Rockets Trivia: who was the architect GM of Clutch City? CD or Steve Patterson?

I see you failed to highlight the Dave Jamerson part.

 

yup, and SP also put together the blazers' current core as well

 

I got to sit down with Steve Patterson when he was running the Aeros, and in that conversation, I told him thanks for building the championship teams and that he should have gotten more credit.

He seemed genuinely thrilled that somene remembered it.

My Cool story bro moment is that my wife and I took in an Aeros game and sat about halfway up behind the home net, there was an older couple there that we started chatting with and asked us if we wanted to go into the clubhouse.

It turns out that they were the owner of the Aeros parents.....and we got to go down into the clubhouse into a private lounge and that is where I got to meet and talk with Steve.

It was a "Cool story bro" moment for me......

DD

 

This is the same guy that didn't draft someones hero if I recall.

 

I'm glad you posted this....

So many people are so quick to give Carroll Dawson the credit for the 94 and 95 championships, but fail to remember that he became the GM in 1996...

 

Didnt he want to trade Dream for coleman... and also signing of mario elie.. backup centers like tree rollins who gave us decent minutes when dream was in foul trouble, trade for clyde .. drafting sam i am .. were the reasons we won the championship ... i dont think hakeem would have resigned unless he had assurance that patterson was going to be fired.. id take hakeem over patterson any day .. and id tak CD over him too

 

Patterson must step on people's toes or is just bad with PR because he always get the shaft when it comes to credit. He seems to get fired right before everything gets good.

 

He actually resigned from Portland, but Pritchard seems to get a lot of credit for their team.

 

Neither.

No love for Bob Weinhauer (sp.) or Todd Liweiki (sp.)?

 

I think the tide turned when keith jones replaced Ray melchiorre.

Those injuries just started racking up. :grin:

 

Never knew how to spell his name. I think he ended up with the Clippers after his stint with the Rockets.

 

I was there too.
And to call it a "chorus of boos" is putting it quite mildly.
I remember thinking, "Who the hell is Robert Horry?"

Head scratches abound.

 

Ha ha. I remember that everybody wanted Harold Miner who went to Miami with the next pick. Miner won the slam dunk contest that season (and again in '95)but never did much else and only ended up playing 4 seasons. Horry played for 15 seasons and won 7 rings.

 

So, since you posted a chronology of Patterson, and a photo of Patterson under the "spoiler" tag, so that everyone who visits this thread will click on it...

...you're goading people into voting for Patterson.

Count me as one of the people voting for Patterson. :grin:

 

Did either person draft Hakeem Olajuwon?

That's right. The correct answer is the hidden NEITHER.

 

Don't forget about Steve Patterson Ray Patterson who was GM before him. This was the biggest mistake Ray made.



Houston Just Missed Dynasty; Had The Rockets Been Willing To Trade Ralph Sampson, Jordan Could Have Ended Up in Houston
Chicago Tribune -- June 11, 1998
By Sam Smith

Forget the sixth championship.

Michael Jordan should be going for an eighth or ninth title by now. He should be challenging the records of Bill Russell's Boston Celtics.

He should be part of the greatest one-two punch in NBA history . . . with Hakeem Olajuwon.

That was the real mistake of the 1984 draft. It has long been hung on the Portland Trail Blazers for selecting Sam Bowie with the No. 2 pick instead of Jordan.

"[Jordan] was good," Jack Ramsay, the then-Portland coach recalled in a rather obvious description. "I saw him on that [1984] Olympic team. My Portland team, our rookies and free agents, scrimmaged against them. Everybody says now they knew, 'Oh, yeah,' but I'll tell you no one predicted this."

No one predicted Jordan would become arguably the greatest player in NBA history. A shooting guard carrying a team to the NBA title had never happened before and was never even imagined -- especially by the Bulls.

"Michael is a very good offensive player but not an overpowering one," Rod Thorn, then the Bulls' GM, said after drafting Jordan. "He's not the kind of guy who will single-handedly turn around a franchise, and I'd never ask him to do that."

Which may have been the best break the Bulls ever had. Because if the Rockets had an idea -- if anyone had -- some things would not have been the same. Kids would be wearing Rockets jerseys, and Al Capone would still be Chicago's most famous citizen.

The 1984 season was the last in which the NBA used a coin flip between the worst Eastern and Western Conference teams to determine the No. 1 draft pick. The lottery began in 1985 to eliminate the longstanding practice of teams tanking games down the stretch to improve their draft position or get a shot at the coin flip.

The Rockets, who had taken star center Ralph Sampson first in 1983, lost 17 of their last 20 to settle into the worst record in the West.

The Pacers, who had traded their 1984 No. 1 pick to Portland several years before for center Tom Owens, held off the Bulls, who lost 14 of their last 15. Had the Pacers not made the trade, they would have been in position to pick Jordan. And they would not have taken Bowie at No. 2. Portland did, for reasons that have been explained many times.

The Blazers had drafted guard Clyde Drexler the year before. He was nearly as highly regarded as Jordan in college, and veteran shooting guard Jim Paxson was All-NBA Second Team that season.

"You thought [Jordan] was going to be a good player," Ramsay said, "but we were good at 'two' guard. Our scouts thought highly of Bowie. We gave him a physical exam. The doctors said he was fine, but that turned out not to be the case."

Bowie's legs simply failed him. Although he went on to have a reasonably productive NBA career with several teams, he was never more than a solid role player.

If Hakeem Olajuwon was the certain No. 1 pick coming out of the University of Houston after three Final Four appearances, the other given was Portland's desire for a center. The Blazers were a playoff team, but hadn't been in serious contention since Bill Walton's injuries ended the run of Portland's 1977 championship team.

"Jack Ramsay did what he had to do for his team," said Bill Fitch, who was then coaching the Rockets. "Sam Bowie was a special player. I never saw a center pass the ball any better than Sam."

Another possibility, however, was Sampson, the 1984 Rookie of the Year who averaged more than 20 points his first two seasons. What if Houston had selected Olajuwon with the No. 1 pick and then traded Sampson for the No. 2 pick and used it to select Jordan? The Rockets would have had the best inside and outside players of their era.

"We had to have a center," Ramsay said. "We would have done that."

If only people had thought Jordan was better.

"There was a time when we felt there was a chance to make a trade with Chicago with Sampson for Jordan," Fitch said. "But nothing was ever done."

That was after the 1985-86 season. The thinking then was the deal might be too one-sided -- for the Rockets.

Sampson was 7-foot-4 and a star who'd help lead the Rockets to the Finals in 1986, where they lost in six games to one of the great Celtics teams. The belief was Houston would succeed Boston and the Lakers as the NBA's powerhouse.

"Ralph was a big commodity," Fitch recalled, "and Jordan really hadn't come into his own."


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/news/2001/08/02/sayitaintso_rockets/