At the University of St. Thomas Champions Club Benefit Luncheon on Friday, Texans coach Gary Kubiak (the event's keynote speaker) spoke to the media about the Texans' upcoming OTAs. He also revealed himself to be a major Houston Rockets fan.
While answering a reporter's question about what he hopes to accomplish in OTAs, Kubiak gave a thoughtful response that ended, in completely unsolicited fashion, with this:
"It's time to go to work. I'm going to enjoy watching the Rockets this weekend, then we're going to get to work Monday."
Naturally, that prompted some follow-up questions.
As a coach, Kubiak said he appreciates the job that the Rockets' Rick Adelman has done with his team in the absence of its star players, Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming. McGrady has been out with an injury since earlier in the season, and the Rockets lost Yao to a foot injury in Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Rockets battled to win two of their next three games, beating the odds to force a deciding Game 7 that will be played in Los Angeles on Sunday.
"It just shows what they're made of: tremendous character," said Kubiak, a Houston native. "Rick's done a great job with them. He's lost some great players, but they've dug down very, very deep with each other and they're playing with a lot of heart right now, and I'm looking forward to watching them pull it off on Sunday."
An upset in the offing? You heard it from Kubiak first.
He said that he gets a kick of out seeing teams in other sports handle adversity like the Rockets have in their current series.
"You see that when people and teams are made of the right stuff, that's usually the way they respond," Kubiak said. "They know when they lose a great player or two that everybody else has to play a little better, and they went a little above and beyond that. Hopefully, we can be made of the same thing once we get the shot."
