Like most of us, Rick Adelman is not a fan of flying:
HOUSTON (AP)—Houston Rockets coach Rick Adelman criticized the NBA on Monday for setting up an “utterly ridiculous” schedule for his team that includes four back-to-back games over the next two weeks.
The Rockets face Detroit at home on Tuesday, then must fly to Denver to play the first-place Nuggets on Wednesday. They visit Dallas on Friday and return home to face Oklahoma City on Saturday—then have to play two games on consecutive nights twice more during Christmas week.
“We have a horrendous stretch here,” Adelman said. “I don’t know if the league really understands that they gave us four straight back-to-backs. It’s awful.”
NBA spokesman Tim Frank said in an e-mail that the league had no comment on Adelman’s statements.
I gotta go with Rick here; I think he’s got legit beef. And the fact that the NBA simply replies with “no comment” has got to be infuriating. It’s not so much the fact that the Rockets have to play back-to-back games more often than other teams, but that they’ve got to fly around to do it. And flying sucks. I know that NBA teams get state-of-the-art, comfortable planes to jet around in, but you’ve still got to deal with airports and turbulence and your ears popping every 20 seconds while you try to keep youself busy on the plane.
I’ll take the train 10 times out of 10 instead of flying. The biggest advantage is that you can pretty much sit where you want and won’t get stuck next to some moron wtih body odor who blasts his crappy music on his headphones for you to suffer through. I think that’s what Rick is really getting at here – he’s sick and tired of smelling Luis Scola’s breath and armpit odor for three hours a night. Because there’s no way that Luis Scola doesn’t stink. The entire plane must have a musk to it.
