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Wednesday October 22, 2008 5:15 PM

Rockets Ready To Wrap Up Preseason


Big decisions looming with regular season right around the corner

Jason Friedman
Rockets.com Staff Writer

HOUSTON - Like every other team in the NBA, the Rockets entered preseason play with plenty of questions in need of an answer. Some have been resolved - Ron Artest looks great, Yao is healthy and Aaron Brooks seems poised to start tapping into all that promise - while others are still awaiting a firm resolution.

Not surprisingly, it's the latter group which most concerns Rick Adelman these days, and the Rockets head coach is hoping to make some progress on that front during the team's preseason finale against Sacramento.

Item No. 1 on the agenda is getting Tracy McGrady back on the court in order to better gauge his progress following offseason knee and shoulder surgery. T-Mac has played only 12 minutes this preseason due to nagging discomfort in his left knee. But after working his way through four consecutive practices without swelling, McGrady is ready to take the floor once again, and eager to see how his body reacts to extended in-game action.

"I want to find out what kind of shape I'm in," says the 11-year NBA veteran. "Too, how will my knee respond to playing in spurts; playing five minutes here and sitting down, then getting cold and going back in the game - I want to see how it responds after that."

Also notable with regards to playing time Thursday night: Aaron Brooks is getting the nod as the starting point guard, while Steve Francis will have to wait another night before making his 2008-09 season debut.

"He’s not ready to play," said Adelman after Wednesday's practice. " I haven’t seen him scrimmage yet, so he’s not ready to play."

From those who will see playing time in Sacramento, Adelman expects to see a stronger overall performance than what he's witnessed thus far.

"I think we’ve really worked hard defensively to see if that’s going to bring some fruits with it," says Adelman. "We’ve been doing it for four days now, so hopefully we’ll be a little bit better as a team defensively and I think we should be better offensively, too. We’ve been able to do a lot of dribble work but, again, if we break down it’s probably a good thing because we’re going to be able to look at it on film."

Finally, Thursday night's game presents training camp invitees Von Wafer and D.J. Strawberry with their final opportunity to impress the Rockets brain trust before the club makes its final cut of the preseason. Both players have shown plenty of promise over the course of the last few weeks, so Daryl Morey and Co. figure to have a difficult decision on their hands.

"If there’s anything we’ve learned about the preseason this year, it’s not to have your last preseason game on the day you have to make cuts," Adelman says. "That’s probably a lesson learned. You have to make decisions Thursday night because of the waiver line and everything else. And we’ve talked about that – maybe we try to finish this thing a little earlier so we can have time to make the right decisions. But this has been an unusual year; usually you know ahead of time kind of where you are, but with Shane’s situation and Tracy, it’s been a little bit different."

Have a question for Rockets.com? Send it to Jason Friedman via email at: jasonf@rocketball.com.