HArd to argue with Bima on the Barkley point. I'd like to nominate Ron Artest, as far as recent memory.
Oh please cut the bull****. You make some great posts but your insistence on kneeling before Barkley over and over is sickening considering the fact he has openly hated ON OUR OGRANIZATION. I respect him for the sacrifices he made in order to play with that devil nosed creature Pippen but it only goes so far. Stop parading it around thinking it makes you more a rockets fan, if anything it makes you less of one. Barkley hates the rockets and he may have some legitimate grips but you never side with a player over the family. You never side against the family.
Oh and my point isn't arguing that Barkley wasn't underrated, but more of the hype Tinman gives him where ever he can.
Did you read Bima's thread? Barkley was spot on his predictions about the Rockets. He's also said many nice things about the city. Chuck was also nice to a young guy working on a fan site about the Rockets: that some guy is also known as #1 http://clutchfans.net/feature.cfm?FeatureID=30
That is obviously very nice of him and I mentioned in my post I appreciate alot of his play as a rocket and the sacrifice he made to play here but ever since he left he has been really bitter at the organization. 1.) Management did kind of screw him in a way, I don't have any problem with him being upset about that. 2.) His hatred extends past the managerial side and into the fact that he is bitter about the fact the rockets didn't help get him a ring. The team owes him nothing in that regard and he shouldn't act like he got hustled into some false illusion of a championship by the rockets. Kenny called him out about it on TNT once.
Lets not forget he accepted way less money than he deserved so that we could sign Scottie ****ing Pippen, I remember it was a big topic back in the days on CCTV5(Chinese national sports channel), commentators were questioning whether it's a wise decision by Barkley.
I think it just might be Asik. Great timing and reflexes as a defensive C with a growing offensive repertoire. Some of his double doubles were beyond a single game Dwight has posted so far season and he still doesn't get the residual value Dwight does. Dude is also legit size.
Otis Thorpe is underrated nationally, but locally he is far from it especially among the fans. Kenny Smith is the reverse, locally he is underrated but nationally he gets love for his contributions for the Rockets even though his current rep is based off his post basketball career. Calvin Murphy doesn't get as much as he should but I wouldn't call him underrated. I honestly, don't know for certain but maybe recently it would be Aaron Brooks, followed by Shane Battier.
Yeah, I was thinking about Kenny when I saw this thread. His 40-42% three point shooting was very important to the championship teams. He was the perfect roleplayer PG to play next to Hakeem and punish all the double and triple teams the Dream drew.
Otis Thorpe definitely though people try to forget about Maxwell quickly for his behaviour and off the court problems, but I wouldn't call him underrated.
Good post. The younger guys cannot imagine how good Charles Barkley was. God, I loved Charles Barkley. That 1992-93 Suns team starring Barkley, the one that lost to the Bulls in the NBA Finals, was one of the best teams I've ever seen that failed to win a championship. The 1994-95 Suns team was ridiculously good, as well, and probably would have won the championship (sorry, guys) had Danny Manning not blown out his ACL in February of that year. They were 36-10 (tied with Shaq's Orlando team for the best record in the league) when Manning got hurt. Keep in mind that they were 36-10 mostly WITHOUT the totally awesome Kevin Johnson, who would come back late in the season and dominate in the playoffs. Actually, the three best teams I've ever seen that failed to win a championship might've all been Suns teams: the 1992-93 team, the 1994-95 team (prior to the Manning injury), and the 2006-07 team that surely would've won the championship if Robert Horry hadn't flagrantly fouled Steve Nash at the end of the game, which resulted in one game suspensions for Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw the following game. But, yeah, Barkley was great, and is presumably underappreciated by Rockets fans. I will say that Sam Cassell is a guy who was criminally underrated throughout his career and who would likely be evaluated quite differently if advanced statistics were available back then (or now, for that matter!). He was a hell of a ballplayer; he was a great shooter, he played good defense, and he took care of the basketball. And he was a leader. I am convinced that the 2003-04 Minnesota Timberwolves would've easily won the championship had Cassell, who was ridiculously good for them that year, not been hurt. Without Cassell, they lost to that Lakers team with Gary Payton and Karl Malone that wasn't really all that good, who in turn lost to a Detroit Pistons team that is probably the worst team I've ever seen that won a championship. But yeah, Cassell was awesome, and he was awesome when he was with the Rockets, too. Yet another guy to consider for "Most Underrated Rocket Ever" is, bizarrely, Robert Horry. There are certain skill sets that are ridiculously underrated and incredibly rare. The Bruce Bowen skill set--threes and defense and close to zero turnovers--is probably the most underrated of all skill sets. Horry had basically the same skill set as Bowen, only he was bigger and stronger than Bowen and could therefore guard bigger guys. Horry was always ridiculously underrated... except by the teams that were well-managed, who would go out and scoop this guy up in a heartbeat. Sure, it helped that he played alongside star players in all of his stops along the way, but most of those teams wouldn't have been able to win a championship without the incredible value that he provided. I doubt this dude ever even made an NBA All Star Game. I wish that we could properly evaluate basketball players from the past like we can now evaluate baseball players from the past, because I think people would have a much greater appreciation of players with skill sets like Horry's and Bowen's. Weird that a guy who has more championship rings (seven!) than any non-Bill Russell era Celtic is underrated, huh? You'd think that it would be the other way around.
