From Time by MICHAEL GRUNWALD.
It’s been a rough off-season for the NBA, but then what off-season isn’t? There were the usual nightclub-related lawsuits and arrests, more than the usual superstar griping, and a spectacularly unusual betting scandal involving a previously unknown referee named Tim Donaghy, who first attracted the suspicion of investigators when he called a traveling violation. (Talk about previously unknown!) But now all is well, because the regular season begins Tuesday night, when the champion San Antonio Spurs with center-of-the-moment Tim Duncan take on the Portland Trail Blazers with center-of-the-future…uh…Joel Przybilla.
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ESPN - Daily Dime: For openers, Kobe still in Los Angeles. Who cares as long as Rockets win! 
Nov 9, 2007, Yao’s Rockets get best of Yi’s Bucks in players’ first NBA matchup. (ESPN recap)
Yao Ming thinks Yi Jianlian will be a better player than him some day. The game was an enormous event in China, where it started early Saturday morning. It was being broadcast on 19 television networks and NBA officials were expecting the largest-ever viewing audience for a game, well over 200 million.
About 90 minutes before the game, Yao and Yi shook hands at midcourt and posed for about two dozen photographers, most of them Chinese. It was a staged photo opportunity, and Yao had to wait a few minutes before Yi came out of the Bucks locker room.
“You know what?” Yao said afterward, with a kidding smile. “Rookies should not do that.”
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Free-throw woes plague Rockets in win over Pistons. (ESPN)
December 12, 2007
The Rockets nearly entered the NBA record book for foul-shot futility before beating the Pistons 80-77.
The Rockets missed 14 of their first 15 shots from the line, before finishing 6-for-22 (27 percent) to win for the third time in seven games.
“Oh, man. We can lose a game because of that,” Yao said. “Tomorrow, I’m going to come here and shoot at least 100 free throws. It’s almost like you give away free points and give away a game.”
“We did one good thing,” Detroit coach Flip Saunders said. “We defended very well at the free-throw line.”
Nash On The Next Generation point guards. (ESPN)
Chat with with Jonathan Feigen on Rockets struggle. (chron.com)
Bah, humbug! Pistons 94, Rockets 82. (chron.com)
A poem by Fran Blinebury, doing Live Rockets commentary.
Trade Grades: Who are the big winners and losers? (ESPN, by John Hollinger)
What a whirlwind February. Eleven trades went down in just three weeks; combined with the three deals consummated prior to that point, we’ve had an unusually high 14 trades since opening night. And most of them weren’t two-scrubs-for-a-second-rounder swaps either — nearly every trade involved at least one prominent player changing squads.
With the deadline past, it’s time to hand out report cards. ..
Ranking The Top Five Storylines Of The NBA Season. (ESPN by Marc Stein)