Barkley will be color commentator for TNT during tonight's Lakers/Kings game

Patience:

"Hey, he did get us past the Sonics in the playoffs. Doesn't sound like much now, but back then it seemed nearly impossible"

No - IMHO Hakeem Olajuwon got us past Seattle.



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Matt Maloney's unconscious shooting got us past the Sonics. He then promptly killed us the next series against the Jazz.

 

I'm just saying that until Barkley arrived, the Sonics had our number in the playoffs. If you want to say Matt Maloney was the reason the Rockets won that series, fine. We will agree to disagree.

Barkley had his faults, but you take the good with the bad. Fact is, the Rockets nearly got to the finals that year, and to say that Barkley had nothing to do with that is disingenuous, IMO.

My memory shows that Olajuwon and Drexler had already started to decline a bit. The shakeup was necessary after seeing how badly outmatched the Rockets were to the Sonics in 1996.

 

Barkley needs to expand is vocabulary. I'm tired of hearing "interesting" and "fantasic".

 

I didn't have a problem with the Governor until he got to TNT and started treating the Rocket's as if he were a woman scorned. He did great things when he was here and was fun to watch, but now he's just a media w**** that will say anything to get attention and has a less consistant platform than John Kerry.

2005-06 "I hate Kobe"

2006-07 "I love me some Kobe"

He REALLY gets on my nerves.

 

and until barkley arrived we had the jazz's number in the playoffs.

 

we had the jazz's gameplan down.. except for the malone bearhug at the end.

 

Patience:

"Barkley had his faults, but you take the good with the bad. Fact is, the Rockets nearly got to the finals that year, and to say that Barkley had nothing to do with that is disingenuous, IMO"

IMHO- Barkley did contribute in the Sonics series. I do think winning that series had more to do with Olajuwon.Talk about decline- seeing Sir Charles match up with Malone in the Jazz series was sad.

I did not say Barkley "had nothing to do with it"-he did help. I do not think he is a Rockets Legend. I do think we gave up to much to get him, and as Michael Jordan has told him - Barkley did not work hard enough to get a ring.

We gave up Robert Horry and Sam Casell in their prime. A steep price to pay for a lazy, fat, declining player.....

None of this matters now, but he dogs us every time he gets a chance.

He is entertainment on TNT- a clown

 

You guys don't remember.... the only reason why the Rockets couldn't beat the Sonics before was because of how they played Olajuwon. They basically used an illegal defense, that was accentuated by the fact that the Rockets had no PF threat on the weakside (kinda like the Rockets now, and the early years of the fronting Yao offense).

Once Barkley came, Seattle abandoned its illegal defense tactics, since they had to worry about both post-up threats on the block... and Barkley was a phenominal passer who was able to exploit their double teams routinely (and hence Maloney hit all those 3's).

I know since we never won a championship with barkley, many declared the trade a failure... but if you were around in 96 and saw just how badly Seattle man-handled us in that sweep... you knew something had to be done. (hell, with the way this board is, many would have called for Rudy's resignation right then and there).

 

Heh. But you must admit that his pronunciation of those two words is quite amusing. Each one is like a full sentence.

 

Barkley was our best post player that year. Dream was getting old in age, but Barkley was immovable in the paint.

 

I wouldn't say he was better than Dream in the post. Dream still had some bounce in his step that year (and he dominated over several stretches during teh season). Scoring-wise, Dream was still the go-to guy.

Barkley was a better rebounder, however, and he was a phenominal passer out of the double team... single-handedly created Matt Maloney's success. He also had the ability to draw fouls/get to the foul line more than any other Rocket before him (I remember all the superstar calls he'd get with Phoenix, and was happy it traveled with him to Houston).

Hey... maybe we can blame Barkley for Maloney getting his amazing contract.

 

i loved barkley as a Rocket. Didn't he throw some dude out the window during his stint here? also i'm glad Chuck spoke out about how ugly the new uniforms were.

 

I didn't say "Barkley had nothing to do with that". I said Matt Maloney's ridiculous shooting pushed us over the top to build the 3-1 series lead (which we almost blew). While Barkley deserves some credit also, if Maloney hadn't played way out of his mind the Sonics would have beaten us again. It's that simple.

Against the Jazz, it was like Maloney had used his whole lifetimes' worth of luck the prior series. He couldn't do anything right. I remain convinced that if he wasn't complete garbage against them, we would have been in the Finals.

 

Maloney hit WIDE OPEN shots. Shots he got because of Barkley and Hakeem drawing double teams.

Its that simple...

 

Per TinMan:

"Barkley was our best post player that year. Dream was getting old in age, but Barkley was immovable in the paint.:

'97 was Hakeem Olajuwon's last consistently dominant series. He described the series victory as a "war". He was still very effective-at an all star level in my opinion.

 

Whatever. If Maloney wasn't unconscious like a dead man, we would have lost to the Sonics. That was all I said. The way the Sonics defended Hakeem at the time, I'll bet Maloney would have gotten the same shots without Barkley.

 

Maloney made me cringe watching him try to guard "The Glove". Starbury running by him very sad...Recall that Sam Cassell was 1/2 the package to get Barkley. We gave up a young -in his prime point guard in Cassell for a fat- old-non- conditioned Charles Barkley. Had we kept Casell, we would not have had to experience the pain of watching Maloney.

With Barkley on the Rockets- Hakeem Olajuwon got fewer post touches in the paint.

I am a Rockets fan- not a Charles Barkley fan.