After a relatively quiet offseason, the Rockets started training camp Tuesday with the attention-grabbing clap of a pair of major roster moves.

The Rockets sent veteran forward Glen Rice and two draft picks -- next season's first-round pick and a pick acquired from Chicago -- to Utah to pick up center John Amaechi and a chunk of spending money. They then immediately used the extra cash to sign free-agent shooter-for-hire Jim Jackson to a three-year contract worth, according to sources familiar with the deal, $7.3 million.

Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson said the deals were made to free the Rockets from the luxury tax hit they expected without hurting themselves and even potentially strengthening the roster at small forward.

"It's just so much easier to live under the cap," Dawson said. "If you can't do that, you try to live under the luxury tax (because of) the restrictions. This enabled us to get under the luxury tax and enabled us to get Jim Jackson."

The Rockets sent Rice, in the final season of a contract that uses $9.6 million of cap space, to Utah along with the draft choice next season for Amaechi and a second-round pick. The trade moved them from $59.5 million in guaranteed contracts to $53 million, $2 million less than the figure expected to trigger the luxury tax.

Having moved from that threat, they were free to sign Jackson, who had long been considered the top free agent still on the market.

The trade with the Jazz also gave the Rockets a $7 million trade exception, the difference between Rice's and Amaechi's contracts, potentially allowing them to trade for a player that makes as much as $7 million more than a player dealt in any trade in the next 12 months.  

Though such a deal would return the Rockets to a luxury tax hit, the trade exception is considered valuable for future trades and is especially useful when acquired after the summer free-agency period because it could potentially be used in a sign-and-trade free-agent deal next summer.

"It loosens us up so if something else comes up, we're able to look at it," Dawson said. "A lot of people were in our situation as far as the luxury tax goes. Right now, we're out of it, so that's a big relief. We're one of the people that can do some things if the right thing comes up."

The Jazz are expected to approach Rice about a buyout of his contract. Rice would not discuss the deal or his plans.

"We're going to sit down with him and his agent and go from there," Jazz vice president Kevin O'Connor said.

The words crept into conversations with consistency the Rockets rarely showed on the court.

"No excuses."

Rockets players hit upon the sentiment regularly, knowing that the reasons for their failures or frustrations the past four seasons have followed them like tag-along little brothers.

Though they might have been valid at times, the excuses have proved unsatisfying and irrelevant. And as the Rockets move to this week's start of training camp -- players with three or fewer years of experience report today, and the rest of the team checks in Thursday -- they consistently come back to the same general theme.

"No excuses."

"We're beyond that," guard Moochie Norris said. "That should have happened my first two years. Last season, we should have made it (to the playoffs). We had the team. We should have done it. It was bad enough not going the year before when guys were injured and everything. But to come back and go like that, to be right there at the door, was kind of tough. So we have no excuses."

For at least four seasons, most of the Rockets have been in Houston without Jeff Van Gundy. But when they get together this week for the start of his first training camp, Van Gundy will have studied every detail available on all things Rockets.

With only a hint of prompting, Van Gundy can cite everything from the Rockets' records in close games the past few seasons to their medical histories. For slightly more esoteric data -- the success or failure of alley-oops, for example -- he must grab one of the many reports within reach and flip through a few pages, a process that can take five, sometimes 10 seconds.

It turns out that when Van Gundy said he would study tape of every play of every Rockets game last season, that was merely a part of his postseason routine and a warmup for advanced studies to come.

After three months of studying the team, Van Gundy sat down to talk basketball.

Reebok will become the next major company to tap Yao Ming's popularity and unique international marketing power by reaching an endorsement deal with the Rockets' 7-5 center, a source said Thursday.

Although some contractual details are incomplete, a source familiar with the negotiations said a deal between Yao and Reebok is expected to end with Yao's size-18s wrapped in Reebok's.

Yao was still under contract to Nike last season, a contract reached with Nike's international arm when Yao became a professional in China.

"We can't officially comment," said Bill Sanders, who handles marketing for Team Yao. "We're still working on many details. There is a lot of discussion going on."

A team of NBA officials gave their blessing Wednesday for the Rockets' move to Toyota Center.

But they might have offered more than that expected rubber stamp about this season with their findings.

After more than three hours inspecting the new arena, league officials said it could be an ideal venue for an All Star Game.

The Rockets have made an official bid to host either the 2006 or 2007 All-Star Weekend.

"We looked at it for both large events and to complete the regular-season requirements," NBA vice president of events and attractions Peter Fink said. "For either the Finals or All-Star setting, it was well-equipped to handle everything we need. It's nice."

Fink visited Houston last season to view some of the facilities related to All-Star Weekend events.

Wednesday's inspection was part of the league's increased efforts to make sure every arena meets league standards in a variety of areas before it opens.

Rockets officials said the work needed before the preseason home opener Oct. 12 was "minor," including moving a few railings to improve sight lines; finishing the reconfiguring of the team's locker room, coaches offices and practice court; moving some courtside seats; and preparing for games with a large national media contingent.

