With the season over, I wanted to bring attention again to the promotion below…

The season may be over, but he doesn’t have to be out of sight. Get the following life-size image of Yao in your home through a company and product called Fathead! And every time you order a Fathead of Yao by clicking on this link here, you help support this site.

If you haven’t seen a Fathead before, here’s a description from their Web site:

Fathead looks great. Life-size images of outstanding quality. Fathead captures the passion and action you’re looking for.

Fathead makes it easy. Just peel and place. No tape, no tacks, no clutter.

If you’re an adult and don’t have a kid who loves Yao, having a Fathead of Yao in your office or game room would be really cool.

If you do order a Yao Fathead by clicking on this link, email me at john [at] YaoMingFanClub.com so I can track the sales with Fathead.

Thanks!
John

I watched Game 1 of the New Orleans – San Antonio game earlier tonight, and former Rocket Bonzi Wells played very well (no pun intended), scoring 10 points on 5-of-9 shooting in 18 minutes and getting significant time in the always important fourth quarter.

That made me start wondering if the Rockets could have used Bonzi more than Bobby Jackson. As much as I like Bobby Jack, my answer is…”absolutely.” After all, what was the main problem we heard about the Rockets during the Utah series? It was that Tracy McGrady had to take on so much of the scoring load and he didn’t have much helped. That’s because their backup shooting guard — Luther Head — played so poorly (not that big of a surprise), he probably won’t be with the team next year, and they really didn’t get much from anyone else other than Luis Scola. Jackson did have a nice Game 2 with 18 points, and Game 5 with 9 points. But that was about it.

When the trade happened on February 20th, I wasn’t that big of a fan of it, and I wrote this:

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Raymond has photos posted in the forum of Yao leaving China to come back to Houston, where you’ll see he no longer needs crutches.

Raymond also has a report of what he Yao plans to do once he’s back in H-Town.

* Take a photo in front of the Hakeem Olajuwon monument

* Show up at the bench on the last home game versus LA Clippers

* Show up at the bench to support his teammates when the playoff starts

* Have a good laugh and enjoy the Roast & Toast Charity on April 17th.

* Start his rehabilitation aggressively with the Chinese medicine he brought back from Beijing

* Start watching video of his national team temmates

* Start asking the Rockets for video of Luis Scola so he can be well prepared playing against Scola during the Olympics.

Thanks for the scoop, Raymond!

I didn’t want Friday night’s ceremonies for Hakeem Olajuwon to pass by without dedicating some time to it here on Yao Ming Mania. Hakeem was elected into this year’s class of the Basketball Hall of Fame, and Rockets’ owner Leslie Alexander did some wonderful things to commemorate the honor.

Before Friday’s game, the Rockets unveiled a new monument outside of Toyota Center with a ceremony, then at halftime they had another ceremony where a new banner was hung from the rafters with Olajuwon’s jersey as well as “Hall of Fame 2008” inscribed on the bottom of it.

For more photos from the ceremonies, click here (thanks to Raymond for posting in the forum).

They were wonderful moments. It reminds me of the halftime ceremony a few seasons ago, which I attended, where the Rockets honored Hakeem after he anounced his retirement. I’m eternally grateful for what Hakeem did for the city of Houston. Those championships in 1994 and 1995 were some of my favorite sports memories ever, as well as the run his Houston Cougar teams made to the Final 4 back in the early 80’s.

And thank you Les Alexander for building a tradition here in Houston for honoring great players like Hakeem, Clyde Drexler and Calvin Murphy, coaches like Rudy Tomjanovich, and GMs like Carroll Dawson. Maybe the same thing will be done for Yao Ming in about 10 years.

Not to be a spoil sport, but I’m a little disappointed that Muslims are not allowed to have statues made in their likeness. Although the statue of the jersey is nice, it’s a little redudant since a likeness of Hakeem’s jersey is hanging from the rafters of Toyota Center. I don’t know what else the Rockets could have done, though, to have something that was a little more unique. A large photo of Hakeem shooting a fallaway jumper after a “Dream Shake” might have been okay, but large photos don’t have the same permanence as a statue or monument.

Anyone have any better ideas?

On a completely different note, I had a couple of thoughts from Friday night’s game against the Suns, but I’ll save that for later over the next couple of days. I want people to soak in all the photos from the ceremonies honoring Hakeem without me cluttering it up with other random thoughts. Hakeem deserves that.

The Sacramento Kings surprisingly beat the New Orleans Hornets late Saturday night, a game that New Orleans had everything to play for to hold on to the Western conference lead. So now the Rockets can’t feel so bad for losing against the Kings 6 games ago, a huge loss for Houston’s quest to lead the conference. And get this…Sacramento can continue to be the spoiler when they play San Antonio on Monday and the Lakers on Tuesday. I had said several posts ago (last paragraph) that Sacramento was the team to watch heading into the stretch, and it looks like that’s turning out to be the case.

