Ron Artest Brings Biggest "If" to Rockets Team Already Full of Them

When you've got a volatile mix of something or other, it's not advisable to throw an even more unstable ingredient into the mess. The Houston Rockets chose to ignore this particular principle when they acquired Ron Artest from Sacramento, hoping for an optimistic future while ignoring his red-flagged past. Artest has said all the right things thus far, going on about how he'll play third fiddle to the one-two punch of Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady.  Granted, that's easy to do in the offseason, but it's the thought that counts, right? Sacramento fans are surely laughing, because that's the same thing Artest said when he arrived there from Indiana.  Did Artest get into any brawls while wearing a Kings jersey? No. But there was never too long a break between Artest's distractions that wound up in the news. The Kings swallowed it while they could, until they finally found a sucker, er, a taker to take him off their hands. The Rockets won't put up with Artest's ... (link)