14 years ago at this day we started one of the biggest "what if" series in Rockets history

He was traded for Ariza but yeah no coincidence he helped them win a title

 

This one always hurts.

At the start of the season I put a decent chunk of money into the Rockets winning the championship.

Would've had me being pretty comfortable when I was younger.

Only team to take the Lakers to 7 the entire Playoffs.

And did it with all of that money sitting on the bench injured.

What could've been.

 

One of the biggest shames, to me, is that only Rockets fans will remember that was a championship team.

And Morey, Adelman, Dantoni, Chris Paul, Harden, Mac, Yao, Mutombo.... so many NBA tragic heroes were screwed out of a ring and a complete legacy change (in 2009 and 2018). It's just mind numbing.

 

Don't forget the 80s Rockets if there was a healthy Sampson and drugs never happened. Those teams were going toe-to-toe against GOAT Lakers/Celtics teams with Olajuwon/Sampson not even hitting their primes yet.

 

Adelman is the best coach weve had since Rudy left. The guy just knew how to coach offense to anyone

 

I always feel like a jerk when I say that I think the 08/09 squad is probably the most overrated team of all time among Rockets fans, but that's how I feel. Gritty guys...fun to root for...but not a title contender in my view.

Totally with you on 93 and 97...2018 was rough.

 

**** Nancy Reagan...no one presented a better "Just Say No" than the cautionary tales of Lew Lloyd and Mitchell Wiggins.

 

Was drunk at 2pm with my friends in my first house. Mother day massacre was one of the best days of my life. Was riding that high for a while until Gasol’s big ass made everyone look like midgets

 

Someone stated it earlier, and I absolutely agree Yao's demeanor was different. I think by then he already had that confidence in his game to carry our team. Teams would double and sometimes triple him and they couldn't stop him. Nobody had a real answer for him by then. Adelman was the perfect coach for them(And our best coach since Rudy).

Scola/Landry tandem was extremely underrated. Shane was great for what he brough to the team. Ron was consistently good all year and healthy despite being noticeably heavier here. His Rockets Mohawk was the best.

That one hurts to this day.

 

The 1997 team vs. Jordan, and Harden/Paul vs. LeBron are the finals matchups we all deserved but never got. We need some multimodal AI to generate them for us.

 

I always wondered if Morey looked at this as his best team. The bench could have been a solid NBA team on its own.

 

If he knows basketball, and I think he does, I'd be shocked if he didn't think the best team he ever assembled was the 2017/18 Rockets. That team won the most regular season games in franchise history (65)..clinched their first 1 seed in franchise history... and was an absolute nightmare to play against. They simply did not lose when CP3, Capella, and Harden were on the court together. Morey was named Executive of the Year that season.

They were a hamstring away from knocking out one of the greatest collections of talent ever assembled on one team.

 

Man, this is a reminder that Morey really assembled some great teams and just always hit the worst luck. In this series it was T-Mac being out and Yao going down. In others it was a hammy and 27 missed three pointers. It was always something. But he really put together some great teams.

 

My burden on this website has always been to convince you that I sincerely love Yao Ming the human being while simultaneously telling you injuries were never ever never a surprise for any player who was 7’4” or taller. No he wasn’t gonna go on to have MVP seasons, because guys that size universally tap out with limited minutes around 30 and an early retirement not long thereafter

If you draft Wemby, you need to make sure you build around him quickly…win asap.

 

I was at that game 3 when Yao went down. Painful.

 

That year we really had crazy depth

friggin tmac was out and really never played great again after that year tho . But he did get surgery to stop us from trading him ?

idk

but back to the guys . Well , tmac . And yao and Ron . But we also had Shane and chuck hayes . Shane ron and chuck . Insane defensive trio .

imagine a healthy tmac too .

brooks (we traded rafer midseason for Lowry right ? ) I remember we moved rafer to open up pt for brooks at least .

Scola and Landry were young* , but already good. And we had freaking mutumbo

oh and von’illa wafer .

between that year , 14-15 and 17-18 you gotta believe in Morey

 

The ‘Mother’s Day Massacre’ will also be among my favorite Rockets playoff games!

 

We did take the eventual champions to 7 games with almost 50 million 2009 dollars rotting on the bench wish we could have gotten something for TMac's corpse.

 

Instantly went from my favorite player to most hated. Should have talked to the Rockets about it first, but instead was selfish and kill any chances of us getting anything at all for him. Then went on to predict the Lakers were going to win the championship WHILE the Rockets were still in it. Glad he never had any success after the Rockets.

 

Sad this was effectively Yao's last NBA game.