The Houston Rockets seem to have found their way back into the NBA. It was practically asked a couple times this offseason whether the team might be better off relegated to the 2nd league. But then the smarter of us informed those other bloggers that there is no second NBA league; this isn’t Premier League Soccer, after all. But the team was looking like it was going to have such a tough time that they would simply have to wait out this season. They had lost Artest to free agency. Their team had also lost Yao to injury. He had to have surgery on his foot this summer and it was expected to take him out for the whole season. The prognosis has become better now, because apparently he might be able to jump back into the game this season as time moves forwards. In other words, he’s progressing much faster than had been expected and it’s far from the possibility of the career-ending injury that had been possible before.

Greg Popovich reports today that the Spurs will be back at relatively normal strength this season. Tim Duncan, while getting older and having leg injuries here and there, has taken it easy this summer in order to heal more fully. The team’s best player is now a healthy guy who needs to be back in the game as soon as possible to help this team. At the same time, Manu Ginobili has been relaxing a bit this summer too, in order to get past his own set of injuries. He might be a bit out of shape when he comes back, but it’s not completely clear what his playing level will be. The additions of Antonio McDyess and Richard Jefferson are among the good changes that will give this team a lot of potential while moving forward.

The Miami Heat’s Michael Beasley is now headed to rehab and no one is saying why. He’s checked into a Houston rehab center and it’s really not clear what he’s being treated for or how long it will take. His manager says that he’s not completely sure what’s going on, but that Beasley’s parents are helping him through the situation. Are we to say that Beasley is addicted to alcohol or drugs? Either way, good job to him for having the guts to take care of whatever the problem is. And if keeping media and bloggers (ahem) out of the loop helps him get better and get back to good competition with the Miami Heat this year, all the better. Just hope that he will be ok soon!

Carmelo Anthony has sued his former business manager for having transfered several hundred thousand dollars to a company without asking his permission. This isn’t a huge deal but it is one of the bigger stories at the moment in the NBA. It’s because he’s one of the biggest Nuggets stars right now. They will probably settle this dispute out of court, but it’s going to take awhile to see what happens. The money was transferred to a company owned by the same people as his business manager, and Anthony claims that this was done without his permission. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, but we hope it wont take away from this basketball season.

It looks like Ben Wallace isn’t retiring after all. It was a few months ago that it looked like he was planning to be a retired basketball player and move on with his life. After the Suns bought out his contract a few months back right after the Shaq trade, he floated the idea of retiring once and for all. But Tayshaun Prince and Richard Hamilton suggested to him that he come back and play in Detroit once again. The time is right, people are saying, because the team has made important moves that could bring a championship back to the Motor City. One of those big moves is the acquisition of Ben Gordon. It’s going to be an exciting year in Detroit this time around, so we’ll see what else they are able to put together this season!

The NBA will be playing a bunch of preseason games in Europe this fall. Some of the games will simply be two NBA teams playing against each other in the usual preseason fashion. Other options will be NBA teams playing against European teams, including Partizan Belgrade of Serbia and Olympiacos Piraeus of Greece. These will be exciting games, although we fully expect the NBA teams to dominate. Perhaps it would be less so if the Americans have jet lag or anything like that. Either way, bringing the NBA to Europe has served to raise interest in both the NBA itself and the European basketball leagues. These are the teams that will be getting a lot of publicity, so hopefully there will be some good games along the way.

Linas Kleiza, a Lithuanian player with the Denver Nuggets, will be headed back to Europe for the next season and possibly for two. He is one of those players that might not really be happy in the NBA, because of the intensity, scrutiny and all that. Kleiza’s decided to join Olypiakos on a two year deal, but he would be eligible to return to the NBA next summer, and the Nuggets would retain their rights to him. The team has lost some free agents this year, throwing some questions on whether they will be able to do as well next year as they did in the last playoffs. The Nuggets were one of the surprise teams in the west this year, challenging some of the toughest teams around. Kleiza is on the way to Europe and hopefully he will have a good time and stay uninjured over there.

Jason Williams worked out with the New York Knicks, who are looking to see if they can’t get him to unretire from the NBA and thereby get themselves some help at point guard. The Knicks were hoping to get a guard to balance out their world a little bit at that position, especially since they missed out on getting Jason Kidd, who re-signed in Dallas this offseason. He worked out there, but they didn’t offer him any kind of deal yet, so it will be interesting to see what the next step for the team will be. Hopefully, Williams will be able to play and give the Knicks some real help. But it seems like he might not be well enough to play, since they didn’t offer him anything at all. Anyway, they have quite a bit of time to make their decision, so maybe it’s not actually indicative of anything.

There will be an interesting exhibit opening at the Basketball Hall of Fame shortly, just before the induction of Michael Jordan, possibly the best player ever to touch a basketball. It’s not a surprise that he’s being inducted, nor that there will be a special exhibit for him. It will have items from his North Carolina years, from his US Olympic Dream Team and from his short time playing baseball. It’s a deserved honor for him, as he gave so much to the game and remains basically unsurpassed in the history of the game now. If I make it to that area, I will certainly see this exhibit in the next couple of months. In the meantime, I might decide to watch some of his best games from those old days on VHS and such.