Vassilis Spanoulis left Athens and his hometown fans with Panathinaikos to make the step up to the NBA, figuring his emotion, his energy, his overwhelming confidence would carry him straight to the top on the game's biggest stage.

Spanoulis came to Houston to join Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady and, in his mind, put the Rockets over the top.

Now Yao is sidelined with a broken leg, and the rookie guard feels like he's hit bottom.

"I came here to help my team, to put my talent on it and do many things," Spanoulis said. "I am a patient person. But I don't want to stay on the bench for the season. I came here to work hard and to play in the games."

Spanoulis says he is puzzled why the Rockets drafted him and worked so hard to sign him to a three-year contract in the first place. He believes coach Jeff Van Gundy is trying to change him from a penetrating creator into a spot shooter.

"It is like asking a doctor to be a lawyer," Spanoulis said, smiling and shaking his head at his own analogy.

"Maybe they don't know what my strength is. Because every time I play, I don't play to my strength. I was used to playing good defense, pressing all over the court, running on offense, playing a lot of pick-and-rolls and creating. Now they want me to be a spot shooter, and this is a different experience. "

He was quoted over the weekend in a Greek newspaper as saying: "There's always the possibility that I might leave. It doesn't depend on me, but they can't keep me a prisoner either."

While Yao Ming hoped against hope he could be back on the basketball floor before March, Rockets owner Leslie Alexander on Monday de-scribed a goal perhaps as lofty.

"If we get Yao back and Tracy (McGrady) stays healthy and the team stays healthy, we can be an excellent team going into the playoffs," said Alexander, speaking at the annual Tux & Tennies Gala. "I'm not going to define it that precisely. I just think going deep into the playoffs is a start.

"I'm very pleased where we are, how many games above .500 we are, and the fact we're near the top of the Western Conference."

Yao said nothing has changed in the prognosis for his rehabilitation from a fractured tibia.

He is still scheduled to begin on-court workouts around the All-Star break, Feb. 16-18. He said he will "definitely not" be in Las Vegas for the All-Star Game but hopes to be back sooner than the scheduled mid- to late March.

"It's going pretty well so far," Yao said. "Right now we're looking for some rehab to make the muscle stronger so when I'm back to play, I'm not hurting."

Basketball Hall of Famer Elvin Hayes may soon be patrolling Texas streets.

The former Houston Rockets and Washington Bullets star known as "The Big E" has begun a nine-month course to earn his Texas peace officer's license. If he passes, the 60-year-old plans to become a sheriff's deputy in Liberty County, northeast of Houston.

Dikembe Mutombo has had enough of the jokes about his age.

Cracks about Mutombo actually being older than he says have been circulating since his college days at Georgetown ... and he's laughed along for years.

But that changed recently when family members began taking offense to the regularity of such jokes during television broadcasts. Mutombo told ESPN.com this week that it's reached the point that he plans to seek out NBA commissioner David Stern for advice on how to at least stop TV commentators from openly accusing the league's oldest active player of misrepresenting his birthdate.

"My wife [Rose] just mentioned that to me a few days ago," said Mutombo. "She said: 'Honey, I think this joke has gone on too long and it has to stop. Is there a way you can tell the commissioner during the All-Star break to let the world know that this thing needs to stop, from a media standpoint all the way to the players?'

"It really doesn't disturb me, but it hurts when your wife starts feeling uncomfortable about it. Even my daughter [Carrie] says, 'Daddy, why are they talking about your age?' She's nine years old and she knows about it."

"When people think your father is a liar, it makes you look bad in front of your children," Mutombo said. "Kids don't know when it's a joke and when it's not a joke. It never bothered me before, but it starts bothering me more as I'm getting questions from my wife [and] especially my daughter. She left me a voice message in the middle of a game [recently that said], 'Daddy, they're talking about your age on TV. That's not funny.' "

Rockets guard Tracy McGrady, who missed Wednesday night's 100-91 loss to the Phoenix Suns because of a sore lower back, was confident he would be able to play Saturday against the Denver Nuggets.

McGrady said the problem was from the tightness that gripped him after a dunk with 3:20 left in Tuesday's game in Dallas and not a recurrence of the back spasms that forced him to miss seven games last month and sidelined him several times last season.

"That's all it is. It's stiffness," McGrady said. "This is different, not related to what I've been dealing with in the past. I'm not concerned at all."

Soreness in Tracy McGrady's back kept him out of Wednesday's game against the Suns.

He left Tuesday's game with a stiff back with 2:14 remaining, but said the injury was "nothing major."

McGrady scored 45 points in the contest.

Bonzi Wells went through Monday's limited Rockets practice, his first since going out with a sore lower back Dec. 29, with no difficulties.

A decision will be made about whether to activate him for Tuesday's game against the Mavericks in Dallas after the morning shootaround.

"It's tough when you take a few weeks off and try to get back on the court and push it the way Coach (Jeff Van Gundy) wants you to push it," Wells said. "Your conditioning is obviously going to be a factor. I felt pretty good. I had a flu the past couple days after going to Denver, but I sweated it out pretty good the past couple days. I don't know what Coach is going to do as far as me playing or not, but I'm still going to work the next couple days on my conditioning."

Though the timing had seemed clear since Yao Ming was hurt Dec. 23, Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy made the team's most definitive statement so far on Yao's chances of playing in the Feb. 18 All-Star Game, ruling Yao out.

"It's going to be a long time," Van Gundy said. "To put a timetable on it wouldn't be fair to him or to us. You won't see him there (in Las Vegas.)"

Yao is not scheduled to begin "active rehab," on-court workouts, until the All-Star weekend.

Bonzi Wells could return from his sore lower back much earlier than expected.

Wells did not have a scheduled anti-inflammatory shot on Monday, instead joining Tracy McGrady on Tuesday for a trip to McGrady's Waco rehabilitation therapist, John Patterson.

"It's feeling better, a lot better," Wells said. "I went to the doctor (Tuesday) with Mac. Mac took me to his healing specialist. He did wonders for me. I feel great. They were talking like I would need shots or surgery. He (Patterson) got me back in line, popped me back in place and did everything that can prevent me from having to go to surgery. He did a great job."

Dikembe Mutombo swatted the shot by the kid half his age, then wagged his index finger to the crowd's delight.

Mutombo stuffed another shot by Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum 3 minutes later to move past Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and into second place on the all-time blocks list.

Mutombo had five blocks in all in the Houston Rockets' 102-77 win against the Lakers on Wednesday night. He now has 3,191 blocks, two more than Abdul-Jabbar on the all-time list.

"When I came into the league 16 years ago, I told myself that I just want to be remembered for one thing," Mutombo said, "just to be one of the great defensive players to ever play this game.

"Even to myself, I'm sitting down like, 'Whoa, is Mutombo really playing like that?' I haven't seen myself jumping for a rebound like that for a while."