I am what you could call, at best, a casual fan of the NBA and/or the Houston Rockets, but two little news items have caught my eye today.

First, Stevie Franchise is coming home. I’m ecstatic. With this news, all the fond memories of watching him fire up absurd 3’s, dribble out the clock without getting off a good shot, and turn the ball over at every inopportune moment, all while leading the team to the playoffs (and losing in the 1st round) exactly once in five seasons came flooding back into my mind. Oh, how we’re all on the edge of our seats here, watching, waiting for Stevie to return with his hero’s cape on to lead the Rockets back to the promised land.

Or not.

What are the Rockets thinking? Yeah, he’s a talent and is relatively cheap ($2.4 mil for the first year), but this is the same guy couldn’t share the ball with Cuttino Mobley and Yao before. And now you want him to take a background role behind T-Mac, Yao, and Mike James?? Really? Doesn’t make much sense to me.

---------------------

The bigger story of the day is the news that the feds apparently have uncovered a referee’s involvement in the gambling on and fixing of NBA games.

It’ll be interesting to see the fallout from this, though anybody who watched the Lakers/Kings series in 2002 knows the league’s been fixing games for years. Har har…

---------------------

10 years? Why isn’t this guy already strapped to the gurney, arm exposed, with the needle at the ready?