It’s tough enough being a professional athlete. Your mental attitude has to be strong enough to tap into your physical talents and produce at a high level. Now imagine your father happens to be Michael Jordan. How’s your attitude now?

Jeff Jordan’s must be pretty good. He hasn’t shied away from playing basketball; rather, he’s a freshman at the University of Illinois. That’s about where the comparison to his father ends. Jeff Jordan is a 6-foot-1, 185-pound point guard. A preferred walk-on at Illinois with an academic scholarship, Jordan played just 32 minutes in the first eight games combined, shooting 0-for-7 with one assist and six turnovers.

So how does Jeff Jordan live up to his Dad? He doesn’t try. “By no means in this world can you ever live up to someone else’s expectations of who you are,” Michael Jordan told Matt Lauer last month on the TODAY show. Score another one for MJ.

Mavs, Suns, Spurs. Are you getting tired of this yet? Help may be on the way.

The NBA’s Western Conference has been monopolized by its own version of the “Big Three” for the past three seasons – ever since Steve Nash arrived in Phoenix. The odds suggest much the same in 2007-08. The NBA’s defending champions from San Antonio are favored to win the West at 11-5, while Nash’s Suns are tied with Dallas at 9-4.

Here comes the cavalry. The Houston Rockets are 9-2 to win the West and gaining plenty of support from basketball statheads like John Hollinger. The idea is that new coach Rick Adelman and returning point guard Steve Francis, plus the arrival of star Euro forward Luis Scola from the Spurs, will propel Houston into the Western elite. As usual, it all depends on how healthy Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady will be. The bigger they are…