Houston Rockets

NBA playoff basketball is getting close again. This is a great time of the year. I pay attention some to the NBA during the months of October to February, but for me, the season really gets going after the all-star break.
My favorite team is the Houston Rockets; they have been since the early 90s. In fact it was 1992 because I remember looking at basketball cards for the '91 all-star team and Hakeem Olajuwon wasn't on the West's team. I was really bugged because I thought that I had chosen to like a really good basketball player. Come to find out that he wasn't on the '91 all-star team because he had missed a number of games at the beginning of the '90-91 season due to injury. But somehow I had come to like Hakeem Olajuwon from basketball cards. I liked him, Patrick Ewing and Tim Hardaway.
I don't know how in my little kid brain I came to these decisions, but Olajuwon was my favorite and I have stuck with Houston ever since. In '94 and '95 it payed off to have picked him, because they won the championship both those years. And they beat the Jazz on there way to both of those championships which made it all the more sweeter for me here in SLC amongst my friends. I still remember game 5 of the first round of the '95 playoffs between the Rockets and the Jazz. The Rockets didn't have the greatest of seasons so they came into the playoffs with the 6th seed and the jazz were the 3rd. With home court advantage I was worried about the Rockets' ability to win the 5th game at the Delta Center. The game was on a Sunday and I missed the whole thing due to church. But by going to church I was blessed (is that a little sacreligious to think that way?) and I found out that the Rockets had won 95-91 (I didn't even have to look that score up, I still just know it). I remember cutting pictures out of the newspaper the next day and hanging them on the wall of my room.
The Rockets have had their ups and downs since those championship years. Highlights were a plenty with Stevey Franchise and Cutino Mobley but the wins were not. Yao was drafted and I remember being worried if they had made the right choice in taking him and not Jason Williams out of Duke cause that boy could shoot the lights out. Yao has been a great choice, I would like him even better if he was Korean though. While I was on my mission in Korea I walked by a sports store and they had a Francis jersey for the Orlando Magic. I was so confused. Somehow I finally found out that he was traded for T-Mac, a huge win for the Rockets. And now they have picked up Artest as well.
It was been a love-hate relationship since. There are times when I just love them. Take last season when they won 22 straight. Or last season for the opening home game for the Jazz and the Rockets came in and T-Mac dropped 48 on them. It was like watching a clinic by T-Mac. Then there are all the injuries that plague them. Who knows if all of their top players on salary have all played together at once this season. If one person is healthy, then another is hurt. T-Mac finally had to have surgery to take him out for the year, but the Rockets are rollin'. The big question that remains is can they get out of the first round of the playoffs. My prayers are for them, and whethere they'll need them or not remains to be seen in the seeding of the playoffs this year. No matter how the seeding comes up, GO ROCKETS!