Are We Witnessing the Greatest Shooting Guard in Rockets History?

In game 7, maxwell hit the 3 in the 4th quarter of the nba finals, in the apex of crunch time.
Knicks call time out and max shoves starks out of his way
His teammates and brothers swarm him with an embrace of a champion
And to this day the people of houston and the citizens of earth owe vernon maxwell their gratitude

 

He is already a better player than Drexler and McGrady on the offensive side. But Drexler and McGrady (when he felt like it) are better in defense.

Both Drexler and McGrady had achieved more though. But Harden is still young.

 

I'm not sure what this really tells us. Tmac's career 3 point percentage was on part with other greats like Jordan and Kobe. Does that mean that Harden is better than them as well?

I will agree that Harden is probably a more efficient shooter overall but that doesn't mean that he is clearly the better player. There are many facets that contribute to whether a player is great.

T-Mac in his prime was the best passing small forward/shooting guard in the league. He was a physically gifted player with extremely high basketball IQ. I know we want to dismiss his resume and just look at how his career ended here but please try and be objective. (This isn't to you specifically but everyone on this forum)

 

But unlike Ariza he could drop 30 while play suffocating D on any given night. Max could take over a game when possessed. Just ask our resident autistic ... I mean historian.

Max was a better player than Ariza.

 

Max could definitely drop 30 points if you let him shoot enough. That's not really a testament to him though.

That Vernon Maxwell was a marquee player on the first title team is a feather in the cap of the Hakeem Olajuwon greatness argument.

 

I believe so if Harden can sustain this kind of play in the playoffs for the Rockets which he has failed to do. This year might be the year...

 

There is no denying Olajuwon's greatness but even the greatest need help. Jordan, even Spike Lee, recognized Max's talent. He was more than an indiscriminate chucker. And he certainly was not a scrub. He was better than just a good player. That Max ended his college career as the 2nd leading scorer in SEC history behind Pistol Pete supports this.

Max's career with the Rockets was not very long and in that short span he was both acclaimed and derided. But the fact that he is still embraced and fondly remembered today as one of Houston's best ever, even ahead of guys like Rodney McCray, John Lucas, Robert Horry, Kenny Smith, etc. speaks of his impact on the fans despite Dream. As those other guys played alongside Dream too.

 

http://youtu.be/FgF-D10VVVc?t=43s

This video was probably made one year too early...

 

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Was peak Moses better than peak Yao? Sure.

But Moses would screw up Dream's offense.

Yao and Dream could work together. Well.

 

It's cute you think a team with Tracy McGrady would win a 7-game series.

 

The point is what 4/5 combo would be maximized.

Yao is the only great Rocket 5 who could play with Hakeem at the "4" where Dream could still beast, his game unsacrificed.

 

I would still go with Sampson over Yao. Twin Towers is tried and true. Plus, Hakeem had range too. His post game was just so good he rarely needed to utilize it. If we had Moses Olajuwon out there, the other team would not get any rebounds.

 

No one mentioning Francis? He was rather decent in his prime... still couldn't make a pass to the post but still...

 

The really interesting hypothetical would be to see the Ralph Sampson that grew up playing basketball 20 years later. If he'd been a contemporary of Dirk's/Durant's, no telling what he'd have been like. Guy was way ahead of his time.

THAT Sampson and Hakeem would be...wow.

 

If he had the greatest center named Hakeem the Dream he world.

 

Except that he almost never actually did that.

Those "any given nights" happened 3 or 4x a year. More likely you got a 3-13 clunker. He got worse on offense as his time in Houston went on and was a straight liability by 1994.

 

Gotta have the will to win in the Playoffs - that's where the legends are really made.

 

Maxwell dropped 30 on in one quarter.
Still a rockets record

 

He had yao ming and could even get past the first round