Yeah, people really like to either- not know the history or they think everything was perfect... It was far from that, like you mentioned. Thankfully we didn't have the crazy media like today or this could have been a lot worse drama. Hakeem got suspended in 92 for the faking injury claim and here's a source (I didn't bother to try and find the Chron article but this is good enough): https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-03-24-9201270434-story.html
I don't disagree, but I'll at least give Harden till age 31/32 before completely giving up. There were certainly a lot of tough years but Hakeem eventually came through. I'm certainly not comparing Harden or Hakeem but what I do like is Harden hasn't bolted like most of these new stars would have. And he didn't want to be a 6th man of the year every year while with OKC. I just don't think CP3 is going to be the answer, at least not at 40m
Well, I love Harden, but Dream got us to the Finals in his second year and we had to rebuild because Ralph had a career damaging injury and our role players got busted for cocaine
I think this could work still, haha This is very true, man, if Sampson didn't suffer that injury or if the damn cocaine issues hadn't occurred. Houston definitely would have had a longer window against the Lakers, and the league (before 94&95). There's a lot of great takes/articles to back up those Rockets too.
Hakeem was always better in the playoffs than regular season even when he had crap teammates or was playing more talented opponents
Rockets in that year (1st championship) would comfortably beat Sonics...because 1. The previous year Rockets team though had very good starting 5 (Kenny/Maxwell/ Horry (rookie)/OT/Dream) but didn't have much bench (Winston Garland was main guy off bench who couldn't survive much after that year ), took Sonics to 7 game overtime. Rockets could win it if Kenny could hit the 3 at the end of regulation. Anyway all 3 games at Houston were blowout. Rockets were leading by 20+-30+ in 2nd quarter or so. 2. Sam Cassell and Mario Elie joined the team and made the bench real competitive and the rest is history. Robert Horry entered sophomore year and his dunks were unbelievable.
Unfair to Harden. Safe to say there will be very few players in the franchise to compare to Hakeem. So, why do that just to bring Harden down?
Nope. Hakeem would demand the ****ing ball or heads would roll. Hakeem was not a pussified Clint Capela. Dude was a savage!
The Hakeem nut hugging on this board is too much at times and before everyone gets their panties in a bunch I realize Hakeem > Harden, Hakeem a Houston legend, etc. But holy s*** you’d think at times Hakeem was Michael Jordan. People can say Harden isn’t a winner or whatever they want to say about him but the reality of the situation is the man has had to go against the greatest team ever while he was in his prime (he was too young to capitalize prior to the GS reign). If KD decides to stay, Curry could end up with more rings than MJ...
I truly hope we get a real coach so you guys see how easy it is to get highly skilled stars to co-exist.
Hakeem had to beat Ewing (Knicks are still considered one of best defense of all time), David Robinson, Barkley, Malone, and a young Shaq. That's a lot of guys who are top 20 players of all time, and hakeems teams were not stacked. Now this warriors team is arguably better than those teams, but without Durant that is a more questionable assertion and the Rockets looked even worse when Durant went down
My worry is a coach can't get harden to play faster or move off ball. Harden doesn't like doing that stuff
