Charles Barkley

Oklahoma City Twitter Thugs Go In On Patrick Beverley After Thunder Season Ends (LOTS of NSFW)

It must hurt to go into a season with the highest of hopes, dreams of a championship, go through the grind of an 82 game regular season to secure a one seed, and then have it all go up in smoke in a matter of about a week. It's been so long since I had a team I was emotionally invested in head int ... More >>

Five Reasons The Rockets Playoff Run Isn't Generating More Buzz

I listen to a lot of sports radio and talk to people online and off about sports on a regular basis. Despite the fact that the Rockets are in the playoffs for the first time in three years, there just isn't the buzz about the team Houston has seen in years past. There are fewer calls about them on s ... More >>

When Beer PR Goes Flat: A Review of Crazy Mountain's Beer Lineup and Its Less Successful PR Strategy

Does anyone actually enjoy watching athletes get interviewed? The answers range anywhere from the all-too-common scripted response or -- more typically -- wander into completely nonsensical banality. If you're truly lucky, the interviews will go beyond the latter into the soundbyte ridden ramblings ... More >>

JaMarcus Russell's Quest To Become The First 350-Pound Quarterback Is Full Steam Ahead

My co-host John Granato and I have a standing breakfast bet (which I just now realized will have to be amended to something else at stake because we're moving from mornings to afternoons on 1560 Yahoo! Sports Radio) and it goes like this: True of false: Out of these three quarterbacks -- Tim Tebow, ... More >>

NBA All Star Weekend: 5 Observations And A Plea For More Barkley

In the spirit of full disclosure, I feel like I should tell you that I chose not to stick around Houston for the NBA All Star Game and it's peripheral festivities (up to and including the transformation of the Galleria into some kind of three-story clown car on Saturday) this past weekend. As a br ... More >>

The Most Pointless Part of 2013 NBA All-Star Houston: The "Rising Stars" Practice (PRACTICE?!)

It would've been better if the coaches made the players perform drills like the spider, the Cousy or the box-out circle. Hell, even watching these anointed "stars" running suicides would've been riveting compared to the whatever on display at the George R. Brown Convention Center on Friday morning. ... More >>

Goodwill Ambassador

Kenny Smith on All-Star Weekend and His Eventual Return to Clutch City

The Jet Loves Houston: Kenny Smith on All-Star Weekend and His Eventual Return to Clutch City

Former Rockets guard and current member of the best pre-game sports show on television, Kenny Smith, is a big fan of Houston, calling his ties here "deep rooted." "People I consider my best friends in the world are still in Houston," Smith told Hair Balls. "My godchildren are there." The NBA and i ... More >>

ESPNU To Launch New Talk Show, So Let's Zapruder Some 1993 Sportsnight Footage From ESPN2

Every now and then, because it's the "worldwide leader in sports" and can get away with random programming heat checks whenever it wants, ESPN will try and force-feed the viewing public some ill-fated attempt to blend sports and pop culture. Examples include: - Who's Now?, an ongoing feature a fe ... More >>

In Like a Lamb: No Moves, No Trades for the Rockets in 2012 Draft

Pick two came and went. Then pick five. Then seven and eight and it began to dawn on Rockets fans: For all the talk of trades for Dwight Howard and moving up into the top ten of the draft, Houston, a team mired in mediocrity, would stand pat and roll the dice with picks 12, 16 and 18. In fact, there ... More >>

NBA Draft Cautionary Retro YouTube Video -- Kwame Brown's Draft Night!

The NBA Draft is tonight, and you know what that means -- yes, bad suits, incoherent interviews, lots of Stuart Scott, and tons of upside potential. So basically, one big engrossing train wreck. It used to be a virtual guarantee a few years ago that every pick in the first round would be deemed a " ... More >>

Five Things for the Rockets to Consider This Offseason

Another offseason is upon us in Houston. While other teams battle it out in the playoffs, Houston Rockets fans are left to wait until next year...again. With three straight lottery seasons and only one second round appearance since 1997, it's no wonder fans are fatigued and want to see things shaken ... More >>

Rockets Mediocrity: Blame the Strategy of the Owner

There's something unholy about a team playing out the string of games knowing it won't make the playoffs. It's even weirder when said team felt its season end with a thud after a horrid stretch of games that lasted right up until the second-to-last game of the year. Going one step farther, that game ... More >>

NBA Draft Rewind -- 1986, The Worst Draft Ever

Plus the shorts sucked​As much as those who construct teams in sports would like to think that they have a formula and a blueprint that they can go execute with any team in any market and be successful, the fact of the matter is that even for the best personnel men in the best-run organization ... More >>

