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Say what, Richard Justice?
The Chronicle's primary sports page columnist, Richard Justice, is gushing over the Houston Rockets' management now that the local club has seized first place in the NBA's Southwest Division going into the last ten games of the regular season:...
As the Rockets' World Turns
With the football season winding down in these parts, folks are finally noticing that the Houston Rockets are approaching the halfway point of the NBA season and again look like an also-ran in the playoff race. It's now been...
Checking in on the NBA
Did you realize that 20% of the 2008-09 NBA season is already completed? Most of the local mainstream media is locked into the Rockets narrative -- i.e., "Tracy McGrady is a superstar and the Rockets can't win in the...
Watch out for the Bears
As noted here earlier, years of mediocre football at Texas A&M has mellowed the formerly hard-knuckled 12th Man a bit. This week, A&M football team is a decided underdog to the fearsome the Baylor Bears (H/T Jay Christensen): Meanwhile, watch...
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip; previous weekly reviews are here). Colts 31 Texans 27 The following was a conversation that I had with another long-suffering fan of Houston sports teams after the Texans (0-4) became the first team in NFL...
The Rockets Narrative
As the Houston Rockets face the beginning of their straight decade of failing to get out of the first round of the NBA playoffs, the familiar mainstream media narrative regarding the team's probable playoff loss to Utah is all...
T-Mac for MVP?
The incongruity of Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice writing about sports has been a frequent topic on this blog, so I don't much bother anymore keeping up with his often baseless observations about the local sporting scene. However, on the...
What's wrong with the Houston Rockets?
Dave Berri breaks it down. The bottom line is that no player on the Houston Rockets is playing as well as they did last year. Moreover, Tracy McGrady is no longer a dominant player -- indeed, he is now just...
The Rockets crash
After a quick 6-1 start, the Houston Rockets have fallen flat on their collective faces, losing six straight games before beating Denver at home last night. Inasmuch as the fawning local mainstream media fails to provide any meaningful analysis of...
Sizing up the 2007-08 Rockets
The beginning of the National Basketball Association's regular season is about a week away yawn, so Dave Berri provides this excellent statistically-based evaluation of the 2007-08 Houston Rockets. Despite the local mainstream media hype, Berri's evaluation of this edition of...
Why is Richard Justice analyzing sports?
One of the many curious aspects about the Houston Chronicle is that the local newspaper employs Richard Justice as a sports reporter and columnist. We already know that he has trouble evaluating baseball (see also here) and football. So, today...
An appropriate image
The Houston Rockets are engaged in a first round Western Conference playoff series with the Utah Jazz, which plays a style of basketball that reminds one of professional wrestling. Inasmuch as the Rockets play a rather plodding style of ball...
The Rockets' dilemma
The Houston Rockets are in a difficult spot. First, the team hasn't won a playoff series in a decade now. Even this year's team, which is not bad, is only the third best team in Texas and probably fifth or...
Autry Court anecdotes
Rice University recently announced a $23 million renovation of venerable Autry Court, the longtime home of the Rice basketball and volleyball teams. An $8 million donation by Rice alum Bobby Tudor spearheaded the renovation, which will begin in July 2007...
The 2006-07 Houston Rockets
After a rather uninspiring effort against Utah on the road to start the season, the Houston Rockets open their 2006-07 home schedule tonight at Toyota Center against the Dallas Mavericks. As noted here and here, the Rockets have performed poorly...
Great Coach tirades
By now, you have probably seen Arizona Cardinals' head coach Denny Green's meltdown after his team blew a 20 point lead to the Bears over the final 17 minutes of the Monday Night game earlier this week. Even Houston Rockets...
Getting off cheap
The Houston Rockets are off to Austin for pre-season training camp and, although the basketball team hasn't achieved much lately, Rockets owner Les Alexander recently joined for the first time fellow Houston professional sports franchise owners Bob McNair (the Texans)...
Have you heard about Dwayne Wade?
Inasmuch as I'm somewhat ambivalent about the Houston Rockets, I tend not to follow the NBA Playoffs all that closely. However, even while not following the playoffs closely, it's a bit hard not to realize that Dwayne Wade is something...
