After hearing Monday that Jeff Van Gundy signed a 5-year agreement with ESPN to continue his commentating career, Yao Ming said, “That’s good for me. Not as many people will know how to defend me.”

I wouldn’t be too sure about that. I’m shocked JVG signed a 5-year deal, but I’ll bet he’ll opt-out of that contract within a year or two to take a sweet NBA coaching job somewhere. I just can’t see him NOT coaching for 5 more years.

The Rockets lost their second preseason game in a row, this time in Oklahoma City where they lost to the Seattle Sonics….er, I mean the Thunder (that’s going to take me a few weeks to get used to that), by blowing another 4th quarter lead to fall 110-104.

In 24 minutes, Yao Ming scored 15 points and grabbed 16 boards in the loss. He also had 3 blocks and 2 assists. Check out the video below of Yao throwing one down…

Click here for the Houston Chronicle’s game story.

Houston lost a chippy game against the Celtics last night, losing 90-89. It took on the tone of a regular season game with several agitated episodes between players on both sides.

Yao scored 16 points in 24 minutes of action, shooting 4-of-7 from the floor and 8-of-9 from the line.

Tracy McGrady played his first game of the preseason, scoring 10 points. Luis Scola scored 14 points, Ron Artest scored 13, and Carl Landry scored 11.

Click here for Raymond’s photos from the game. Click here for the Chronicle’s game story.

The Rockets won their second preseason game Thursday night, this time against San Antonio, looking much better than they did in their first victory.

Yao played 24 minutes, hitting 4-of-8 from the field to score 8 points, and grabbed 4 boards. His timing is still a little off, though:

“He’s just got to keep playing through it,” coach Rick Adelman said. “I wasn’t going to play him that long. But I wanted him to keep playing, because he’s got to get his timing back. He’s kind of out of sorts right now.

“He did kick it out of the double-team a couple of times when they were coming at him. But I thought there were times when he re-established his post position, and he’s just got to be more aggressive and go ahead and take it. I thought he was hesitant and a lot of it is timing. We’ve got to keep playing him in longer stretches and let him get his timing back.”

Click here for Raymond’s photos from pre-game and the game itself. Click here for the Houston Chronicle’s full story.

4.) Al Harrington (GSW) | 6-9, 250 lbs | 10 yrs pro

Head-to-head ’07-’08*

AH: 16.5 ppg, .439 FG%, .409 3FG%, 8.3 rpg

YM: 20.7 ppg, .487 FG%, 11.7 rpg, 2.3 bpg

*Harrington played one more game than Yao in ’08 but NBA.com’s Game Logs is not working at the moment so stats were taken from Game Splits.

DIAGNOSIS: When you look at the numbers, they’re not too shabby, 20 and 10, can’t ask for more, but when you consider Yao’s considerable size advantage up and down the roster, the fact that Yao doesn’t always completely dominate the Warriors is why Harrington makes the list.

Richard Justice has a nice story on Joey Dorsey and how he “has given Yao Ming fits in practice.” As Justice observes, Yao dominates true bigs, it’s the smaller, more athletic post players who have sometimes done better against him. Al Harrington falls into that category but not so much with Dorsey’s Ben Wallace-like physique and athleticism but with his versatility. Harrington is strong enough to make Yao work to get position on the low-block and fast enough to beat him down court in transition.

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In an era that claims with increasing validity the true center is dead in the NBA, Yao Ming is a throwback. But being old school means having to resist an overwhelming trend of NBA teams going smaller, faster and more athletic at the center position; essentially, playing power forwards at center. It’s been no easy feat for Yao to keep up, as 3 seasons of missing 25+ games may attest, but then again, that size advantage or disadvantage, however full you see your cup, cuts both ways.

When healthy, Yao is the the best offensive center in the league (yes, this point is still arguable with Amare Stoudamire thrown in the mix but he won’t be because he’s officially a PF again this season) but the list isn’t restricted to centers but to those players assigned to guard him. This is a breakdown of the match-ups that should not only be the most entertaining to watch, but also the ones that may be the toughest on Yao.

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It wasn’t pretty, but the Rockets won their preseason opener at Toyota Center against Memphis 96-93.

Here’s what the Chronicle wrote about Yao’s performance:

Yao Ming, despite struggling so much in the first quarter that he said he felt like a rookie again, looked fully recovered from last season’s stress fracture. On one occasion, he got the rebound on one end and was the first player down the floor on the other. After missing his first four shots, he dropped in a jump hook, scored on a spin move to a lefthanded layup, and finished with 10 points and nine rebounds in 22 minutes.

“It (felt) new,” Yao said. “I think eight months not playing NBA games — this high-intensity, high-speed game — in the first quarter, I felt like I am new here.”

Click here for more of the game story from the Chronicle. Click here for more photos.

I’m a bit late in posting Raymond’s photos from the Rockets Red Rally that took place at Toyota Center on Saturday, but better late than never.

I’ve got to think the Rockets are pretty tired of Toyota Center since it was their 5th day in a row there. They will be there another 5 days, playing Memphis on Tuesday and San Antonio on Thursday before heading out of town to play Boston next Saturday.

Here are more photos from Friday’s training camp, Day 4, courtesy of Raymond.

Raymond has posted photos from Day 3 of Rockets training camp here and here.