Hooped Up

The same day the Rockets lost Ron Artest to the Lakers, they found his replacement from the Lakers in Trevor Ariza.

“Ariza accepted the Rockets’ offer of a five-year, mid-level exception deal late Thursday, expected to be worth roughly $33 million, an individual with knowledge of the deal said. Players may sign free agent contracts beginning July 8.

The Lakers on Wednesday offered Ariza, 24, a contract similar to the mid-level exception he accepted from the Rockets, but well short of the deal he reportedly was seeking. Ariza, a 6-8 forward, averaged 8.9 points and 4.3 rebounds last season, his fifth season after one season at UCLA.”

How Trevor Ariza is worth as much as Ron Artest I’ll never understand, but if young Ariza can have a break out season with a guaranteed increase of minutes in Houston. This could be a good gamble for a team that just needs a break.

Via Houston Chronicle

An opening day Cleveland Cavaliers starting line up of Mo Williams, Ron Artest, LeBron James, Anderson Varejao and Shaquille O’Neal would be kinda sick and Danny Ferry thinks so too.

According to several league sources, the Cavs have been been in contact with Houston Rockets free agent forward Ron Artest. It even included a face-to-face pitch from LeBron James on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, as both were in Southern California for various events.

Offensively the Cavs would be slightly better than last year if they added Artest. Defensively, they would be the best team in the NBA. If Ron Artest wants to win, more than get paid adding Ron-Ron would be big for the Cavs.

Let’s hang out and see how the dollars play out on this one.

Via Cleveland Plain Dealer

The  news regarding Yao Ming and his left foot just went from bad to worse and Tracy McGrady is starting to look about as indestructible as Iron Man in his Hulkbuster armour compared to the 7′6″ Yao.

“As the NBA draft approached, the grim truth about Yao Ming’s(notes)broken left foot hung like an anvil over the Houston Rockets. The fear isn’t that he’s just lost for next season, but longer. Continue »

This offseason has begun with another lightning bolt of bad news. Yao Ming apparently thought he was going in for a routine exam of his left foot Wednesday night. He was said to be laughing and joking, looking like a guy without a care in the world.

He figured to be cleared to return to doing basketball drills, and we’d all live happily ever after. He’d told the Rockets the pain in his left foot had gone, and he assumed the broken bone had healed.

Instead, he got the stunning news that after almost two months, the break hadn’t healed. Continue »

During a recent radio interview, Ron Artest explained his stance on steroids as only Ron-Ron could.

“People that use steroids, I don’t hate them. I don’t hate people who do steroids, I don’t have anything against people who do steroids. I wouldn’t advise using steroids but I don’t care, I’m not going to hate some that uses steroids. The media is just killing people just because they use steroids. They did steroids, they did a bad thing, they shouldn’t have done it, they get penalized and that’s it, I don’t hate them. But I’m not doing them, buddy!…I never understood why the baseball players just don’t do creatine. I think because the steroids actually make you stronger. But I never understood why they just don’t do creatine. It’s legal, you just workout and get really strong, the muscles increase in there and they become stronger. I never understood, I guess steroids are the easy way out. It might be easier to do.”

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When the Detroit Pistons traded Chauncey Billups  for Allen Iverson in favor of a more offensive minded game plan ditching their defensive one, it worked out like a Britney Spears jazz album release.  After Dumars banished Iverson and the Pistons went back to defence, they found some level of success and stuck with it.

So with that in mind and a ton of cap space for the Pistons on the way, could soon to be free agent Ron Artest land in Detroit? Well Ron-Ron answers that very question via his blog.

Ron Artest is back at it and this time Ron-Ron discusses who he thinks is the hottest rappers in today’s hip-hop game. I couldn’t disagree more with his list, but that’s why it’s his list and his opinion and I can respect that. Nas should make everybody’s top 5 list (forever) but Eminem’s lyrical game has declined like the cartilage in Shaq’s knees over the years.  I’ll need some time to figure out my top 5 Mc’s of all-time list but Tupac and Biggie ain’t on it, there I said it. 

However, I do know right away who my favorite hip-hop producers of all-time are and the top 5 list breaks down like this J Dilla, Dr. Dre, DJ Premier, Pete Rock and Rick Rubin. Any hot beats you hear today, they started it first and auto-tune is not in their vocabulary. For my new school list Kanye West, 9th Wonder, Chuck Inglish, The Neptunes and The Beat Junkies make the cut.

Havoc, The Alchemist, DJ Shadow, Madlib and DJ Shadow, Madlib and RZA deserve massive props too.

Ron Artest does not want any Christmas cards from anybody on the TNT staff. This time Charles Barkley, Mark Jackson and even Jeff Van Gundy get it from Ron-Ron. Plus, he drops some kwowledge about Kobe and the Lakers.

All I know is if Ron Artest has regular video blog post this summer, it’ll be a good summer indeed.

Anytime Ron Artest has something to say on his video blog, it’s so real it can’t be stopped. This time QBC Ron-Ron puts TNT on blast and lines up Charles Barkley and Chris Webber in his cross hairs.

Soak in the realness, via Artest’s bed.

The short answer to all of this is yes. Providing the Rockets back up a cash truck to his front door and the current Houston roster returns healthy, Ron-Ron will probably resign. The Rockets would be crazy to let Ron Artest walk away at this point anyway, since he’s been the one constant force they’ve had all season. 

Both Ron Artest and the team say they want to extend their relationship for another season, but the fiery forward also said he’ll weigh other options as a free agent. “You take everything into consideration,” Artest said Tuesday, two days after the Rockets were eliminated from the playoffs by the Los Angeles Lakers. “It’s hard to get into that right now, on what I’m thinking, as far as somebody making an offer I can’t refuse. “It’s going on 48 hours (since the loss), so I really haven’t had time to think about it. I’m just trying to stay in the gym and just improving my game for next year.” 

Translation: “Yadda, yadda, yadda. Pay me more money and we can do it all over again next year”.

Via Houston Chronicle