calling on CC.NET's awesome power and influence (re: '95 rox)...

Somebody call the president, have the FCC take this clown off the air.

 

A local sports talk host saying someting moronic? Who'd have thunk it. His ratings are probably slipping so he has to say something inflamatory.

I'm glad we have Lance and John here in Houston. They're morons...but at least they admit it.

 

here's mine:

hey miller... how's it going? good i hope.

just thought that i'd point out a couple of things about your favorite nba team... the san antonio spurs... errrr... san antonio spurn. yep, spurned by the rest of the nba.

the spurns only championship has come on a lockout shortened season. although that may change this season, it hasn't gone unnoticed that your team was pushed to the brink of elimination by the 8th seeded suns and faced two teams that weren't at full strength. lakers minus fox, george (part time)... dallas minus allstar nowitzki. don't fret, jason kidd's ankles have been bothering him lately so maybe he'll sit out a few games of the finals as well.

if all goes according to plan, the spurns will have two asteriks by their name. yay!

ooops... almost forgot... it's funny how the spurns have achieved the success that they've had today. everybody knows that your team tanked the 1996-1997 season to obtain duncan the following year. what was the record? hmmmm... i think it was 20-62, .244 winning percentage, and 44 games back from the lead in the midwest division. huh? oh... you're asking the record of the season after that? oh... ok. it was 56-26, .683 winning percentage, and 6 games back from having the best record in the nba. quite a turn around from such a dismal season. i've never seen a player with such an immediate impact. amazing. this ranks up there with the 1919-1920 black sox scandal. sorry.

excuse the sarcasm in email. could have been worse though. i could have made a joke concerning greg popovich's pot marks and a "spur" ... but i didn't

dang... this was supposed to be about the rockets, huh? okay... well... ummm... how are the rockets not one of the best nba teams to win a championship? (please spare me the lame michael jordan garbage)

please reply back and i promise to respond with less ellipses, quotation marks, and parenthesis... but with more capital letters (sorry... it's just the way i type).

sincerely,

omegasupreme
diehard rockets fan

 

Here's mine...

 

lol....that's cold. I like it!

 

The 99 Spurs beat an 8 seed in the Finals...what's so great about that??

 

even though Toast's reply had all the teams records listed, i should just point out we beat TWO, not THREE teams with 60 wins. just so they can't say y'all or lying or trying to make it look better. not that we need it, that was an unbelievable run. here's the wins from that year:

SA 62
utah 60
pho 59
orl 57


man, even back then the east sucked. 3 best records IN ADDITION TO the eventual champs out of the west.

 

he couldn't get the idea about this year's team being a "great championship team" from that one paragraph?

anyway, here's his response...



thanks for email

craig

----- Original Message -----
From: "Aaron" <Aaron@-------.com>
To: <juniormiller@mindspring.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 3:09 PM
Subject: Spurs Fan, Eh?

 

He replied to my email. Posted below. Kinda funny that he danced around the issue ...

I'm tempted to email him my thoughts that the '95 Rockets could defeat the '93 Bulls ... but I don't think it's worth my time.

 

this'll be lengthy.

here's his response to me:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You misunderstood me...all I said was the 95 Rockets weren't truly one of
the NBA's greatest champs...I never put the Spurs in that category either,
just meant that they were better than this year's final three.

Do you put those Rockets or Spurs up with the recent Lakers, Bulls, or
Lakers and Celts from the 80's?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and I had to respect him for bothering to mess with all these clutchcity e-mails in the first place, so here is my reply to him:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
first off, Junior, I appreciate the reply.

for what it's worth, you've got an entire Rockets' fan board humming with activity because of what you said this morning, and there is a concerted effort to flood your inbox with responses. so bully for you being willing to parry back and forth.

as to your question. . . I guess I would rank the champions in the following order:

1) 80s Lakers. . . 5 titles and 10 finals appearances in 12 years
2) 90s Bulls. . . 6 titles in 8 years
3) 80s Celtics. . . 3 titles and 5 finals appearances in 7 years

when you look at it this way, I would agree with you that the three teams listed above are in a class of their own [going only as far back as the 79-80 season].

after that, though, you've got another tier, and I'd rank these teams this way:

4) 00s Lakers. . . 3 titles in 3 years
5) 80s Pistons. . . 2 titles and 3 finals appearances in 3 years
6) 90s Rockets. . . 2 titles in 2 years including one of the most amazing runs in sports history

and then there would be another tier for champions such as:

7) 80s Sixers. . . 1 title against stout competition
8) 90s Spurs. . . 1 title against less stout competition

anyway, that's my take, and again, I appreciate your willingness to field these e-mails. if your Spurs* are able to win it all this year, they would automatically shoot up in my rankings to 7th, but their 7th would be in the same tier as the 2nd tier champions.

in summary, I love y'all at the little Ticket, and I didn't even hear what you had to say this morning. I heard it relayed secondhand. I'm a teacher about to be on summer vacation, so I won't hear you and Jub Jub again until late August.

cheers, and don't hate on the Rockets. it's a tender time for us in these, the initial post-Rudy days.

