When The Good Lord Passed Out Sense . . .

Yao Ming's off-the-thumbs reaction to the Rockets acquisition of Ron Artest.

Ron Artest's off-the-rails reaction to Yao.

I knew it.

Okay, I think Artest in his own inimitable fashion has demonstrated that he lives with his foot in his mouth. I cannot imagine how draining it's going to be for the Rockets to have to deal with this guy on a daily basis. Is he productive enough to justify the stress? Not to mention the chance he might crack and wind up weaving baskets instead of shooting at them?

I'm going to speculate for a second here; if a deal including Artest was seriously discussed by the Organization, I'm guessing there was a veto in the form of a you-gotta-be-fuckin-kidding from Coach Carlisle. The idea of bringing Ron Artest on your team probably feels a little bit like planting a fertilizer-wrapped land mine under your rosebushes. They might grow bigger, but just wait until your dog goes to bury the remote . . . again.

Put another way, bringing Ron-Ron on board would feel like a trip from a nice little garden in Basketball Land to its septic tank.
-BJ