New Season, Same old story?

The Houston Rockets will play their final pre-season game tonight against the Sacramento Kings. There's been several bright spots on the team; Von Wafer and DJ Strawberry have both arisen to the challenge and have both played good ball, new acquisition Ron Artest (despite a below average FG%) has been in good shape for the preseason as he tries to fit in with the team, Yao Ming is healthy and Aaron Brooks is steadily looking like the player many predicted he would develop his NBA game into. So the Rockets do have a few things to be happy about heading into the regular season.

However... The same constant is still there; Tracy McGrady.

McGrady has played a total of 12 minutes in the preseason all coming from a game against the Boston Celtics a couple of weeks ago. He'll get some playing time tonight against the Kings to see how his body and his knee re-acts. I support T-Mac, he's done some good things for the team and the community, but as I listened to the radio this morning one of the hosts brought up a good point:

McGrady had his knee scoped 5 months ago.

The host said he also had his knee scoped and he said it was indeed no walk in the park, but it didn't take him 5 months and we're talking about a top-notch NBA athlete here. So it just got me wondering a little bit. I know talk show hosts don't tell the truth all the time (of course not!) but what has been the hold up for Tracy McGrady? What are his work habits? Yes, he's injury prone, but he should for the most part be back on the court in pretty good shape by now. He had his knee scoped the first week of May. Today is the 23rd of October. We'll see what happens with McGrady after the game and the on-going saga of his woes.

Another sore on this team; Steve Francis.

Steve Francis was signed a couple seasons ago for basically nothing in the NBA world as a bench player. A player that could see some minutes if he put the work in and got in good game shape. However as we stand here today, he's done basically zero since. He's also lied to the media time and time again. When asked what he did for the day, he's answered and I paraphrase "I put in some good pratice, etc.." However when the other players on the team are asked about Francis they've said he went home early several times during practices because "he didn't feel good". I wouldn't be so negative about the guy if he just put some effort in to being a basketball player. He just hasn't tried. He doesn't deserve to be on this team.

Chris Harris got cut yesterday. This was a guy that put in a tremendous amount of effort day in and day out and he gets the cut however Steve Francis is still on the team. The main reason Harris was cut was because of the great ball DJ Strawberry and Von Wafer have been playing in the preseason. But seeing Francis still remain with the team and seeing Chris Harris released, is just a tad bit frustrating as a fan of the team. Rockets still have a cut to make before the regular season however, so we'll see who gets the axe.The team wraps up their preseason at home tonight before beginning the regular season next Wednesday against Rudy Gay and the Memphis Grizzlies.