RFFL,
chievous minniefield
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm sort of impressed that he's dealing with these e-mails as cordially as he has. I guess he has bosses who make him do that so as not to lose listeners.

 

not too lengthy!

Very very good response! You must be an English teacher...

 

Yeah, I actually wrote him a similar response, thanking him for actually personally responding to my email, and pretty much saying what you said -- that the 94-95 Rockets will most likely be remembered in a similar fashion as the Bad Boys of Detroit ... even though we all know if the Rockets made it to the finals in 96, they woulda handed Jordan's @$$ to him on a platter.

He seems like a stand-up guy, not a Rockets fan, but not a Rockets basher either ... just a basketball fan. He's subjective, of course, but who among us isn't?

 

Here is my communication back-and-forth:

"Craig Miller" <juniormiller@mindspring.com> wrote:

Sorry, I just don't put those Rockets (or the 99 Spurs or this year's teams) in the same class as the recent Lakers or Bulls, or 80's Lakers or Celts.

To: <JuniorMiller@mindspring.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 3:50 PM
Subject: Rox great?

What makes a great champion? Perhaps winning with style, class, and repeating?

The Lakers won after Blazers collapsed in 4thQ of Game 7 (smelled as bad as last night's Spurs?) But, they won.

The Lakers beating Sactown on the way to #3 last year? (Both the refs and Sac smelled as bad in games 6 and 7 as last night's Spurs?) But they won.

The asterisked Spurs? That commentary by Philip smells as bad as last night's Spurs?). But they won.

How can you disparage The Heart of a Champion so large it defeated the most successful teams in both conferences throughout the playoffs, with, of course, no home court advantages.

I believe all NBA champions are great, some are just greater. The Rockets Back-to-Back need not be minimized by you or anyone else. They still total more NBA titles than all other Texas NBA franchises combined!

 

Here's his response to me. He's just cutting & pasting the same response to everyone. I guess he's getting a few emails.

Sorry, I just don't put them (or the 99 Spurs or any of this year's final three) in the same class as the recent Lakers or Bulls, or the 80's Celtics and Lakers.

 

I got a slightly different response.

I sent him my view on the different tiers of champions and let him in on the concerted effort being made by clutchcity to shout him down, and he sent me this. . .

-------------------------------------------------------

Good list, however I would put those Rockets on the level with the Spurs and
Sixers.

Thanks, and tell the Rocket fans to settle down...I've been ripping my Spurs
WAY more than your Rockets!

Craig
---------------------------------------------------------

the back-and-forth has caused me to realize a couple of things:

1) it is hard to objectively put the accomplishments of our 93-95 Rockets alongside the accomplishments of teams that won no fewer than twice as many titles [80s Lakers, 80s Celtics, 90s Bulls].

2) another reason why our Rockets are slighted historically is that, unlike the 80s Pistons, we didn't get the chance to dethrone the megachampion in front of us. as a matter of course, we all know that's michael jordan's chicken fault for ducking us two years in a row. through no fault of their own [other than not getting by the Sonics in '93 or '96], the Rockets did not get the opportunity to take down the reigning kings of the mountain en route to their titles, and their rep has suffered historically because of it. it sucks, and yet we still got to delight in a special kind of joy that the majority of NBA fans still haven't known.

3) lastly, we should all make our peace with the probability that, should the Spurs go on to win it all this year, this Spurs team is going to be looked upon with greater credibility than our Rockets, the reason being because they will have done what the Rockets didn't get the chance to do: take down the Dynasty in front of it. by virtue of beating the Lakers this year, I fear that not only this year's Spurs but also the '99 incarnation by benefit of a grandfather clause will be looked upon as more worthy champs.

it seems that winning the championship is a little like winning the lottery. it's not only important that you do it, but it's important what year you do it and what the circumstances surrounding it are.

that all just makes me want for this current version of the Rockets, when they ultimately win their successive string of titles, to do it while conquering the ugliest of ugly Dynasties, be it Kobe's or Tim's or whoever's.

unless we hire Jeff Van Gundy, in which case I'm not a Rockets fan anymore.