The Brent Barry Ticket Experiment: Morgan Metoyer and Carl Landry

Before Landry's shooting, he gave an autographed game shoe to 11 year-old Metoyer as an extension of Brent Barry's ticket project.

Courtesy Brent Barry

Barry with the crew.

(Ed's Note: The Brent Barry Ticket Experiment didn't die, it simply ran into technical difficulties. Proving that NBA players deal with the same issues as everyone else, Barry's e-mail missives, unbeknownst to him, were disappearing into the ether for a while. The Experiment, in which Barry gives away tickets to every Rockets' road game, picks up with their March 16 game in New Orleans.)

The thrill of getting an autographed game shoe from Rockets' forward Carl Landry nearly became the most tragic of keepsakes for Morgan Metoyer.

Metoyer, 11, was part of a group of family and friends from Houston vacationing together in New Orleans earlier this month when they discovered the Rockets were staying at their hotel. Jocelyn Ballard, a 24-year-old police officer at the University of Houston and one of the biggest Rockets' fans in the 20-strong group, said hello to Barry on his way to shootaround. When he found out where she was from, he gave her four tickets to that night's game against the Hornets.

Ballard had been to a couple of Rockets' home games, but seeing them beat the Hornets on the road was an entirely different experience. "For us to win on the road and to be there, it was great," said Ballard of Houston's 95-84 victory.

But the best part, she said, was taking Metoyer, 11, and another friend, 18-year-old Johnathan Times, back to meet the players as they came out of the lockerroom. That's where they met Landry, who autographed a shoe and gave it to Metoyer.

Several hours later, the Rockets had flown back to Houston and Landry was being shot at and running for his life, resulting in a calf wound that will keep Landry out for a couple of weeks.

Ballard knows the area where Landry was shot well because it's several minutes from her department's headquarters. From what Ballard has gathered, the culprit was on a crime spree and Landry was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"It was a random act," Ballard said. "He just got caught up in it."

Adding a remarkable twist to an already memorable event for the vacationing 20 from Houston.

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