Sports Corner with a Dunce Cap

Uninformed. Unintentional. Underdog.
Unbiased? Nah... it's kinda biased.
Here's some of the conspiracy theories I have in my head following the Rockets/Mavs beatdown... I mean series.

Theory #1: Rajon Rondo is a double agent for the Houston Rockets.
Daryl Morey's craftiness knows no bounds or precedents. Some Houston fans probably wondered why he didn't reach out to Rondo with a stronger hand than he did once Rondo hit the market. Well guess what... he DID! MOREY PAYED RONDO TO PLAY FOR THE MAVS!! Yup. Weeks before the deadline, Morey had a vision at night of J.J. Barrea making a fool out of the Rocket's 30+ point guards, so Morey decided to usurp the little man with a wash-up big name has-been, knowing full well that Mark Cuban loves has-beens more than even the New York Knicks. Predictably, Cuban took the bait, and the rest is history.
Here is Morey's EXACT conversation over the phone with Rondo that set it all in motion:
Morey: "You go 'play' for the Mavericks--and you can't see it over the phone but I'm putting up air-quotes when I say 'play'--and we'll make sure you're not hurting after the team excludes you from a playoff share."
Rondo: "Oh man, that's so GANGSTA!!"
Thus the first double-agent NBA playa is born... or is he the first? Remember that guy named Metta World Peace?

After Cuban exited the Toyota Center on Tuesday, talking about the game being sooooo "last season", he would then join Morey for dinner at some uppety restaurant in downtown Houston and Morey would tell him all about the Rondo scam. The two would then share a big laugh because, Theory #2, Daryl Morey and Mark Cuban are actually friends! All of Cuban's smack talk up to this point concerning the Rockets and Morey has just been business. It's press. It gets people saying bad things about Cuban, sure, but it still gets people saying things about Cuban. Morey understands. Morey has done the same thing when it comes to Charles Barkley. Then, after game seven of the Spurs/Clippers series, both Morey and Cuban will call Poppovich to congratulate him on his win and then all three will get together to form a trio of the most-ahead-of-the-curve minds in all of basketballdom and talk shop, particularly how they're gonna make basketball so powerful and dominant in the state of Texas that the NBA will have no choice but to keep the three Texan teams in the league even after Texas secedes from the the rest of the country.

After game 3 of the series, Coach Rick Carlisle--unaware of the secret camaraderie between Cuban and Morey--makes a calculated statement to the press knowing full well he was going to get fined. What is 25 grand compared to keeping your job? Carlisle witnessed the domination of Howard and knew there was no other way to stop him... his last option was Theory #3- Jim Carrey. Yes, that's right. With his statement, Carlisle already got the refs gunning for Howard, so now all he had to do was get his own players on the same page. Carlisle then calls upon his doppleganger--perhaps even a long lost brother--Jim Carrey to come teach the players a little about... over-acting. Yes. Embellishment. It's now a common and effective defensive strategy in the NBA. And, as we witness all throughout the 90's and much of this century, Jim Carrey knows a thing or two about falling. Barrea, Ellis, and Novitski (though Novitski was already pretty good at it) take the teaching to heart and what do you know, Dwight gets called for three offensive fouls in one single quarter in game 5, all of them on off-ball stuff (illegal screens and rebounding). Unfortunately for the Mavs, the refs make sure that the numbers even out most of the time regardless of the contact going on from either side, so Dwight got away with some real stuff in the fourth quarter. This is more evidence that Cuban is actually friends with Morey, because you can be certain that if Cuban REALLY wanted to win, those refs would have some fat wads of cash in their pockets and Dwight would have six fouls three minutes into the second quarter.

And despite the over-the-top tone of this article, I actually do believe that NBA players are coached to flop. I think it's a European strategy assimilated from soccer culture. I also believe that James Harden is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the league's top floppers. I've commented on social media about that before.

So the Rockets made it to the second round. Wow. The Astros are in first place in their division. Wow. Even the Texans have a soft enough schedule that playoffs are certainly a possibility for them. Is it finally Houston's time? Have I finally sufficiently repented that the Lord will let the teams I love most rise above mediocrity!? I don't know. Either I have just jinxed every one of them, or the Rockets are going to win a championship, the Astros are going to win a World Series, the Texans are going to win a Super Bowl, and Houston's expansion NHL team that nobody even knows about yet is going to defy all science and win a Stanley Cup in their first season. And then make sure your food storage is up to date because the Second Coming will be shortly thereafter...