Enjoying the Rockets' Summer of Schadenfreude

Anyone who has spent time on Twitter over the last 48 hours should be at least tangentially aware of the hilarious, humiliating, absurd debacle that was the DeAndre Jordan signing. First he wanted the Mavs, and then Doc Rivers went all "Lloyd Dobbler with a boom box" on everyone and swayed him back to the perpetually maligned clippers. Hilarious.

By that same mark, people should also be aware of elite big man LaMarcus Aldridge signing with perennial power house San Antonio after meeting with a third of the league's teams. The notable aspect of this story was his general "Fuck-no-I'm-not-resigning-with-Portland attitude" during these proceedings. Again, hilarious.

As a fan that's been routinely screwed by the Trail Blazers and the Mavs in recent times, this is truly The Summer of Schadenfreude for Houston Rockets fans.

Let's dive a bit deeper.

It looked as though Dallas would sign DeAndre Jordan, Wes Matthews, perhaps add a solid point guard like Jeremy Lin, and trudge through the deep sludge that is the Western Conference on their way to a five or six seed because Rick Carlisle is a god damned savant and Dirk Nowitzki's winning attitude wills his teammates to excellence.

Nope.

DJ bailing on Dallas means J-Lin committed to Charlotte. It means Mark Cuban looks stupider than Mark Cuban usually looks. It means that Rick Carlisle couldn't get this abomination of a roster to the eighth seed if he was the reincarnation of Red Auerbach and it means that every Mavs fan in the DFW area feels so bad for Dirk that they're all but begging the front office to trade the German away from this lottery-bound team for the sake of his own legacy.

It seems like it was just one summer ago that Dallas relentlessly taunted Houston for having a poor off-season in which our roster lacked depth and commodified talent.

Oh, that WAS just last season? Fantastic.

Oh! I haven't forgotten Portland, my dear friends to the northwest. Your proclivity for charcuterie plates, fixed gear bicycles and neck tattoos has led you to the ultimate sacrifice.

"LaMarcus Aldridge? Wes Matthews? Nick Batum? SO OVER. They're mainstream. If they were bands, they'd probably be getting regular playtime on Sirius XMU. We want Enes Kanter. We want something new. Something exciting. Something bad, and we would if at all possible like to pay way too much money for it. It's the hipster way."

Never change.

Us Rockets fans will just be over here enjoying our roster that currently has the best shooting guard in basketball, the best big-man in the NBA and a scrappy compilation of veterans that battled their way to a conference finals in which they lost to a historically great Golden State team.

Schadenfreude indeed.