The art of free throw shooting
Almost lost amidst Dwayne Wade's heroics during the final six minutes of Miami's nailbiting win over Dallas in the third game of the NBA Finals the other night was Miami center Shaquille O'Neal's making two free throws down the stretch...
Remember the NBA?
Once upon a time seemingly long ago, the Houston Rockets were the most popular professional sports franchise in Houston. However, after nine straight seasons of not winning a playoff series, and while watching its Texas competitors -- the San Antonio...
Simmons on the NBA
As noted in earlier posts here and here, it has been rather easy for Houstonians to ignore the NBA generally because the local team -- Houston Rockets -- has been mediocre over the past decade or so, although at least...
Rockets choose a stathead as new GM
The moribund Houston Rockets -- clearly the least popular of Houston's three major professional sports franchises -- announced yesterday that longtime general manager Carroll Dawson will retire as GM after next season and that he will groom 32 year-old Boston...
The twilight zone of the Houston Rockets
For some time now, Chronicle sportswriter John Lopez has been writing the most insightful pieces on the local newspaper's sportspage. In his column today, Lopez continues that trend by expanding on the theme of this post from over a year...
Operation Yao Ming
Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen posts on the Brook Larmer's impressive new book on the development of Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, a book that could be nice holiday gift for the basketball fan in your family. Tyler remains skeptical that...
Catching up with the NBA
As noted in earlier posts here and here, I find it difficult to generate much enthusiasm for the local professional basketball team, the Houston Rockets. This year's club is mildly interesting, with one of the best perimeter players in the...
Rubbing salt in the wound
After enduring a day of painful memories of Stros previous heartbreaking playoff losses in the final game of the 1980 NLCS, the Game Six of the 1986 NLCS, and Game Seven of last season's NLCS, my old friend and former...
Lakewood and Houston's other big churches
This Church Report article -- The 50 Most Influential Churches -- examines the fifty largest churches in the United States based on a survey that was sent to 2,000 church leaders with the goal of ranking the nation’s fastest growing...
The mismanagement of the Houston Rockets
Although I have followed basketball most of my life, I find it difficult to generate any enthusiasm for the Houston Rockets. It has not always been that way. I moved to Houston in 1972 at about the same time as...
JP Morgan Chase unit buys big stake in Texas properties
A JPMorgan Chase & Co. subsidiary is paying almost a billion dollars to buy a piece of some of the state's biggest buildings, including three in Dallas and two in Houston. Ft. Worth-based Crescent Real Estate Equities Co. announced Monday...
Calvin Murphy goes to trial
Former Houston Rockets star and Basketball Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy trial on sexual assault charges stemming from claims he molested five of his daughters when they were children cranks up today in Judge Mike McSpadden's criminal state district court...
Houston's Great Wall of China
Gordon Marino, a philosophy professor at St. Olaf College, writes this Opinion Journal article on the Houston Rockets' center Yao Ming. It's an interesting look at Yao, in which Mr. Marino observes: I asked Yao to compare his life in...
Calvin Murphy indicted
A Harris County grand jury indicted former Houston Rockets basketball star and Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy today on six counts of sexual abuse centering on allegations that he molested his five daughters when they were under the age of...
What's wrong with the NBA
Given my interest in sports, several friends have asked me why I have not blogged much on professional basketball. My stock answer is that, even though I have followed the NBA for about 45 years or so, I find it...
'Stros-Rockets joint venture wins summary judgment
This Chronicle story reports on the summary judgment that a joint venture comprised of the Astros and the NBA's Houston Rockets obtained yesterday in their lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that the Astros' television contract with Fox Sports Network allowed...
NY Times on Lakewood Church - Compaq Center deal
This NY Times article describes Lakewood Church's long term lease on the City of Houston's Compaq Center, formerly the home of the NBA Houston Rockets, who have now moved to a new downtown arena, the Toyota Center. Lakewood's acquisition of...
Herskowitz on the Rockets
I'm not much of a professional basketball fan anymore. But I remain a solid Mickey Herskowitz fan, the longtime sportswriter for the Houston Chronicle and author. Mickey writes today about the Houston Rockets, a rather boring and generally underachieving NBA...
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