Very simple. Very different. And very, very red.

The long-awaited unveiling of the Rockets' new uniforms slipped out on the Internet last week before the Rockets could orchestrate their debut.

"I'm very happy with them. I think they're great," Rockets vice president for marketing Tim McDougall said. "We had a couple goals going in. One was color. Color is the first thing people see and identify when they look at uniforms. We took a lot of care to see what fans identify with. Red was color people identify when they think of the Rockets. We started with that. The second goal was to have a clean, timeless and unique look to the Rockets design. I think we've got that." Other features of the uniforms include a fabric specifically designed for the Rockets uniform; a harsh, slashing font; the use of the team name, rather than 'Houston' on the front of the road uniforms.

"There are different things you can do, some to make people immediately like uniforms but that wear out over time," McDougall said. "We wanted something, a design, to wear for a long time. The most important thing was, `What works best over the long haul?' "

But if the Rockets got what they wanted in the design of their new look, they lost the chance of debuting the uniforms when an online sporting goods company posted photos of the jerseys and began taking orders.

The Rockets are still waiting for Reebok to supply a set of uniforms in order to unveil them, but they tentatively have planned an event for next week to show all team merchandise.

"I guess I could buy a couple and launch it that way," McDougall said. "It's frustrating to some extent. We'd love to have gotten it earlier in the summer. But ... the most important thing is to get it right for the long haul. I'll make that tradeoff any day. We'll launch sometime when we get the uniforms in house a little over a week from now."

With second-year center Yao Ming not due in Houston until next month and Jason Collier's Rockets career over, the Rockets will add depth at center at least for training camp by signing center Peter Cornell today, a source said Tuesday.

Cornell, 6-11, 245, played for the North Charleston Lowgators of the National Basketball Development League last season, averaging 8.8 points and six rebounds. Cornell has been in training camp with the Magic and Nets and has played in the American Basketball Association, United States Basketball League and in Yugoslavia.

Cornell, 27, played at Loyola Marymount and will sign a non-guaranteed contract with the Rockets.

Training camp for players with three or fewer seasons of experience begins Sept. 29. Yao, playing in an Olympic qualifying tournament for the Chinese national team, is not expected to join the Rockets until the first week of October. Second-round pick Malick Badiane is scheduled to return to the German pro league for another season.

Steve Francis leaned back in one of the oversized chairs that serve as the American Airlines Center benches. The Rockets had taken the floor in the Dallas Mavericks' arena for the first time and were naturally checking out the sparkling, towering new facility.

Players traded comments about the training pool just off the home team's locker room, the seats close to the floor and the celebrated DVD players in every Maverick's cubicle.

Francis, however, marveled and even envied something far less tangible than electronics or soft towels during the visit 1 1/2 years ago, then thought about the day the Rockets would open a new home of their own.

"It will make a difference," Francis said that February day of the mood that comes when a team moves into a new arena. "I think those are part of the reasons they're winning. They have a new arena, new uniforms. They feel a sense of newness and excitement. They're playing better. It's all exciting."

Rockets guard/forward Adrian Griffin underwent arthroscopic surgery on Wednesday to remove loose particles in his right knee that were causing him problems in workouts in Dallas.

Griffin is expected to be out until sometime next month but is expected to be at full speed during the Rockets' preseason schedule.

Training camp is set to begin Sept. 29 for players with three or fewer seasons of experience and Oct. 3 in Galveston for the rest of the team, including Griffin.

"In talking with him, he started swelling, so we looked at it to see what we were dealing with," Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson said. "It was an injury, but he doesn't remember bumping knees with anyone and doesn't really know how it happened.

"We were holding our breath until they went in there, saw what it was and took out some particles."

The Rockets filled out their roster in more ways than one Monday, signing five players to non-guaranteed contracts with a marked turn toward powerfully built frontcourt players.

For all the muscle added, however, the most noticeable exception to that trend, 5-foot-10 former Rice guard Mike Wilks, might have the best chance of sticking with the team.

The Rockets also signed former Texas forward Gabe Muoneke, former Knicks and Suns forward Ben Davis, former Xavier forward Torraye Braggs, and former Oregon and San Jacinto guard Alex Scales.

Wilks played 15 games with the Hawks and 31 with the Timberwolves last season after a successful stint in the National Basketball Development League.

The only point guard signed this offseason, Wilks could be expected to replace Tito Maddox as the Rockets' third point guard behind Steve Francis and Moochie Norris. The Rockets did not pick up their contract option on Maddox, a second-round pick in 2002.

"We chose to go there for several reasons, the best being the Rockets' history keeping three (point) guards and Jeff Van Gundy's history keeping another guard," said Wilks' agent, Bill Neff. "Van Gundy likes defensive-oriented guards, so I think he'll be Jeff's kind of player. Mike really wanted to go there."

Neff said the Trail Blazers, Spurs, Bucks and Hawks had also shown interest in signing Wilks.

"We've liked him for a long time," Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson said. "We saw him play at Rice. He's a guy we thought would fit. He's a pretty good athlete. He's a solid player."