The Chicago Bulls had a set of tragedies yesterday, with two of their organizations main members passing away in one day. Yesterday, they also went and met Barack Obama in Washington, and got to chat with him a little bit for fun. But let’s look at what this team is actually doing: they aren’t playing smart at all. They are below .500 by a lot. They are playing as though their stars can carry them the whole way home. They are not taking any of the blame or the introspection that a person needs. They have quite a few stars, but none of them are THAT good that they can just leave it to them. Watch out for implosion, team!

The Houston Rockets are now in the process of re-invigorating their team. This year, they have lost several of their players to injuries and trades. But Yao Ming and Luis Scola are taking the lead on the team. Their duo has turned into a dominant force for the Rockets and this way, they will be able to win games as much as possible. It’s a great time to be a Rockets fan because there will be a lot of different teams that will pose big challenges. Then you can really see what the Rockets are made of! They aren’t bad, and their division/conference have become much weaker in the last year or so. It’s too bad for that, but Houston might have a really good chance instead.

There was a lot of talk up to the trade deadline yesterday about Amare Stoudemire. Many people expected that he would be traded to a team, so that the Suns could save some money and start building up their team again. Then the deadline came and passed, and nothing happened. The owners of other teams must have been warned about his condition. He has suffered a partially detached retina in his right eye that has been operated on and will pull him out of the games for the rest of the regular season. It’s going to be an interesting time for the Suns, who aren’t exactly flourishing this season and here is yet another hurdle in their rough year. Next year it will be a new situation, they trust.

We have seen the NBA All Star game for this year. The All Star Game featured a 146-119 Western Conference win. First of all, isn’t that insane? This is a lot of points for a regular length game! More than 260 points over the course of a regular length game. There wasn’t even any overtime or anything like that. Clearly, there are so many different offensive players that got voted in this time around, but apparently no real defensive players. The highlight, of course, was the reunification of Kobe-Shaq, who practically started where they’d left off a few years ago, complimenting each other’s abilities. Nice job to them, but gosh, it wasn’t that great a game for defense.

The NBA All Star Game is coming up. In just less than a week, all the best players from the Eastern and Western Conferences will come together in a real clash of the titans. It’s going to be hard to imagine how much fun this game will be to watch. Sometimes the players let their flashy sides take the wheel and slam dunk everything, practically including free throws too. Sometimes they play well on a team. Usually, though, they don’t really get it quite right, because they are individual players and they aren’t used to each other or to sharing the spotlight. But it’s always fun, so get ready for it!

An exciting game will be played on Sunday. Kobe Bryant and the Lakers take on Lebron James and the Cavs. It’s always a great game to see them play each other. The question always remains: who’s better? Bryant was one of the best players from the moment he began. A protege of Jordan, at least in his own mind, he has been that kind of player his whole career. James has been a great player all the time, and he’s played with less important teams for the whole time. Maybe Kobe is more of a leader? Or maybe the big paychecks of LA have helped him out a lot more. Who knows, but it’s going to be a fun time!

Kendrick Perkins has been punished. He was ejected from a game a few days ago, following a flagrant foul on the Pistons’ forward Jason Maxiell. He grabbed Maxiell’s neck and threw him to the ground. This is a problem that comes up in basketball, especially between physical-playing teams. For his part, Perkins doesn’t seem to mind at all. He just said that he feels justice has been served and that he can pay the fine, no problem. Well, with a fine of $10,000, it’s probably not so hard for him. For the rest of us, $10,000 is a lot of money. For them, no big deal. That’s justice being served.