I'm tempted to call the Rockets' veteran center Sherman Olajuwon for the rest of this season. Because over the last week, he's gotten in the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody.

	Who's that in the Dream's body the last few weeks?

Watch him abuse Luc Longley last week in Houston, giving him -- my God -- the Dream Shake, like Luc is David Robinson or something. Watch him block a shot and start the break, and watch him find the open man, first Steve Francis, then Cuttino Mobley. See him against the Sixers two nights later, posting up like it's 1994, posting a double-double. Observe him the following night in Detroit, swatting seven Pistons' shots back from whence they came. And after the All-Star break, there he is against the Wizards, controlling the defensive boards, grabbing 20 rebounds overall.

His last four games: 17 points per contest, 12.8 boards, 3.25 blocks, shooting 57 percent from the floor.

Sherman Olajuwon, aka Hakeem, making a bid for Most Improved Player! And at his age!

Of course, Olajuwon says this was there all along, if only the Rockets had seen fit to use it. Words you expect from a proud, 38-year-old warrior who's been told he can't do it anymore. But is it for real? Is he still for real?

	“	I just think that whatever he wants, he should get. Whether it's to play for the Rockets or not. But I mean, for the team and for the franchise, I think it would be even better if he just stayed and ended his career as a Rocket, and help us get back on the upswing like when he was in his prime. ”
		— Francis on Hakeem

"The only difference now is you're part of the mix," Olajuwon says. "I never changed anything. Nobody can tell you how you feel, whether you can play or can't play. When you feel good, the game is easy. I'm used to competing with the best of guys. Now it's easier, not like it's difficult. So my decision about when to leave the game is not only because of basketball. It's because of traveling and time away from the family. Basketball is easy. I do my work earlier, lift weights, work hard...the game itself -- the fitness, the conditioning -- is all intact."

Olajuwon says he would be the first to know if he couldn't play anymore, and he'd be the first to tell the Rockets. He says that he only wanted not to be forgotten, and once the Rockets brought him back into their offensive flow, he quickly forgot about wanting to be traded to the Heat. That came when he had a heart-to-heart with Coach Rudy Tomjanovich.

"On our team before, it was like 'we don't want a big man,'" Olajuwon says. "I'm like 'wow, you don't want a big man?' And that's what I meant, in an innocent way. Meaning that I'm not trying to cause trouble. Everyone makes it like I was saying 'you have to change, it's one or the other.' I wasn't saying it was one or the other. I didn't want them to change anything. I just wanted to be part of it."

But the truth is, Olajuwon wasn't playing this well in December and most of January. He would practice well but it often wouldn't come through in games. The Rockets didn't want to say it, but they had no plans to re-sign him when his contract expired. And they gave Olajuwon and his agent permission to seek a trade to either Miami or Phoenix.

It left the younger players in limbo. It was obvious that the Rockets' future was Francis, and Mobley and Maurice Taylor. But the Dream was the 6-9 elephant in the room no one would talk about. And Francis, who understands that he could make a stink about this if he chose, certainly wasn't going to do anything to even hint to Olajuwon that he should or shouldn't stay.

"Honest to God, I don't think I'll be ever able to develop the heart to even say that if I wanted to, just because of what he did for this place," Francis says. "I just think that whatever he wants, he should get. Whether it's to play for the Rockets or not. But I mean, for the team and for the franchise, I think it would be even better if he just stayed and ended his career as a Rocket, and help us get back on the upswing like when he was in his prime."

The Rockets could use him. They have good chemistry, but as Stevie Franchise himself acknowledges, they suffer from bouts of immaturity.

Says Francis: "We still have times when guys want to score 30 points. Not only one guy, but three or four guys on the team looking to score 30 points. And sometimes, that's when we get into our funks, losing games by 20 points, turning the ball over 18 times."

The Rockets have hovered around .500 for the better part of a month. But now, they seem to have figured out how to integrate the best of both worlds, the young and the old, the transition game of their young backcourt with the halfcourt grind of their 50-Greatest center. And it begs the question of whether it doesn't just make sense to keep Sherman Olajuwon around another year, if he's going to play this well. A problem, because the Rockets plan to be a real player in free agency, and any kind of increase in the Dream's $16 million price tag would make a bid for the Chris Webbers of the world impossible.

They'll worry about that later. Things are going too well now.

"All the games we were losing before were games we should have been winning," the Dream says. "That's what's frustrating. You say 'well, maybe, you can help.' But you can't help. You can't do anything about it ... these teams shouldn't be beating us. I wanted a chance to do something about it. And when you can't, they say 'well, you're washed up.' That's what I couldn't take, because I know that was not true."

