Hold your horses Rockets fans, on top of being 25 years old with back problems and not doing a thing to prevent them, McGrady to Houston may not be anything more than a simple flirt.

In order to get McGrady in the first place, the Rockets would have to include Steve Francis, something they just are not in the business of. The Jeff Van Gundy / Steve Francis problems have been grossly exaggerated.

On top of that, Francis seems to have become much more of a Van Gundy player, especially with his strong playoff showing. Although he is turnover-prone and had his worst shooting season from the perimeter and as a finisher, he does get teammates open outside shots every night, and he is willing to defer to Yao.

If the Orlando Magic do not improve - and quickly - look for McGrady to be requesting a transfer out West by mid-July.

While this doesn't leave the Magic with much time, the pressure on the team has intesified with their star forward voicing concerns that their recently acquired first overall pick cannot land a player good enough to improve the team dramatically and that he'd prefer the team trade the pick.

"I don't want to be here rebuilding," McGrady said.

Contrary to reports of McGrady jumping ship to either San Antonio or the Lakers he lists the Houston Rockets as the front runners to acquire his services should he leave, with Indiana and Detroit both possibilities in the East.

"I don't want to go there," McGrady said of the Spurs and Lakers. "I don't want to go somewhere where everything's already in place. That would be too easy. I want a challenge."

In a ringing endoresment Kareem Abdul-Jabbar believes that if Yao Ming can develop a hook shot he'll become one of the elite players in the NBA.  All he needs is for someone to show him how to do it.

"If he had it, no one could stop it," Abdul-Jabbar said before a recent Spurs-Lakers playoff game. "Absolutely no one.

"I don't think he really understands how to use his height when he's in close at the basket. He wants to come out to 15 feet, where he can shoot over anybody. He can do that, but if he can get in closer to the basket and then operate from there, taking the six-foot shot, the high-percentage shot, that would really help his game. He doesn't play the game that way at this point in his career. I think he could be very effective (if he played that way)."

"It's like he's doing it the hard way, you know?" Abdul-Jabbar said. "He's not using his strengths to his best advantage. But that's not his fault. Somebody has to show him."

"I could help him. Patrick (Ewing) could show him. Patrick was effective. But Patrick also shot a lot of jumpers, so maybe Patrick isn't focusing on that one specific (inside) aspect of his game. And when you have that kind of size, I think that's what it is all about.

"I would imagine that (Yao) must get frustrated because people expect so much from him. He hasn't been able to deliver. I can see he doesn't understand the dynamics here. He's very intelligent, he's a good athlete, and he has a great attitude. He can be a great player, but nobody has taken him through those steps yet."

Don't think ex-Rocket Charles Barkley is going to go easy on Houston players just because they represent the same team he did, as Steve Francis recently found out when he appeared as a guest on Inside the NBA.

Barkley struck when Francis least expected it, when Francis was talking about Karl Malone's emotional reaction to the death of his mother, about his relationship to his grandmother and sister in the wake of his own mother's death, and about NBA playoff games taking place on Mother's Day.

"I've never played on Mother's Day," Francis said.

"If you get past the first round, you can play on Mother's Day," Barkley said. "I played on Father's Day. ... The playoffs last from April to May to June."

Francis wisely passed up the temptation to match barbs with Barkley, going with a more political response to defuse the situation.