[Fran Blinebury] Ten trade deadline-day deals that had lasting ripple effects in NBA

Remember last year's clippers game when Josh Smith and Brewer brought us from the dead. Now imagine that about 10 times during the playoffs. That was Clutchcity.

 

What about Tracy Murray????!!

 

Nope, Light Skinned is in for 2016. Those dudes aren't losing to anyone, there bench is way too strong.

 

It was an odd feeling actually. Finishing with a meh record was disappointing, but I had this confidence that the rox were going to make some noise. Round 1 was against Utah whom we smacked the year before in the WCF.

Add to that Hakeem and a VERY HUNGRY Drexler and the table was set. To experience the success was AWESOME. I still have the tapes that I recorded of all four finals games against the magic but I recorded the audio of Gene Peterson instead of the television broadcasters.

Everything about those playoffs was just great. Beating the Jazz at home in game 5.

Coming back from 3-1 against the suns on Elie's kiss of death.

THEN going to San Antonio and taking both games only to be stunned that they came here and took both games on our court. That was when I was most nervous. I was like no way we take a THIRD game on their court. BUT, dream is dream. When we won game 5 I knew we would take game 6 and go to the finals.

Then Nick Anderson missing 4 straight. GOOD GOD. Destiny. The magic lost the series when dream tipped in the game winner. They were shot at that point. They had the game. All Nick had to do was hit one free throw. BWHAHAHA.

And now. 21 years later and I look at this current toilet bowl full of foul turds and hang my head.

 

bmd,

To add to what others are saying, consider how Popovich is praised for not caring about the regular season and resting Duncan. That's the feeling I got from Rudy and Hakeem in 1995, especially Hakeem. He was somewhat coasting during the reg season...probably more than Rudy wanted. But it was clear he had his eyes on bigger things.

Hakeem is one of the top 5 NBA playoff performers when measured against his regular season stats. Hell, he's one of the top playoff performers regardless.

 

Hakeem had blood issues like Maxwell and was injured for quite some games..

 

The big difference is that we won a championship in 94. Last year we won nothing, including respect. It was fun, but we won nothing great in the playoffs.

 

What was the national media saying? Did they feel the same way as you did that the Rockets could make some noise?

Or were they pretty much written off and expected to get bounced in the first round?

 

^^^
The media was calling the defending champions "the team no one wanted to play." The Rockets were the epitome of that overused phrase

You also have to note that MJ was getting a lot of media attention at playoff time. A large amount of focus was in the East matchups. MJ, Knicks and the 60 win youngsters in ORL

 

rockets is need to sign tmac of greek that will win championship and crap on laker then who is call Vassilis Spanoulis. If rocket is sign as I is hearing they scout and vspam camp is think yes, (i is on good terms and know vspan we shoot hoop he tell me) then rocket is become best team in nBA just bench James Hardens and Vspan start to make offense better.

 

All i remember is sports illustrated f'ing the dog win we won a title and not giving the rox the cover like every other nba champ. They then printed a special issue to make up for it. That might have been after the first

 

My regular season memories that year are all jumbled up. I remember madmax charging into the stands, triggering a suspension. He and dream also missed a stretch of games due to anemia. Horry missed a few games.

That mid season stretch full of injuries really cemented Clydes role as a leader on the team and accelerated his integration. It was pretty much his show without dream or Vernon suited up. The bench was so bare Rudy started digging deeper into the original D-league, the cba, finding productive players in Sam Mack and chucky brown.

Sure there were terrible losses, but you saw fight and grit that made Rudy the ultimate motivator of getting the best out of his players, much like how he coached a bronze in the FIBA world championships with scrubs during the lockout season.

The press had already written off the Rockets by the time Dream returned. All people were talking about was Jordan and a possible matchup with shaq.

 

Man, I miss those days

 

Sam Mack didnt join the rox until the next year. But you are right. We dug out some players that helped like Chucky Brown as you mentioned and Pete Chilcutt who could drain a three. Especially since all 3's were 22 feet that year and don't discount the value even Charles Jones brought that year to give dream a blow.

That was just an awesome playoff run. 9 road wins. The last 7 ot which were consecutive road wins. Only 6th seed to hoist the O'Brien. In some ways that title was sweeter than thr first. I think that road playoff performancd still stands today. 9-3 on the road and 6-4 at home.

 

Exactly, that's why we should be more open to moves that will set us up for next season even if it sets us back for this season.

 

Quite true.

They're pretty good to watch though.

Their front office has been pretty awesome.

 

Happy Drexler Trade Anniversary Day!

 

Not with that attitude

 

The Warriors are beatable, one injury or disgruntled player and they will start to decline. I think Green will be the one that leaves first. All the hugs, high fives, standing close together during time outs, and just us BS is wearing on him.

 

I bet you never watched more than five games of those Iverson/Larry Brown 76'ers teams.