The title on one of the Chron's standard puff pieces ran as follows this morning:

Rockets willing to move up if opportunity presents itself
Owner isn't hesitant with taking risks

Okay, cool, whatever... but then the first paragraph hooked me.  That might be the first time ever for the Houston Chronicle.  Congrats!  (And yes, I checked the byline to make sure it wasn't written by Richard Justice first.)

Here, in black and white, is a fact about my new favorite owner that I knew nothing about:

Rockets owner Leslie Alexander sat behind his desk with a stack of poker chips piled to his right as symbols of his second favorite sport, but also of the Rockets' draft strategy.

The Rockets head into today's NBA draft willing to gamble, happy to accept risk in exchange for a chance to hit it big.

Les Alexander's second favorite "sport" is poker???  Okay, that's freakin' cool.  Not the designation of poker as a "sport" mind you (because that's clearly wrong), but that Les thinks poker is awesome.  And the fact that our owner keeps poker chips at his desk?  Well, he just made Drayton McLane forever his bitch with that one.

I just hope Les isn't the type to chase draws. 
That's how you end up with Carlos Lee in left field hitting .220.  Costing you $18M a year.

Of course, as long as Daryl Morey is his advisor-guru, I'll rest easy knowing that will never happen.