Yao Out - Andersen In

After weeks of consultations with top doctors, Yao Ming has decided to have surgery on his injured left foot. The surgery he has chosen will almost certainly keep him out all of next season. He will endure a bone graft to heal the existing fracture and have his arch surgically lowered to help prevent similar problems in the future. This is obviously a major decision that will affect the remainder of his career. On the positive side, it is the same surgery that Cleveland center Zadrunas Ilgauskas had following career-threatening foot injuries early in his career and he came back to play the last seven seasons without issue.

Both to replace Yao on the roster next year and to replace Dikembe Mutombo permanently as Yao's backup, the Rockets acquired the rights to David Andersen from the Atlanta Hawks. Andersen is a native of Carlton, Victoria, Australia and was the second round draft pick of the Hawks in 2002. He is 6' 11" tall and weighs 242. He plays best facing the basket and has good offensive skills. Defense is another matter. Let's hope working with Adelman, Turner and Sikma can teach him enough about the NBA game to be a capable fill-in.

A nice interview with Andersen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TiaPVFZ6jk

Nickel and Dimed Again

Last summer I enjoyed logging into the NBA web site and watching grainy little movies of the NBA Summer League. I caught all the Rockets games, though I was familar with very few of the players. Even so, I enjoyed it and appreciated the league making it available to me.

This year, guess what? The league is charging us $14.95 to watch those same grainy little movies. Bad move, NBA. It's die-hard fans like us that buy tickets to your games and patronize your sponsors. And now you even want to charge us to watch the off-season try-outs. It's things like this that make the general population feel like pro sports players and owners are greedy bastards.

The fact is that the promotion departments of the league and its teams are geniuses. They are corporations putting out a product and they get us to pay to advertise it for them. They've actually got most people thinking it's our civic responsibility to support them. Genius. When is the last time you saw a bumper sticker proclaiming the owner's love of Crest toothpaste or Charmin toilet paper or any other corporate product? I'm telling you, these NBA guys are geniuses - most of the time. This time they screwed up. This is one too many reaches into my pocket. I won't pay. The NBA (Nothing But Advertising) can keep their grainy little movies.

Ariza and Artest Trade Teams

LA Lakers forward Trevor Ariza agreed in principal to a five year contract with the Rockets yesterday, clearing salary space on the Lakers payroll for them to sign much-traveled Rockets Guard/Forward Ron Artest. I like the results.

Ariza is young, athletic and his game is growing every year. And he doesn't have an attitude that rubs his teammates the wrong way. He will also fit in well with Rick Adelman's motion offense.

Artest, on the other hand, annoyed everyone on the team at one time or another and frustrated the coaches no end. He was a black hole on offense. The ball went in but never came out. If anyone passed the ball to Ron, the offense stopped until he felt like driving into a crowded lane to put up a moving prayer. While he was a tough, hard-nosed defender, he often let his pride take over and challenged star players to a game of one-on-one, rarely winning. To put it succinctly, he thinks he's better than he is and that he knows more than the coaches. I won't miss him.

My only question now is where does that leave Shane Battier? Shane is arguably the best non-injured player on the team and he plays the same position as Ariza. Battier has the flexibility to slide over to power forward, but that is already a well-manned position for the team (Scola, Hayes, Dorsey and Landry) and Shane is not really big enough to challenge some of the NBA's more powerful forwards. Assuming the answer to my question is that Ariza is going to come off the bench behind Battier, small forward will be a very strong position for the Rockets.