be back with all the new talent around him, and the new offense that should be an interesting challenge for him to learn. I’ll be at camp on Friday and will share my thoughts, as I’m sure everyone else reporting on the Rockets will. Yao’s return will no doubt be the most talked-about event at Cooley Pavilion on Friday.