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HOUSTON -- Dwight Howard has a new team and catchy new nickname. "Hes not Superman anymore. Hes Rocket Man now," longtime Rockets broadcaster Bill Worrell said Saturday as he introduced the teams major free agent acquisition. As Howard took the stage and greeted several Houston officials including owner Leslie Alexander and coach Kevin McHale, a couple of his new teammates playfully repeated his new moniker -- Rocket Man, Rocket Man -- and were met with a huge, toothy smile from Howard. "It means a lot to me just to have a fresh start and have an opportunity to write my own story," Howard said. "I dont think people understood the fact that I got traded to L.A., and now I had a chance to really choose my own destiny, and this is the place where I chose and Im happy about it." The Rockets gave him a four-year deal worth about $88 million, a year less and far below the $118 million the Lakers could have offered. The centre was formally introduced in Houston on Saturday after spurning the Lakers to sign with the Rockets. He was greeted by some of the brightest stars in team history. Hall of Fame centre Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming were among those on hand to celebrate Howards signing. Also joining the party were Ralph Sampson, Clyde Drexler and Elvin Hayes. He will be the latest in a storied line of centres to play for the Rockets. He has long worked with Olajuwon to improve his game, and "The Dream" was among the contingent that flew to Los Angeles to woo him into joining the Rockets. Olajuwon didnt shy away from raving about his student. "He is the missing piece where he can really bring the team to a championship contender," he said. Howard joins a team starring James Harden that reached the playoffs for the first time since 2009 and battled back from a 3-0 deficit before being eliminated by the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 6. General manager Daryl Morey, who led the effort to land Howard, is excited about upgrading his team and knows this puts the Rockets among the preseason favourites to contend for a championship. "I think it absolutely gives us a chance," he said. "What you do this job for is to have a chance. The reality is five to seven teams have a chance any given year. The way it is in this league, youve got to have multiple All-Stars, you generally have to have dominant top players and we have two guys that we think are in the top 10 in the league in James and Dwight." Howard was traded from Orlando to the Lakers in a four-team trade that also included Philadelphia and Denver last year. He recovered from back surgery last season and averaged 17.1 points and 12.4 rebounds His one season in Los Angeles was filled with unrest, including an admission that there were times that he wasnt having fun and what many believed to be a less than positive relationship with Kobe Bryant The Rockets believe that will change in Houston. "If you can be a great player and cant be happy, what difference does it make? Hell be very happy here," Alexander said. "Dwight recognizes that his boyhood dreams will come true as a Rocket." Yao made a call to Howard to help recruit the 27-year-old player to Houston. As the most recent star centre to play for the Rockets, Yao is eager to see Howard take the team to "the next level." "I feel so happy that he chose the Rockets and I feel the Rockets will be the best fitting team for him because we have such a great, rich history of big men," Yao said. Howard is perfectly happy dealing with lofty expectations from outsiders because he believes he should control the game every time he sets foot on the court. "Thats what Ive always expected out of myself," he said. "Before I got injured, thats what I did every night -- I dominated the game on both ends of the floor. Its not about putting up big numbers, none of that; the biggest thing is just going out there and having fun and dominating and thats what Im going to do." Of all the people the Rockets enlisted to help lure Howard to Houston, the star admitted that his new teammate Chandler Parsons made the biggest impact. "Chandler is probably the guy you should really thank," Howard said. "Hes been blowing my phone up every day. Hes been great." Howard couldnt pinpoint one thing Parsons said that helped sway his decision, but noted that they had numerous conversations about Houstons great team chemistry and the feeling of family. Parsons, a second-round pick in 2011 who has developed into a solid starter, said he tried to sell Howard on the idea of winning. "I just told him: Were going to be really good without you, were going to win games without you. Come make us great," he said. The Rockets also got a push in a rather random way. Howard was in Aspen, Colo., while mulling his options and prayed for a sign of what he should do. "I believe in signs ... and when I was in Aspen it seemed like everybody I met was from Houston," he said. "I just had a good feeling in my soul about everything, the direction of the team, and just had a great feeling about what they were trying to accomplish." Though his nickname got switched on Saturday, the Rockets unveiled a Superman-inspired marketing campaign this week that features a mans torso with hands ripping back a suit to reveal a red shirt that says Rockets, above their slogan A New Age. That picture along with several other shots flashed on a video screen above the stage during Saturdays introduction. After he was done speaking with