Yeah, it was heartbreaking for so many reasons. Should have been in Houston. Sonics illegal defense. Questionable calls down the stretch. Rockets were actually up 10 at halftime, too. It was a game 7 (whereas the Stockton shot wasn't). And it was trying to get over the hump, as opposed to having already won a couple of championships. Hadn't tasted that level of success yet and thought it was really possible that year.
i was very young at that time..why was the game then played in seattle and not in houston? what was the basis?
#1- Player(s) I have to go with three of them. Lewis Lloyd and Mitchell Wiggins for their drugs ruining what could have been long term success back in the late 80's .... and Eddie "the masterbaiter" Griffin who was a total waste of three #1 draft picks two of which were Jason Collins and Richard Jefferson. #2 Coach: Don Chaney Coach of the year in 90-91 after a 50 win season only to get swept in the first round by the Lakers. 2-9 post season record overall ... bleh. #3 GM: Carroll Dawson. Eddie Griffin trade. Contracts of: Bryce Drew , Kelvin Cato and several others. Great teacher / coach , horrible GM. #4 Move: In hindsight , the Eddie Griffin trade (three #1 picks). I was excited about the kid when he was acquired but that didn't last long he went from hero to zero. #5 Season: This one is tough but I'd have to go with either the loss to the Sonics in the 1993 playoffs or the Lakers when Yao went down. Those teams had high expectations ....
Some sort of tie breaker we lost. We were the 2 seed and Seattle was the 3, but they got homecourt because of a tie breaker. I've killed too many brain cells since then to remember exactly what it was. Maybe someone else can help? I do remember we played the 1st 2 games of the season in Japan(?), both against Seattle. We lost both. That was probably the tie breaker we lost. So in essence, we lost our chance at a championship the very first game of the season.
I recall some kind of coin flip ?! That's been so long ago .... Ellis and Chambers still piss me off. The Rockets had no answer for them.
It was a quirk of the way the playoff rules worked back then. In '93 there were only two divisions in each conference. The two division winners were automatically the top two seeds in each conference regardless of record. Phoenix won the Pacific (62 wins) so they were the #1 seed and Houston won the Midwest (55 wins) so we were #2 seed. Seattle had the best record (55 wins) of the non-division winners so they were the #3 seed. The rule that cost us was that even though the division winners were automatically seeded as the top 2 teams for determining the brackets, home court advantage was determined solely on record (not by higher seed). When Seattle and Houston met in the 2nd round they both had 55 wins so homecourt advantage was determined by a tiebreaker which we lost. I don't remember what the eventual tie breaker was but the result was the #3 seed had homecourt advantage over the #2 seed. This ended up being a big deal because the series ended up going 7 games with the home team winning every game.
Isn't that like today..division winners in conf make top 3 seeds, so in WCF if 3rd seed plays 4th seed...and 4th seed has a better record but 3rd was a higher seed..then 4th seed would get homecourt?
Was the tiebreaker the head to head matchup that we lost? Maybe by 1 game? That was the year we played the Sonics in Japan the first 2 regular season games, wasn't it? I remember thinking if one of those 2 games was in Houston instead of a neutral location, we would have won one of them - and hence had homecourt advantage against them in the playoffs.
Almost. The division winners aren't neccessarily top 3 seeds. They are guarenteed to be top 4 but a non-division winner could be #2 or 3 seed. Basically, the only difference is that one non-division winner is included in the automatic seeding along with the division winners. If the rules had been set up that way in '93 then Seattle would have been the #2 seed and Houston would have been #3.
You're probably right but I don't remember. Head-to-head is ususally the first tie breaker for a two way tie.
1) Player: Scottie Pippen (HANDS DOWN!!) 2) Coach: Jeff VanGundy 3) GM Carrol Dawson 4) Move by a GM: Passing on Rashard Lewis whilst taking 3 FIRST ROUND picks over him in M. Dickerson, B. Drew and M. Turkcan. (HANDS DOWN...any other answer is incorrect) 5) Season 2008-2009: Such a great team! Yao went down...still played with heart..but has SO MUCH potential
LES ALEXANDER! How about firing Calvin for no reason? How about the Stadium and Les raising pricing out of the roof? How about Les screwing us with Comcast. How about Les insisting beyond reason to let Dragic and Lowry go to pick up Lin? In Compaq, I had Row 2, Upper Deck CENTER! Absolutely the best seats in the house. They were the equivalent of Toyota Center's first row of the first level of Luxury Boxes. Then my seat got pushed up 30' and 30' back, just to accommodate two levels of boxes, that Les has never been able to sell. We only needed one row of boxes in this Football town. smdh. As for the basketball side of the team...#33, and it ain't even close.
How about passing on the offer of Drexler and the #2 pick in the '84 draft for Sampson? Rashard Lewis was a nice player but a 2nd year Drexler along with rookies Olajuwon and Jordan would have been a dynasty.
Rox were pretty damn good in the mid 80's with Sampson on the roster. Not sure if I can believe in that urban legend. I heard about that tho. You are right and that is crazy to hear that possibility BUT they told the kid (Lewis) they would take him with one of those 3 FIRST ROUND picks, took three MARGINAL at best prospects while in rebuild mode...and Lewis went 2nd rd and ended up being an All-Star for a brief while. Dickerson retired after like 5 seasons. Bryce Drew....who knows where he went Did Turk even come over? Turrble, CD....just turrble.
This. I'll just say. The failure of the Yao and Tmac years were hard to stomach. So much potential, but both players were made of glass.
1) Player- Kelvin Cato, Eddie Griffin 2) Coach- None 3) GM- None 4) Move by a GM- Richard Jefferson traded for Eddie Griffin, Rudy Gay traded for Shane Battier 5) Season- 07-08
It was indeed the head-to-head tiebreaker... http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930426&slug=1697887
