[sbnation]1993 Playoffs Retrospective Part II: The Rockets, The Clippers

Man, that's one dedicated Clippers fan.

A few thoughts.

1. NBA need more fat players these days. It's always nice to see an athletic fat guys with skills beating chiseled stiffs who can't ball. Not to mention cliches about how "he'd be a star if only he could lay off the hamburger" bit.

2. The Clippers with "lots of wasted natural talent". Has there ever been a Clippers team that didn't have a lot of wasted natural talent? I swear the talent they "wasted" could win multiple championships.

3. Fans around the NBA basically know Kenny as the guy on TNT. Yet he was basically a better Rafer+ with us. Perhaps not even Rafer+, as Rafer achieved quite a bit with Dwight Howard as his teammate. Rafer would probably have a championship ring if a prime Hakeem had been on that Orlando team rather than Dwight Howard.

4. Kenny Smith apparently dunked in that game. How often has that ever happened?

5. Mark Jackson went on to be the starting PG for a great-but-not-quite-championship Pacer teams. Danny Manning after surgeries became a 6th man for the great-but-not-quite-championship Phoenix teams. Ron Harper became the starting SG/PG for the championship Bulls teams.

6. And this hilarious paragraph

 

You mean three-time NBA dunk contest participant Kenny Smith?

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Well uh, not really...um... let's just say this clip probably captured most of them :grin:

 

I was an hour late to my last final exam of my freshman year of college watching the last game of that series.

 

Is it me or does he have the most weirdest dunk in the world? :grin:

 

Sorry. Meant to say since I started watching him. I knew he had hops early in his career. But from the days when I saw him as a Rocket, he's pretty much basically been bricking layups left and right.

 

I'm just giving you a hard time. I don't remember him before the championship years either. Too young.

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Maybe someone else can explain why he was such a popular pick for dunk contests. I've watched all three, and I mean... I don't get it.

 

there is something contradictory about those two quotes written in the same paragraph.

 

That was good, hard-fought series especially game 5. That's the game where MadMax came back from that wrist injury he suffered late in the season. He hit the big shot to win us the game.

But, I'll never forget the last game of the season against San Antonio where the refs robbed us of HCA. In game 7 @ Seattle, we were AGAIN shafted by the refs. It was terrible and disheartening to watch.

Hakeem should have been MVP that year and the Rockets should have gone to face the Bulls. It should have been us vs the 1993 Suns in the WCF and I feel confident enough to believe we'd win. Why? Because I remember after Hakeem got the MVP award in 1994, he admitted to being slighted the year before and we know how Hakeem plays when he feels slighted (hint: 1995 WCF). Nobody on the Suns frontcout could deal with him while we had OT to slow down Barkley and MadMax to put the clamps on Majerle. A big reason why the Suns took us to the 7 games in 1994 and 1995 had to do with KJ's brilliance but KJ wasn't the same player in 1993 due to battling injuries.

We are talking a potential 3-peat in the making. We won both games against the Bulls that season. Haha, the Bulls feared the Texas Triangle.

 

I think there's truth to both quotes. Dream definitely carried that team and he was the main reason the Rockets turned into a juggernaut. But, The Jet, OT, MadMax, Will Smith, Sam I Am, Air Bullard and the Glide all complemented his game so well that it was really a total team effort in the end.

 

Lot of ex-Rockets players involved

 

I remember it like yesterday, I was just starting high school and moved to California. It was the first game I had gone to in LA and it was at the LA Sports Arena. A very poor stadium even then. My father knowing I like the Rockets and wanting me to feel more at home was able to get us tickets. But they were noise bleeders and man the crowd up there was dicey (a lot of Raider/Dodgers type fans) all rooting for the Clippers. Being young then I really didn't understand the danger I put us in by cheering for the rockets at a clippers playoff game! I just remembered lots of people threatening us. All that because I said "go Rockets!" when they scored. But that didn't stop me as if I felt my cheers made a difference in the rockets winning. I remember Hakeem just completely schooling Stanley Roberts, he was just so hot in that game with his shot. There will never be another Hakeem, seeing him live in his prime was really something special I'll never forget. It was from that game on that my father and I started our Rocket bond and go watch games together.

 

I wish Hakeem had a HOF calibre PG as a sidekick in his career. His offensive numbers would be even better and he would have taken less pounding in the low post. I can envision Nash/KJ and Hakeem pick and rolls ad nauseam being converted 60 to 80% of the play to points.

This could be a thread topic: Which HOF calibre PG would you pair with Hakeem and why?

Then again Dream was so good, he can makes any player look great. :grin:

 

That would have been less fun. Way cooler having Rudy clear everyone out and watching Hakeem shred the double teams into oblivion.

 

These were the 8 most unnecessary words in the article.

 

He could have had John Lucas, who's possibly the best pure point guard the Rockets ever had, but Lucas managed to get himself kicked out of the league. Bummer.

 

After watching Game 3 of that Phoenix series which the Rockets won 118 -102, it showed me the awesomeness of having a quality guard who can penetrate and dish in traffic consistently. Hakeem had something like 6 - 8 dunks in the game!

I love the inside out playbook when the perimeter guys are hitting their shots at a decent clip because Hakeem will destroy single coverage.

But imagine a PnR whereby Nash is passing to Hakeem instead of Amare. Hakeem would be doing pirouettes as he gets open lanes for dunks and lay-ups. His offensive numbers, efficiency would go up and more than likely put the opposing team in foul trouble opening up the game for the rest of the team. Plus Nash being a better shooter and play-maker than Kenny Smith would make the Rockets a much stronger offensive team. The Rockets would not lost much defensively and make them more fun to watch.

 

I agree...those entry passes to Hakeem was like watching Barcelona put on a clinic on passing.....Horry, Cassell, Elie, Vernon, Drexler, Kenny they know how to get the ball to the big guy.