Houston Rockets vs. Brooklyn Nets game preview

The big story for the Nets isn't the Rockets at 11-5 or even the Nets coming in at 4-11.

It's Jason Kidd purposefully having a player run into him in order to spill his drink to cause a delay because the Nets had no timeouts left. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

But I care more about the records. The Nets were picked by basically everyone to finish in the top 3 in the East. They're currently in 13th place in the conference and looking lost. When you've got two All-Star players in their primes, two with championships, and an above average shooting guard, you're supposed to not suck.

The bigger problem for the Nets is that they went all-in on this season. They traded their first round pick and don't have much in the way of trade chips.

I'm not doing matchups because as much as the Rockets are banged up (James Harden has missed the last three games and Jeremy Lin left the Hawks game early with a knee contusion), the Nets are actually worse off.

Deron Williams has missed the last 4 games with a sprained ankle.

Brook Lopez has missed the last 7 games with a sprained ankle.

Andrei Kirilenko has missed 10 straight games with a back issue.

Jason Terry has missed the last 4 games and no one here should be upset about that. The pessimistic fan in me expects Terry to make a miracle comeback today and go into Mavs' Terry Mode and go 20-20 from the 3 point line then pretend to be an airplane only to elicit a "SOMEONE SHOOT THAT PLANE DOWN!" response from me, which will therefore get me into a lot of trouble with the CIA and NSA since I'm of Persian heritage. You see what basketball does to me?

Normally, I want to play teams at full strength. And I won't mind much if Lopez plays. But Williams and Kirilenko will always be on my list from their Jazz days, and Jason Terry IS the list.

And in honor of Jay-Z's fandom of the Nets, you get to watch this:

Bacon Pancakes New York Full Song (via Shang Gao)

Tip off is at 7pm CST