I was walking around Willowbrook Mall back in the day and I turned and randomly saw Kenny Smith. I said what's up but have no idea how the conversation went. That was 30+ years ago. I was pretty excited at the time.
Of all the characters on the 90s Rockets, I never would have guessed Kenny Smith would be the most enduring public figure, lol. Dude was such a mediocre player. Kenny always had a silver tongue though, that’s why he became de facto spokesman for the team. Vernon cussed too much. Dream was very hard to understand. Clyde was too boring. Robert and Otis were too shy. Sam was too goofy.
He was average, he did one thing well and that was get the ball to Hakeem each and every time down the floor! Honestly, for that Rockets team back then, he was far and above the best interview; followed only by Bullard (nobody else was even close). Hakeem, Otis, Clyde, Maxwell, Herrera, Horry, etc were not good on the mic. That was a time when our only news source was the 10 O’clock news sports segment. It wasn’t until the Internet made sports news readily available. Perhaps before he got to Houston, Kenny might have been a star. Nevertheless here in Houston his job was to make sure Hakeem was given the ball. And if the ball was distributed back to Kenny, he was supposed to make his 3 pointers. He was obviously one good leader and shooter.
Was just having this conversation the other day, apropos of whether we can once again shift minutes from a floor general to a rookie and thrive. Which led me around to a different question: How ready was Cassell? And how big is the readiness gap between Cassell 1993 and Sheppard 2025? I'd forgotten that 2 of Sam's 4 college years were at San Jac.
He passed the ball to Horry who passed the ball in to Hakeem...Horry was one of the best entry passers I've ever seen Kenny hit 3's and didn't turn it over. He and Sam were the perfect PG duo for those teams.
He was okay, better athlete than he probably gets credit for but nothing spectacular. I saw him randomly walking around in Vegas once. We didn’t speak, but I could tell he liked my shoes.
Let’s stop with the Kenny Smith revisionist history. High draft pick, participated in a dunk contest, traded twice within his first 6 years. Streaky, not a good shooter. My lasting memory of Kenny is hitting a clutch 3 in the finals against Orlando. Other than that, ehhhhh…. Sam basically got clutch minutes at the point as a rookie over Kenny. Rarely has anything nice to say about the Rox despite the fact we rescued him from the trash heap in Atlanta and gifted him 2 championships. F that guy.
Cassell was much more confident than Reed, who kind of tends to look shook out there sometimes. And Cassell didn't' keep passing up a bunch of open shots for no reason lol. Cassell was more ready. Hopefully Reed can step it up this year.
