How good were the Sonics of the early to mid 90's?

They had arguably the top pg in the league along with one of the top pf's in Payton and Kemp. Then they had Detlef Shremphf at teh 3 with Hersey Hawkins at the 2. They had Sam Perkins and Ricky Pierce. It seems to me to be a pretty good team by even today's standards. Wern't too good at center and I remember Dream usually having good games against them.

 

They did not have Hersey Hawins at the 2. That was later, mid to late 90's. Early to mid 90s was the Rice Owls alumn, Ricky Pierce. He was their leading scorer in 1992 and 1993. He and Hersey never played on the same team together.

Ricky was way better.

Guys you are forgetting are Eddie Johnson (early 90s) Kendall Gill, Derrick McKey, Michael Cage, and Nate McMillan. That team was STACKED!!

Hell they had Xavier and Dale Ellis for awhile, too, right?

 

That team was pretty good, especially when they played the Rockets, but did any of those Sonic teams ever make it to the NBA finals???

 

Great pressing team defense.

 

The 96 team did after the swept us.

 

George Karl's defensive gameplan against the Rockets was always phenomenal. Not only their terrific pressing defense, but also their doubling of Dream in the post always caused havoc for the Rockets offensively. They were just so damn quick to help, rotate, and recover. We couldn't really get over that Sonics hump until Barkley was acquired.

 

Why do you mean by"today's standards"because other
than maybe the Lakers(because of Shaq)Seattle would
whip any team in the NBA at the current time.

They were so gifted on BOTH sides of the ball.The Kings/
Mavs are offensive teams with no defense and teams like
Detroit are good defensive teams with little offense.

 

The sonics team was very good, but they were the second best team to challenge the bulls. The best being the Jazz. I'm pretty sure that sonics team would be at least top 3 in the west right now, but they would get killed by the lakers.

 

I don't agree at all, they would have denied Shaq the ball by lightening quick doubles before the ball was thrown in. At the time it was illegal (and they used it anyway to frustrate Hakeem to no end), but now it wouldn't be. I would easily take my chances with the 93 or 96 Sonics team against the Lakers, Kings or anyone else playing right now. Of course the Lakers might beat them, but I wouldn't give anyone else much of a chance and would put my $ on the Sonics, not Lakers.

 

George Karl outcoached Rudy, I hate to say. Dream had HORRIBLE games against the Sonics -- I am not sure if the stats back that up, but my recollection (at least of that series) that Hakeem could not control the offense. He was getting moved out of position (higher-post stuff) and getting quasi-zoned, and ended up taking awkward shots and making bad passes. He -- and we -- did not really figure it out until the last half of Game Four of the 1996 series. It was too late. They shut us the hell down.

 

Those teams did have 1 major weakness though: Lack of half court offense. Perkins was their best post up player. Kemp was more of a slashing, full court 4 at the time. It was the Seattle curse that forced the Barkley trade. B/c just as Seattle tore the Rockets up on those years, Barkley routinely tore up the Sonics in that era.

 

Double teaming Shaq before he gets the ball would not be a wise strategy. Kobe would burn the sonics if they did that. Also if should be noted that the sonics only made the finals once. Prior to that the suffered a humiliating defeats to the Nuggets and Shaqless lakers. So lets not get ahead of ourselves with this sonic hype

 

That was the key to the Sonic's success. They had the depth to be a cardio defense and it was based on payton and McMillan pressuring the guards. And our guards had horrific trouble against them. Kenny Smith could not relax and take the ball up the court against the sonics. He always looked like he was playing catch up against ole nate.

 

Well todays teams really isn't quality enough
to compete with those teams.This might include
the Lakers.And it's not all about talent level
either.Todays NBA players lack basketball
smarts.More players force bad shots than they
used to and teams can't excute offenses that
well either.

Payton/Hawkins/Detlef/Kemp/Johnson is better
than any team is putting on the floor now.

People talk about teams "great defense"or whatever
but we the Hawks had the best defense in 1997(
allow only 83PPG)and that was still only good enough
for a second round exit.We won 56 games that year.
That would easy win the east this year and were only
a 4th seed back then.And we were not even that great
of a team.

Sometimes I wonder if yesteryears players were more
mentially focused and stuff.

Look at Theo Ratliff.These days he is considered a allstar
when healthy, but back then he would have been considered
a average starter.11/8/3 blocks isn't exactually allstar
production.

 

I think the 1996 Sonics would have given the now-Lakers some problems because their defense was so fast. The Laker outside players dump the ball into SHAQ a lot and Seattle would have handcuffed SHAQ.

That being said, Kobe Bryant is a lot better than the 1996 Clyde Drexler, so ultimately, I would give the current Laker teams the edge.