so more than 24 hours after the news, i'm still shellshocked at the fact that yao ming is out for the rest of the season. so many years, so many unfulfilled promises by the superstar duo. the team got off a rough start, and it took more than half of this season to find the right players, rotation, chemistry. finally the team is clicking, finally the team is gelling, finally the team is winning games. winning so much that the rockets are riding the longest winning streak in over a decade (12), threatening to go through the entire february with an unblemished record...

and then, with no premonition, everything just came tumbling down.

yao ming, stress fracture, out 4 months.

and with that, the rockets season is officially over. done. finished.

the team went from a title contender to a first round roadkill within 24 hours.

it's funny. funny because one little crack in the bone effectively put the accomplishment of the whole season down the gutter. funny because when i first heard the news, i double checked the calendar to make sure that yesterday wasn't april 1st. funny because i can just hear the collective rockets fanbase groaning out loud, "here we go again."

injuries. nothing new to the rockets fans in the new millennium. it's almost doomed to happen every season, sooner or later. it's the freak accident which always finds it's target on rockets players. it's the glass-like durability of the foundation which the team is trying to build on. it's the sick sense of humor from the basketball gods, casting undeservedly bad karma on an entire city for the past decade plus.

i can't describe this feeling. it's a combination of every negative emotion that one can possibly imagine, all mixed up in one pot, stirred up and ready to be served. sorrow, disappointment, hopelessness, anguish... it's a little bit of everything. and it sucks. a lot.

i was so pumped about my team a couple of days ago, so excited about the winning streak, so eager to wrap up the next few home games against the scrub teams and prepare for the showdown against the much hated dallas... now, nothing matter. not the 13 game win streak, not the notion we'll go undefeated in a calendar month, not the possibility that rockets might not even make it to the playoffs, and a hell no for the olympic games that yao himself cares so much about.

now, i'm not for tanking the season and participating in the beasley megamillion lottery. rockets can still salvage (it hurts me to use this word on my team that's playing .650 ball, won 13 straight, 17 out of 18, and 23 out of 27 in 2008) the season. rockets can still make it to the playoffs, as meaningless as it might initially sound. even if my team gets swept by the likes of spurs and lakers, it would prove to be valuable playoff experience for the rookies such as landry, scola, and brooks. the more games the team can play together, the more cohesion and chemistry we can build. building towards next year, when we can make a playo... no, a title run.

...however, right now we're still in the 2007-2008 season, and the reality is that we'll be without our best player until october.

it's hard to be a rockets fan.

but there's always something to look forward to... next year will be different.

like we haven't all heard of that one before.

this fucking sucks.