Basically, he requested a trade b/c he wanted more money. Despite that and his age, Les still wanted him but he really had no choice. Seeing him in a Raptors uniform was a really sad day.
It was about money, he wanted more but his career was almost over and wasn't worth it. Sad to see him in the Raptors uni but it had to be done.
you call your self Mr.Clutch and dont know our best player ever was traded??? Spoiler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakeem_Olajuwon#Toronto_Raptors
Not a big deal. Lots of star players finish up their last couple years on another team... in all sports.
This will help answer your question - http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...ekxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bOUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6785,3576063 He basically left as a free agent tho
That's why I laugh when people complain about morey. Anything is better than a return to those dark days.
Hakeems ability took a steep drop off. Whether it was just age, a work slow-down or a mystery injury was never clear. It was clear to the Houston management that he wasn't going to play up to a new contract salary and Hakeem's ego was not going to retire or take a pay cut. http://articles.latimes.com/1992-03-31/sports/sp-231_1_hakeem-olajuwon http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...0416_1_leonard-armato-hakeem-olajuwon-retract “”It was a gamble and I think we lost on it,” Raptors general manager Glen Grunwald said at the time. “It didn’t turn out the way we had hoped."
I think people are making the mistake of taking this post seriously. Mr. Clutch is probably just trying to deny that it ever happened since it was a sad day in Rockets history.
Interestingly, the Rockets almost traded Hakeem (already in decline) to the Raptors two years earlier for a pretty substantial haul. It was leaked to the press (presumably by the Rockets themselves to gauge public opinion) that the Rockets were nearing a deal to send Hakeem to the Raptors in June 1999 in exchange for: The #5 and #12 picks of the 1999 NBA Draft, Kevin Willis (still a steady NBA big man) and Doug Christie (a jack-of-all-trades wing and a terrific defender) Of course, the public was completely outraged at the notion of trading the franchise's greatest player ever, so the deal died. (However, if that same proposal was made for a team's declining franchise great in TODAY's NBA, I'm pretty sure most teams would pull the trigger. But such are the times in which we live.) It would have been very interesting to have seen what the Rockets would have looked like had that trade been made. --Who would they have taken with those draft picks? (FYI, by all accounts, the Rockets likely would have drafted Wally Szczerbiak at #5.) --Would the Rockets still have traded Scottie Pippen for thirty cents on the dollar (despite his chemistry problems with Barkley) if the rebuild was underway? (Probably so.) --Would the Rockets have explored a trade for Barkley as well? (Maybe.) --Would they still have been able to pull off the Steve Francis trade? If so, would it have included that #5 pick instead of Michael Dickerson (who went on to have a couple of very strong years in Vancouver)? --Would that Rockets team have developed enough by the 2001-02 season that it would not have been bad enough to win the 2002 NBA Draft Lottery . . . and gotten Yao Ming with the #1 pick? Overall, the proposed 1999 trade of Hakeem Olajuwon is one of the great "what if's" in Rockets history. (But don't even get me started on the GREATEST what if - Portland's proposed trade for Ralph Sampson in 1984.)
Hakeem, Drexler and Sam Bowie In all seriousness after I have looked into it, it seemed Drexler was coming off a pretty crappy rookie year compared to sampsons ROY performance. Perhaps it would of gone done if we lost the coin flip for the #1 overall but then it wouldn't make sense for portland to trade that pick since from what I realise they just wanted a big