So now the Hornets are tied with the Lakers at 55-25, and the Spurs are 1/2 game behind both of those teams with a 54-25 record and play the Lakers tomorrow on national TV. The Rockets are also 1/2 game behind both teams, but are in the fifth spot.

I would refer you to this page on NBA.com to give you the latest playoff picture, but at the time of this post they are slow in updating the latest standings (as is Yahoo), so it doesn’t reflect tonight’s games. I don’t understand why both these sites aren’t on top of updating these standings real-time. It can’t be that hard. I typically have to wait until the middle of the night for them to get updated. Sheesh.

But what I’m still trying to figure out is what needs to happen for the Rockets to finish in the spots I want them to finish. Ideally I’d like for them to finish in the 1st or 2nd spot so they can face the #7 or #8 seed in the playoffs, which will be Dallas, Golden State, or Denver.

In order for the Rockets to finish 1st or 2nd in the conference, they’re probably going to need to win all their games and hope that San Antonio, the Lakers and New Orleans lose. But it’s not that simple because San Antonio and the Lakers play against each other on Sunday, as I mentioned earlier.

So who should win that game if you’re a Rocket fan?

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Okay, I just spent a few hours on a plane earlier today just going through all my thoughts from last night’s game. Forgive any typos: I’m rushed to get this posted before my next flight takes off. None of these are in any particular order. Just random spewing Larry King style:

* For fans who have been following the Rockets all season, I think we’re too close to understand that this streak is bigger than we fully realize. When ESPN starts Sportscenter off with the Rockets’ streak and Jay Leno mentions it in his monologue, you know this is a much bigger deal than we have even realized…

It’s kind of like “continental drift”…like we’re on this Rocket continent that has been moving slowly along the earth’s crust surrounded by ocean waters toward a climate on the planet that fosters lush vegetation, hitting tectonic plates along the way (Hornets, Mavericks, etc.) to create high-rising mountains on its coasts. Then along come some extra-terrestrials (the mainstream media) who fly overhead, look down from their spaceship and are amazed that this part of the planet can be so fantastic. But to us here in Rocketopia, although we’re extremely grateful for this land of ours and its accomplished leaders – Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming – we realize our land has been great all along its trek, and is what we have come to expect.

* Who would have thought earlier this season that games against sub-.500 Eastern Conference teams in March would be anticipated as much as a playoff game in May?

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I’ve been thinking for a few weeks now how gutsy it was when Les Alexander hired Daryl Morey back in April 2006 and everyone questioned the wisdom of that decision. This article compelled me to finally write about it.

Many thought the “Moneyball” approach of using statistics to make personell decisions may work for baseball, but not as much for basketball. Critics said that Morey was too stats oriented, and that he didn’t have enough experience to take over an NBA General Manager role. I really liked the move at the time when I said:

“Personally, I think it’s a great, gutsy move by owner Les Alexander to bring in different perspectives the Rockets (nor many teams) have never had before.”

I knew after meeting Morey shortly after he was hired to be the Assistant GM under Carroll Dawson for one year, that he had more than just a stats background going for him. He seemed to have good judgment and the humility to learn as much as possible under CD about the finer nuances of being a good GM.

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The other night during the Fox Sports Net broadcast of the Rockets game, they showed a video of many Rocket players imitating Uncle Mutombo, which was hilarious! I saw it live and wished I had recorded it. Thanks to ‘David’ for bringing it up and ‘airchina23’ for finding this video on YouTube.

The Suns beat the Spurs on Sunday, which gives San Antonio its second loss in a row.

The Rockets are now only 1 game behind the Spurs. If Houston beats New Jersey Monday night and the Spurs lose to Denver, then they’ll be tied!

I know there’s still a long way left with 20 games remaining, but it’s still kind of cool to watch the standings. The standings below will change later tonight (Sunday) when Sacramento plays the Lakers in LA. They’ll either add a 1/2 game on everybody if they win, or lose a 1/2 game if they get shocked by the Kings.

I still love the beauty of the ’18’ in Houston’s win streak column compared to everyone else’s! Amazing!

With the Spurs losing Friday night to the Nuggets, Houston is only 2 games back in the standings for the top seed in the Southwest division, currently good for the #2 seed in the West. The Rockets are still 1 game behind New Orleans heading into Saturday night’s showdown with the Hornets (I’ll be there to report on it). Amazing.

Not that it means much, but San Antonio’s loss also puts alot of distance between Houston’s 17-game winning streak and the next longest current win streak in the league (Boston has won 7). Before Saturday’s loss, the Spurs had won 11 in a row.