I believe there is a reason why the Rockets didn't pay Barkley. A lot of you don't remember, but he threw a guy through the glass at a bar. It is a felony, so the team probaly took that as a reason to be cautious instead of rewarding him. And he eventually had to pay the guy to avoid a lawsuit. When Pippen was here, he had a DWI charge here which eventually was thrown out, maybe a reason why he only spent 1 season. I believe Rockets don't like players that gives the team unkind publicity. Regardless, I enjoyed Barkley when he was here, he made the team fun to read.
I indeed watched that game and it was 100% Barkley's fault. They were killing us with pick & roll all game but on the last shot of the game Barkley decides not to pick up Stockton off the pick, it was a very lazy effort on Barkley's end that cost us that series. I remember looking at the TV almost in tears but angry we weren't going back to the finals With that said, Barkley did play his heart out with us. But his D was what kept us from contending
If I remember this correctly Barkley signed for the minimum so we could get Pippen but tore his quad muscle toward the end of the season, and the Rockets didn't sign him to another contract. He played through it, though, the rest of the season, but he never played again after that season.
Barkley is a douche..I knew a power dancer when Barkley was on the Rockets..She said he'd play in games high..smelling like herb all the time..The guy was a total waste of money...F$%k him...
On Barkley - Stockton shot: 1) It was a TIED ball game. If Stockton misses the shot, though it a MUST WIN game, there is no guarantee the Rockets win the game still. 2) It was GAME 6, not game 7. The Rockets still needed to win 1 more game at Utah. No easy feat there 3) Barkley did NOT have a good playoffs that season. Barkley shot a career playoffs LOW. Part of it was Barkley got injured late in the year, missed lots of games and probably was still a little banged up coming back. 4) On the shot, that WAS a moving screen violation by Malone on Drexler. Terrible no call. - Drexler confused the play by trying to move under the screen to go at Stockton. Drexler's arm is ON Stockton before the play out of the stack. Stockton suckered him inside, Drexler fell in the Malone vacuum hug. It momentarily froze up Barkley in no-man's land. - Yes Barkley SHOULD have reacted QUICKER. Could have moved a little faster on the switch. Though perimeter defense is not Barkley's strength. That's 75% Drexler, 15% Barkley, 10% Malone In hinsight that was not good defensive matchups there. Drexler shoulda been on Hornacek. Threatt should have been on Stockton. Or possibly Drexler shoulda been guarding Russell on the inbounds, have Mario Elie guarding Stockton on the perimeter. Someone to keep up with Stockton's quickness. (Hakeem was probably thinking PFFFT I went out into 3 point land BLOCKED a shot by a guard in game 6 in the Finals, you guys can't even make a SWITCH? )
Not only then, Barkley played his ass off pretty much the entire time he was a Rocket. He didn't work very hard in the offseason but he left it all on the court. I always reference the Bulls game when Olajuwon and Drexler were out. Othella Harrington was the 2nd best healthy player that night. We had no chance. But Barkley fought as hard as he could. I haven't felt that kind of Rockets pride after a loss very often. Les owes Barkley money. A man should stand behind his word. Les should make up for it, donate to a Barkley charity.
If you make a deal, you have to honor it. All the off court stuff doesnt matter. Nickle & diming cheaping people afterward isnt cool The Rockets made a similar arrangement with MAURICE TAYLOR. Taylor took a cheap 1 year deal first year, with intention of resigning to a bigger (too costly) deal the next year. Thats how he was recruited to Houston. And after Taylor put up a softer than Patrick Patterson year as a "power" forward, and that was his last year as a starter ever, the Rockets came through on that. Why Maurice Taylor but not Hall of Famer Barkley? Barkley does seem to has his issues with management though. He left Phoenix on bad terms with front office in a dispute. And similarly in Philadelphia.
All I know is, we OWNED Utah before the Barkley trade. Kenny and Sam lit up Stockton on defense and OT and Horry (the original stretch 4) were able to give Malone a physical contest, and they had no answer for Hakeem. Seattle was the matchup we feared, and Barkley was able to help us there, but the 94 and 95 championship teams dominated the Jazz. And the money thing? Barkley got paid - $9 mil for his final season, by far the highest salary of his career, for playing 20 games and averaging 14 and 10. That $9m represents more than he made his entire 5 seasons in Philly and more than he made in any 2 seasons combined in Phoenix (when he was the MVP and the franchise guy). To say that, of all the franchises he joined, the Rockets are the ones who owe him $$ is ridiculous.
I hate to break your prepubescent concept of your nba heroes growing up but you could say the same about almost every player back then. In fact you had whole teams doing that.
We got swept by the Sonics the year before and was being owned by the Sonics during those years. It was evident that the Sonics became the team to beat and so a change was made because Cassell and Horry were becoming free agents and we weren't going to be able to sign them and Drexler. We lost that game mainly because we signed an injury prone overrated point guard who was out for that season, and had a pg in the game that had no business being in the NBA. I think Matt Balony had ZERO points in that game - a closeout game
Regardless of how it happened, when you just take what took place on the court into account, it's like 80%+ Barkley. Drexler not supposed to switch, refs missing a blatant offensive foul... whatever. The whole world saw Stockton free up, Barkley was effectively guarding nobody, and with the the score-time combo, it's a no brainer what you do if you're Barkley. If we want to then add it extra variables.... well, I'd throw Rudy T in there, too. I'm assuming he failed to communicate that they needed to switch every pick.... which should have been a no brainer assignment in the first place, again given the time on the clock left. If Rudy failed to communicate this, I'd put most of the blame on him. If he did communicate it, then I'd up the blame on Barkley to near 100%. EVEN IF Rudy also said to go over picks... because it didnt' really matter what Clyde was going to do... go over, go under, bull rush Malone, whatever... Malone was setting an illegal pick that play to free Stockton and that was that. It's not a bad strategy offensively... refs don't like deciding games like that, and liked it even less back in the day. It's still a little shocking given how blatant an offensive foul it was. Rudy could also be blamed for not taking Chuck out of the game... he was never a GREAT defender, and his main use in a situation like that would have been to prevent an offensive rebound tip-in. Anyway, tinman is also being purposefully annoying here. Matty-boy wasn't even in the game. Drexler was playing PG at that point, defensively... which is exactly what Beat LA said. Also, I don't really care what Barkley says about the Rockets on TNT. I guarantee you if you switched the names on the jerseys and the Rockets were the Thunder, Barkley would be picking the Rockets to win. Also, didn't Barkley get paid $9 million for the 99/00 season? What was that about?
The poster who had asked me about the PG didn't know who the PG aka STARTING PG was . The reason why MATTY boy wasn't there at the moment was that he was getting schooled by Stockton.