NCAA Tournament -- Four Winners, Four Losers

Jim Calhoun reboots once again​Well, if a Final Four of a three, four, eight and eleven seed wasn't a metaphor for Houston sports in 2011, then Connecticut and Butler establishing a watchability bar that the women's final may actually surpass tonight (ok,ay I am totally joking, but still...) m ... More >>

CBS Murders Charles Barkley (Not Literally)

Barkley sucked ass instead of kissing it​"This is a win on any number of levels, not the least of which is that I would watch Charles Barkley analyzing or opining on any topic. No, seriously, I would watch Charles Barkley convey his thoughts about ANYTHING -- basketball, politics, the economy, ... More >>

Charles Barkley Drops "Jackass" on Billy Packer (And Seven Other Barkley-As-Analyst Highlights)

Don't mess with the Barkley​The unveiling of the brackets for March Madness, which is a scant 48 hours away, takes on a little different meaning this year, for three intertwined reasons: 1. The field has expanded to 68, so now Tuesday and Wednesday will include four play-in games to get us to ... More >>

The Chris Bosh 2010-2011 Experience (In Quotes)

Chris Bosh, on the rise​OCTOBER 27, 2009 "[Bosh] will never be the best player on a 50-win team. Sorry, someone will spend $100 M on him next spring and regret it." -- Me, in my 2009-2010 NBA preview, prior to Chris Bosh's final season in Toronto SPRING 2010 "Keep in mind, Chris -- this team ... More >>

10 Meaningfully Awesome NBA Dunk Contest Dunks (with VIDEO!)

As All Star Games go, in terms of meaning, effort, enthusiasm, pomp and circumstance, the NBA All Star weekend is in the meaty part of the curve. Football's Pro Bowl becomes a bigger and bigger joke every year (highlighted by fanboy journalist Jay Glazer of Fox actually calling a play in this seaso ... More >>

Houston Texans - Kubiak Believes In Bush (and #Kubiakbelievesinyou)

Guess which one the Texans are!​"I believe in him (defensive coordinator Frank Bush). I think we played much better defense. I think if we finished the game, we'd be talking about how much better we were. There were a lot of good things that went on. I believe in the guy. That's why he's here ... More >>

GAME TIME: NBA Draft: 8 Winners and 8 Losers

As in most things in life, Calipari is both a winner and loser​"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2010 NBA Draft..." -- David SternI'm not going to lie, those words give me a tingly feeling every year that I hear them. It never gets old -- like reruns of The Sopanos or seeing that Bree Ol ... More >>

A Horse With No Name: Livestock Songs Fit For The Glue Factory

​ At Rocks Off, there is no yin without yang, no Yahweh without Satan, and no Charles Barkley without Godzilla. And since we already presented you with an assortment of rockin' livestock songs (to get you in the mood for the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo), it's only fair that we offer a count ... More >>

Where Does Sunday's Rockets Victory Rank? It'll Have To Top These To Make The Top Five

Where does yesterday's deceptively close 99-87 shellacking of the Lakers rank in the annals of great Rockets victories? It's too soon to tell. If they build on that win by taking this series and then slip into their fifth NBA finals, minus not just Yao but also his geriatric Congolese understudy, no ... More >>

Ten Other Excuses Charles Barkley Could've Told the Phoenix Cop

For those of you who missed the news in all of the New Year's reveling, former Houston Rockets power forward, current TNT basketball analyst, and renowned gambling addict Charles Barkley was arrested outside of Phoenix early on New Year's Eve and cited for DUI. The Chuckster was pulled over because ... More >>

The Houston Rockets: Goodness Greatness

A Dream Team for Barack Obama

Enough with This Brett Favre Business Already

Clemens Press Conference Primer

New Year's Resolutions

Aubrey Huff Loves the Ladies. Baltimore, Not So Much.

God’s Team, Jobu, Matt Holliday and Drayton McLane

Energy Rules

The Chronicle performs a boosterism triple play

Letters 09-07-2000

Burned by City Hall, Leon and Joe, Muzzle This Mirth

Low and Outside

Welcome to the ballpark. And brown fields and barren expanses of a still-not-rejuvenated section of downtown.

The Killer-est B

Forget Biggio, Bagwell, Bell. Move over, Barkley. The sports figure of the decade is...

News Hostage

Sports Injera

The Queen of Sheba mixes Ethiopia with ESPN

Descent into Madness: The Dale Robertson Story

Geezer Follies

Aging and creaking, the Rockets prove better at entertainment than basketball, on and off the court

Dish

Alison Cook looks back at 1997: The Year That Bit

Static

Sorry, Not an Instant Winner

Phenomena

,,, And Don't Talk to Barkley

Pinched for fat. Put in their place. The Rockets Power Dancers don't care, just as long as they're given a chance to make their moves.

The Gospel According to John

Rockets Redux

That championship season makes its way to video

Picks

Letters

Picks