Former Rockets coach and player Rudy Tomjanovich has not won his battle with bladder cancer, but test results received Saturday indicate he has built an almost insurmountable lead.

A biopsy taken Friday revealed that the six topical treatments he underwent beginning late in the Rockets' season were so effective that doctors are confident that with continued treatment, Tomjanovich will be cleared.

"He'll definitely be OK," Rockets physician Dr. Jim Muntz said. "He's responded in a very good way to the treatments. We're very happy with the response. This is very good news. It shows the treatment works."

At a few ticks past midnight Monday, Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson and coach Jeff Van Gundy could be on someone's porch with roses and all the riches the franchise's salary-cap limitations will allow.

The NBA's free-agent dance begins Tuesday, and Dawson is a former Baylor coach who has not lost his taste for recruiting.

But the Rockets' free-agent season likely will not go that way.

The hard sell never has been Dawson's style and does not seem to be Van Gundy's. Beyond that, the Rockets don't seem moved to romance the flashy free agents. Signs point toward a more graceful pursuit of subtle changes. Players cannot sign until July 16.

The Rockets have not mapped out their strategy.

The Rockets might not know when second-round draft choice Malick Badiane will appear on a regular-season roster, but the team confirmed Friday when he would wear a Rockets practice uniform for the first time.

Badiane, 6-11, who could play another season or two in Europe before attempting to begin an NBA career, has committed to play for the Rockets' Summer Pro League team next month.

Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson said the team likely will not decide whether it would prefer Badiane -- a 19-year-old who has played one season in a German B league -- to remain overseas until after the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, Calif., on July 6-20.

"He's come up very quickly," Dawson said. "I think with this last year of coaching, he's shown tremendous progress. There's an upside we think will be tremendously large."

After more than a three-hour wait, the Rockets finally were able to make their one and only move in the NBA draft Thursday night.

The Rockets were without a first-round selection for the first time since 1996, and tried to make the most of their No. 44 pick by choosing 6-11, 230-pound Malick Badiane, 19, from Senegal.

Badiane has played one year of pro basketball for a second-tier league in Germany. Last season, he averaged 11.7 points and 8.9 rebounds as a forward and center.

"It took us a while to get up to the plate this year, but I think we wound up with a real fortunate pick," Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson said. "Malick is very raw. He's only played one year of pro basketball. But he's very athletic, he runs the floor well, he can rebound and shot-block, and his offense is coming along real well. We feel that he has a tremendous upside."

As many sleepless nights as will be spent deciding among the NBA draft's headliners, the real challenge would seem to be choosing when there are few real choices.

The Rockets knew they wanted Yao Ming before their hearts stopped racing after their victory in last season's draft lottery. They were just as certain they would take Bostjan Nachbar, assuming he would be still around for their other first-round pick, before he toweled off the sweat from his pre-draft workout.

But the real trick in the NBA draft is to find the buried treasure hidden somewhere in the second round. For all the time scouts spend evaluating talent, at least part of the lure of their profession would seem to be finding the jewel the others missed.

As rare as that might be, it does still happen and likely will have to happen again tonight for the Rockets' 2003 draft to become a success since all signs point to the team having only one pick -- in the second round and the 44th overall.

The Rockets still can move up, but they appear more inclined to keeping their roster intact at least until next month's free-agent signing period. Selecting midway through the second round limits them to long shots, but they, like others, have hit late before.

The Harris County-Houston Sports Authority agreed Wednesday to pay $1.5 million to buy the Rockets out of their Compaq Center lease, clearing the way for the team to open the 2003-04 NBA season in the new downtown arena.

The Rockets, meanwhile, have been negotiating with three companies for the arena's naming rights and could seal a deal by the middle of next month, said sports authority chairman Billy Burge.

"The sense I get is that it might be an international company, as opposed to one that is based in Houston," Burge said.

The lease buyout resolves a dispute involving the sports authority, the Rockets and operators of Compaq Center that has been going on for more than a year. Naming rights are one of the major issues officials hope to have settled before the new arena opens.

The Rockets must seal a deal before the end of July if signs installed on the arena for a Sept. 4 ribbon cutting are to carry the name of the company that buys the naming rights.

In his first efforts to determine what the Rockets need, coach Jeff Van Gundy has begun to study what they have. He has not seen enough, Van Gundy said Tuesday, to be satisfied his research is complete, or initiate major roster moves.

But as the Rockets head to the draft Thursday and free-agent negotiations next week, their coach completed his second week on the job by declaring the Rockets' rebuilding over.

As with so much about the Rockets, that begins in the backcourt of Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley. Van Gundy met with Mobley on Thursday in Houston and Francis on Friday in Maryland. And after four up-and-down Rockets seasons, Van Gundy said the Rockets and their top scorers are ready to do more -- and should be.

"The pain of it was going through young players getting a chance to play," Van Gundy said. "They've gone through it, now. Now we have to take it through that step into winning. It's not anymore about building or being young or inexperienced.

"Really, like Steve and Cuttino, they're neither young nor inexperienced. They should be in their prime. They're both fully aware of the fact that to achieve any real significance in this league, no matter who you are, you have to win. You have to win, be it a coach or a player. I think right now is the time for them, going into their fifth and sixth years in this league, they're hitting their prime."

The Rockets took the first step toward keeping free-agent forward James Posey by extending a qualifying offer of $2.445 million, general manager Carroll Dawson said Monday.

The move allows the Rockets to match other offers Posey could receive from other teams as a free agent next month. Posey averaged 9.3 points in 58 games with the Rockets after he was acquired from Denver.

"There is an interest in re-signing him," Dawson said. "The qualifying offer allows us to have the right of first refusal."

Posey could accept that offer, but agent Mark Bartlestein would not say what sort of contract would be necessary to sign Posey.

"He likes Houston very much," Bartlestein said. "It's where he makes home, and he enjoyed playing for the Rockets. He enjoyed playing for Rudy (Tomjanovich) and is really excited about playing for Jeff (Van Gundy). Obviously, I don't know financially where they're going to be, what the Rockets are thinking."

As the Rockets' brass is reminded this week of all the first-round talent it cannot choose, the decisions it cannot make and party it really cannot attend, it can console itself with the knowledge of why the Rockets do not have a first-round draft pick.

The Rockets remain sure that their decision, even in hindsight, was a good one.

They are also pleased to have picked up Steve Francis.

Technically, the Rockets do not have a first-round pick in Thursday's NBA draft because they sent their pick, 13th overall, to the Grizzlies to complete the 11-player, three-team deal that brought them Francis.

But in many ways, it is another deal with the Grizzlies, the one they did not make, that has them sitting out the first round.

McDonald's All-Americans Ndudi Ebi of Westbury Christian and Kendrick Perkins of Beaumont Ozen are keeping their names in the NBA draft.

Thursday was the deadline for players to remove their names from consideration for the June 26 draft.

Texas Tech forward Andre Emmett decided to pull out of the draft and return to Lubbock for his senior season. Emmett led the Big 12 in scoring at 21.8 points per game last season and was a first-team all-conference selection.

Ebi and Perkins can keep their NCAA eligibility if they are not drafted by following amateur rules and not contracting with an agent.

Beaumont Ozen coach Andre Boutte confirmed that Perkins, the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches Class 4A player of the year, will not keep his commitment to the University of Memphis.