Instead of doing my Market Regulation homework, I decided to browse ex Rockets players, and stumbled upon something suprising. On Mario Elie's NBA.com profile, in the transactions section, it showed that he was traded by the Trail Blazers to the Houston Rockets for a 1995 second-round draft choice on 8/2/93. Wow, a second round draft pick, and the guy who saved our butts in game seven was only worth that much to Portland. Mario was the man!
IIRC, when les alexander bought the team, he promised the Rockets would be signing a significant player to the team. Elie was the guy, and hardly anyone thought of a journeyman SG/SF as significant. Maybe Les knows what he is talking about after all (at least in this case.) Or maybe my memory is failing me ...
I also believe reading a while back that he was drafted in the 7th round!!!! i didnt even know they had a 7th round!
well les also said he was going to make a big splash...it took him a year after that statement but we got tmac.
The previous year, Drexler had been out for a bit with an injury, and Rudy T was amazed that Portland never missed a step when Elie stepped in and replaced him. After that, Mario became the top priority. Weird enough, one year we get Clyde's back-up (Mario), and the next year we get Clyde. The following year we got Mark Bryant, but, alas, we didn't win a third championship by stealing another player from the Blazers. If we had of won that third, who knows what Blazer we would have imported next....
i was just reading something on the rockets' 94-95 season. before they traded for clyde, they had offerred horry, cassell, and a #1 draft pick to the bulls for pippen. i never knew that...
where'd you read that? i followed the Rockets VERY closely back then, and I don't remember that at all.
in thats sports illustrated commemorative edition they put out for the rockets championship. The one with the "Twice is nice" title and the picture of hakeem hugging clyde
Blazers were deep at guard, so Elie was deemed expendable. Heck of a trade. Best deals of the 90s for the Rockets were with the Blazers: trade for Drexler, trade for Elie, dumping of Quitten.
really?? i don't remember that AT ALL!! i do remember the Shawn Kemp for Scottie Pippen trade that ESPN reported actually happened...but never did.
I seem to recall some sort of Pippen discussion back before we won our first championship. The Rockets weren't satisfied with Horry as our starting SF, they wanted an upgrade there. Thus alot of trade speculation for different names, finally ending up with Horry+Bull for Elliot (who was an all-star back then). It would surprise me some if there was Pippen talk during our title defense, since he and Drex basically played the same role on the court.
woudln't surprise me either...i just don't remember it at all...and it was reported in the championship edition of SI according to this thread.
The deal with Horry at that time was that Rudy thought the offense needed a confident shooter at the 3, and Horry was too timid, passing up open looks. Basically, when that trade for Elliot happened and then got rescinded, it scared him straight enough to just start jacking shots, which he did and still does. He hung up his Pistons Jersey in his house as a reminder. Horry was nuts in terms of confident shooting in Game One of the 95 finals in the third quarter, as Shaq says, "pulling threes out of his ass." Him and Kenny just got greedy and mean from beyond the arc. Probably my favorite game in the history of the Rockets. Kenny's three in Penny's face to tie at the end of regulation... ...what the hell was this thread about again? This post? Any excuse to talk about that game.
any idea who they drafted with the 2nd round pick? i'm trying to think of another 2nd rounder that has had the big of an impact for a team, hitting big shots constantly. Cat played a big role, but didn't help get us to a championship.
Heckuva game! Massive choke by Nick Anderson too!! I won tickets to one of those events (in 94 or 95) where some NBA players go on tour and teach basic skills to the youngster. My friends won tickets and somehow managed to get me involved - the 4 NBA players were Dream, Kenny, Kidd and Payton. Anyway, I was chatting with Kenny about that shot - he LOVED it! So he made me pretend to be Hardaway so we could do a re-enactment - great memories!!! Anyway, Elie wasn't at that event........ (not sure how I can get back on topic with this post....)