Missing Vancouver
I am bummed. The Grizzlies are on their way out of Vancouver, one of my favorite North American towns.

Unless somebody comes up with some significant dough at the 11th hour, owner Michael Heisley is going to either sell the team, which will then be moved, or he'll keep the team and move it anyway.

	ALDRIDGE'S RANKINGS
	THE TOP 10 1. Philadelphia 2. Portland 3. Sacramento 4. Utah 5. San Antonio 6. L.A. Lakers 7. Minnesota 8. Dallas 9. Milwaukee 10. New York THE BOTTOM FIVE 25. New Jersey 26. Golden State 27. St. Louis (oops, Vancouver) 28. Washington 29. Chicago

As of Wednesday, Heisley had yet to apply for relocation. But there's no rush; he has until March first to announce his intent to go. And even though many owners had problems with how St. Louis businessman Bill Laurie approached his almost-purchase of the Grizz two years ago, the league has no problem with Laurie giving it another try now. Not after the local business community in Vancouver has done next to nothing to put dollars into season tickets or corporate support.

"I do think that the support that was given to the franchise after we did what the media suggested we might never do, has been disappointing, to say the least," the Commish said in a news conference during All-Star Weekend. "The committees that were supposedly formed to buy tickets, the business element of the group that was going to step up and do what had to be done failed completely to materialize, except now, when Michael Heisley had his press conference or his statement. So you can have another media feeding frenzy if you like, but we have yet to hear from a substantial group that can make good on the implicit promises that were made when, at some great expense, we decided that Vancouver was entitled to demonstrate that it was an NBA city."

But the league is going to great pains to separate the failure in Vancouver from Toronto, which is why it fined Dick Versace $10,000 on Wednesday for saying the Raptors will be in the same boat as the Grizz a year from now. The league is betting on Toronto's larger population (one-third of Canada's 31,000,000 inhabitants live within a few hours' drive), its status as Canada's top tourist attraction and its larger corporate community -- not to mention that Vince Carter fellow -- to keep Toronto viable and keep the NBA in Canada.

There remains the more immediate question of who the Grizz will deal. I'd put a dollar on Mike Bibby, who's not getting along with Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Vancouver continues to talk with Orlando about a possible Bibby-Darrell Armstrong swap.

	Mourning

Drives Him Crazy
Alonzo Mourning came to All-Star weekend hitting his fellow Stars up for money. They gladly obliged. Mourning got a half-day's pay from most of the players to go toward research of the kidney disease that is keeping him off the floor this season. When the weekend was over, after $100,000 commitments each from Heat owner Micky Arison and Mavericks owner Mark Cuban thrown in, 'Zo had cleared at least half a million dollars. Not bad for three day's work.

But Mourning will not play this season, and it drives him crazy.

"I miss having the opportunity to just get away from it all, and just go in my own little world, and that was my way of just getting away, knowing that couldn't nobody bother me at that moment in time, for 48 minutes," Mourning told me this weekend. "In between those lines, I knew that couldn't nobody touch me. I miss all of that, and sitting on the sidelines is torture for me."

But he comes every day, because he is a teammate. Every day, he downs cyclosporine and carticosteroids that he hopes will get his blood and protein levels where they need to be, and then someday, he may be able to start working out again the way he likes. But it will be a long time before he knows if he'll need a transplant. And he may never know if he's truly beaten the disease.

"It's only smart for me to wait until I reach those stages," Mourning says. "The one thing about this disease that that doctor (Gerald Appel, the noted specialist) told me was, he said 'I can possibly put this in remission for you, but I can't guarantee that it won't come back. That kind of left a scar with me, because I'm saying to myself, 'man, I'm working my butt off, trying to stay right, trying to put this thing in remission, then all of a sudden, let's say five, six, seven years from now, it just pops up again.' It's just another adjustment I have to make to prepare for the future."

It is, perhaps, the worst feeling that someone who has depended on his body for his living can have, no longer trusting that body. But Mourning, 30 pounds lighter, has reached an accommodation. His teammates are there, his two children and wife Tracy are there, and he's fighting back.

"I don't expect any sympathy for me," he says. "I don't want any sympathy from anybody. There's a whole lot of people out here a whole lot worse off than I am. I continue to count my blessings every day, and I know that I'm in a very, very fortunate position to be able to deal with this disease.

"I talk to the disease quite often, and keep reminding it that I'm gonna win. I know this disease has a conscience as well, and I know it hears me. I let it know that I'm gonna be back. I don't know when. But I'm gonna defeat you and I'm gonna win. That keeps me going, and that keeps me in the right frame of mind."