<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VKxj1k1b_TA?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VKxj1k1b_TA?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> Box score: http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/198701150CHI.html
Cool stuff. Thanks Tinman. OMG Dream didn't take the most shots?? Is Sampson ISOing Olajuwon?? :grin: Seriously though great team defense on Jordan. 43 points?? On 43 shot attempts??
He was so good, danged cocaine screwed up that team....Mitch Wiggins and Lew Lloyd, all they had to do was admit it and it would have been an out patient program and 30 day suspension, instead they denied it, got tested and 2 year ban..... Then Lucas later too....the three best guards...gone in under a year....to drugs. FRACK !! DD
People forget or never knew how good he really was. With he and Dream, oh yeah, multiple championships. Injuries have robbed the Rockets of much success. (plus stupid contracts, horrible drafts, goofy trades, and not knowing when to give up on certain players)
I was a teenager when this was happening. I remember that Ralph Sampson was my favorite player in those days. I stayed up late to watch the playoff games. The Twin Towers were the rage. And they were going to win rings for years. I also remember how sad I was when "Stick" got traded to Golden State a couple years after this. Ralph Sampson was a polarizing player for the Rockets fanbase back then. Nostalgia has a way of lightening the collective mood (especially with the current straits of the team), but I remember about as much disgust with Sampson from the public and the media as there was admiration. Ralph was the type of player who could dominate a game and disappear in a game at the same time. He could handle the ball like a guard. He could run the wings like a small forward. He could control the paint like the best of big men. He could seem so small at times. He could vanish for seemingly no good reason. He was never what anyone seemed to expect he should have been. A lot of people back then thought Ralph was weak. A guy who shied away from physical contact. A guy with a tough name, but a soft game. It wasn't all of Sampson's skill that moved him out of the pivot when Olajuwon came....it was his weakness. I never really got the disgust Sampson generated from most of the local media (Fran Blinebury and Eddie Sefko, in particular), but it was evident in practically anyone who had their ear to the Rockets' locker room door in those days. You couldn't win with Sampson. He'd wilt and fold. He wasn't tough when the game was tough. He was weak-willed. He didn't try, and he didn't care. Ralph could change the game....if he ever decided to play it. After all this time.....I still don't know if any of those assertions was completely true. All I really remember is that Ralph Sampson was, at one time, my favorite Rocket. And I'm glad I can't remember why. I might be tempted to change my mind.... ...and I've got enough bad memories......
I remember some of that criticism, but I always thought he was kind of moody, he was mentally a bit shaky, but his physical skills were phenomenal.
I also remember this. I think I was about 9 or 10, sneaking back into the living room after my parents went to bed on a school night to watch the Rockets play on HSE (((LOL))) channel 31 I believe it was on "Warner Cable". I think Bill Worell was calling the games back then too. I wanna say he called the Astros on the same channel if I remember correctly.
I remember how Ralph took on the challenge of defending Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers in 1986, solid. Akeem (before he was Hakeem—or was he always Hakeem and everybody just spelled it wrong?) got most of the accolades for how the Rockets dominated that series in winning it in five games...... .....but I remember when The Dream got ejected in the fourth quarter of that game five for fighting with hired goon-turned-GM Mitch Kupchak..... ....that it was Ralph who finished that game for the Rockets. And finished off the Lakers. I never doubted him after that game. If I ever really doubted him at all. Like I said, I was Stick's biggest fan. Whatever else he was or wasn't, Sampson deserved more fans than he got here......
spot on. Akeem destroyed the defending champion Lakers in '86, but then had to beat arguably the best team in the history of basketball, the '86 Celtics to win it. and then cocaine.
HP, Do you remember what Pat Riley wrote on the black board before those games? He only wrote one thing. "Keep Hakeem off the offensive boards" And they could not do it....man that team could have been special...dang. DD
Mitch Kupchak did it.....for the final 8 minutes or so of game five of that series, DD. No wonder Kupchak got that Lakers GM job..... ....Might explain where Riley got the idea for the hired muscle impersonating the New York Knicks in the early 1990's.......
Don't remember that. But have vivid memories of Pat Riley being interviewed after game 4 saying, "We didn't know he was this good. We have to change something." And I guess that ended up being the Kupchak 4th Q game plan.
His game suffered from heart failure throughout his career - and that was before any injuries took their toll. When he was on, he was incredible. But that was a switch nobody could figure out how to flip.