reporters, Howard and the other Rockets stars made their way outside where the street in front of the Toyota Center was blocked off for a rally to allow fans to welcome him to Houston. Cheap Shoes Free Shipping . Goals from Jerome Boateng, Franck Ribery and Thomas Mueller extended Bayerns unbeaten run to a record 37 matches. "This record is incredible," Bayern coach Pep Guardiola said. Wholesale Nike Shoes .com) - Manchester City midfielder David Silva is expected to miss the next four weeks because of a calf problem. https://www.wholesaleshoesusa.com/ . -- Ryan Blaney provided more evidence that Penske Racings No. China Shoes 2020 . Perhaps Carroll was so prepared for a break because he believes there is very little the Seattle Seahawks need heading into the off-season. "I dont see anything that we need to add. We just have to get better," Carroll said. Discount Shoes For Sale . General manager Jarmo Kekalainen told Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch on Friday that he wants to see Gaboriks contributions go beyond the scoresheet before considering a long-term deal for the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent. Bowling around the wicket with two balls left for lunch, Mohammed Shami banged in as good a short ball as you will see. It was angling into Darren Bravo, rapidly cramping him for room, and took off steeply in the direction of his throat.This was the 37th ball of Bravos innings, and the 21st he was facing from Shami. This was the ninth ball he was facing from Shami that was short and at his body.The previous eight had caused him all kinds of discomfort. He had fended at some of them, gloves rising instinctively to guard his face and pinging the ball away in unintended directions, often in the air, somehow missing the fielders, including a leg gully waiting for precisely that kind of thing. He had tried to pull a couple of them, and had ended up flapping in hope, with his body in no position to execute the shot properly. Again the ball had eluded the fielders.Bravo can bat with catlike grace at times, but this wasnt his day for a ninth life. Up went his hands again, as the ninth short ball from Shami climbed at him. His feet left the ground as he tried to ride the bounce, and his bat face closed as he tried to tuck the ball into the leg side. But this ball was just too quick, just too accurate, and bounced just too awkwardly. It popped once again in an unintended direction, but this time a fielder was stationed exactly where it went, and KL Rahul took an easy catch at third slip.Shami was clearly bowling to a plan, a recently conceived one, by the looks of it. Bravo doesnt have a reputation for discomfort against the short ball. But perhaps someone in Indias camp had worked this out recently, perhaps while watching West Indies tour of Australia at the turn of the year.Bravo was West Indies best-performing batsman on the tour, scoring 247 runs at 49.40 in the three-Test series, with a hundred in Hobart and an 81 in Melbourne. But in Sydney, in the rain-ravaged third Test, James Pattinson had attacked him with the short ball, not using it as often as Shami but slipping in at least one every over, and had eventually dismissed him with one; taking his eye off the ball, Bravo had top-edged a pull.It was perhaps only the second time Bravo had been dismissed by a short ball at the body in Test cricket - Neil Wagner had got him to glove one to the wicketkeeper in Wellington, back in December 2013.dddddddddddd But if someone in Indias camp had paid attention to the Sydney Test, they might have picked up some sort of clue.Or maybe it wasnt during this innings that they spotted something, but at some point before or after the Sydney Test. Maybe it was during a passage of play that might have looked entirely unremarkable to everyone else. Test cricketers, and coaches and analysts who work with Test teams, view the game with eyes that see far more detail than the average punter - or journalist - while quickly identifying which one is significant and which ones arent.The point is, no matter when it occurred to them, India had a plan against Bravo. And they executed it with precision. At no point during this series, on the other hand, have West Indies appeared to pursue a specific plan against a specific Indian batsman. Instead, they have plugged away in more generic ways, such as, most frequently, bowling outside off stump, often fairly wide of it, and trying to induce an error. On the second day, they tried this all morning against Cheteshwar Pujara, and he simply refused to bite. India enjoyed a wicketless session, even if their scoring was kept in check.The possibility of Bravo having a weakness against the short ball wasnt widely known before this series, or even before this Test match. Most international teams, however, have been bowling at Pujaras stumps for at least the last year-and-a-half; they know he has excellent judgment of his off stump and infinite patience outside it, but they also know he occasionally leaves a gap between bat and pad.Judging by how West Indies bowled to him, they didnt know this. Either they hadnt done their homework, or they had a dossier full of plans for each Indian batsmen but simply hadnt been able to execute them.Over the course of the series, India have shown themselves to be far ahead of this West Indies side in pretty much every department. Shamis clinical dismantling of Bravo, West Indies most accomplished Test batsman, only reinforced the extent of their superiority. ' ' '