20 Years Ago: Rockets nearly trade Olajuwon to the Clippers

There was a reason Stanley was coveted even though he had ballooned in weight. Roberts was Shaq with a jumpshot in high school/college. For those that don't know, Shaq and Stanley played on the same LSU team in college for at least a year. There are stories of them battling in practice and Stanley owning Shaq simply because they could dunk all day on each other, but Stanley could step out and shoot jumpers. Shaq had no answer for that. He had legit talent and the year we almost traded for him, he wasn't that far-removed from his "glory days".

 

I love all those guys but without Dream, they're just good role players. Nobody made Clutch City like the guy he tried to get rid of...Hakeem lit the fire under management, teammates, and within himself.

 

I remember that game, Seattle was up nearly the entire game and the Rockets started made a strong comeback in the 2nd half. It looked like the Rockets were about to take over the game and win it. Seattle just lost all of it's momentum and the Sonics started looking disheartened and confused no the court. Then all of a sudden all the lights went out in the arena and play was suspended for 15-30 mins. After that the Sonics were able to adjust and regroup and win the game. To this day I still think the lights going out when it did was intentional.

 

Referring to my post above on game 7 in Seattle in which the lights went out, we were that close to meeting Jordan in the Finals and having three consecutive trophies. There's no doubt in my mind we would have beaten the Bulls - we had the perfect team to matchup with them and were beating them consistently in the regular season.

 

If my memory serves me correct we still had a chance at home court in our game with the last game of the season against the Spurs.

We needed a win and there was a tip in by David Robinson after the buzzer that was counted which was clearly after the clock had expired in an overtime game. (didn't have the red lights around the backboard then). If the correct call was made the Rockets would have got home court advantage and most likely won the series against the Sonics since the winner of every game was the home team.

 

I thought the Beirut Bomber, Rony Seikaly was gonig to be included????

 

It really does make you wonder what would have become of the franchise had Hakeem been traded that year. Obviously, we'd be without the 2 titles. But you have to wonder what would the team look like now. I would never trade anything for those years, but it's at least interesting to think about.

 

We lost our last home game to dallas and then our last game of the season was against spurs.
Also we could have won that first playoff game in Seattle!
Horry and Maxwell had 2 fast break opportunities in the last minute to put us in the lead and we got zero points out of them.

Almost 20 years and that stuff still lives with me like it was yesterday!

 

If we don't win those championships with Dream we may not have a team at this point, pretty sure the championships fueled most of the efforts to keep the Rockets here in Houston, with out the rings the fire would not have been quite as bright for the fans and the team may have been moved.

 

I still remember the family friends house I was at when I saw the Spurs game and went crazy when they counted the basket. All of the great times and the bad are in my memory forever.

 

Just watched some highlightes from game 5 of the 93 playoffs between the Rockets and Clippers. This was the season that followed the offseason in question here with the potential Rockets Roberts trade.

After watching the highlightes, it looked like Roberts really didn't get into great shape for that season. He just looked plain fat watching the highlightes. Also looked up his numbers and that was his best season. He played all but a handfull of games and averaged 12 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks a game.

 

I remember this very well. And I can tell you all that father knew Hakeem's doctor. They worked together at Methodist. My father is now retired but Hakeem's doctor told my father they could find nothing wrong with him. That's why the Rockets thought he was faking. He probably was. In the years before the Rockets won the title in 94 and 95 Hakeem was not the nice guy you remember now. He was difficult. I am 42 now (Gosh I'm old). But remember it all very well. I also remember Hakeem going off on Sleepy Floyd one day after a game (Anybody else remember him?) becuase he was not turning out to be the palymaker that the organization had led him to believe. And then of course Sleepy Floyd was traded. The muslim religion and his nice guy image came later guys.

 

Roberts, Shaq, TMac, Dwight. Orlando keeps losing it's superstars.

 

WOW that is crazy

 

What, no pictures or the dancers!

 

He wasn't the the bad guy...but he wasn't exactly the good guy either. Truth is, everyone involved handled the whole situation very poorly.

I remember this whole debacle, and NOBODY was convinced Hakeem was really injured. I'm still 99% sure he was faking. He hated the situation in Houston and I'm not really sure he ever fully forgave them (witness his continued desire to play in Canada and his contributions to teams directly competing with the Rockets even to this day). Hakeem is a Houston legend, and the greatest player the Rockets have ever had, bar none. But he wasn't perfect, and he definitely had his issues as an employee of the team.

 

this the same guy who got kicked out of the league for smoking crack. how can you smoke all that crack and still be a ******?

 

That was crazy deal, We don't even have internet back in the day.

 

Ironic, how we just let a future All-Star PG walk away for for Lin. Oh wait, Lin is already an All-Star?? PFFFF yeah right, I'm going to bump this thread at the end of next year. Right on the day which Morey gets fired.

 

I remember that time well...I was as freaking out and totally against any such trade.

You look at the players involved, there was a lot of talent on the move, but it shows us all again that you never are able to get full value when trading a superstar.

A lot of people loved Roberts potential, some thought he'd be better that Shaq, obviously that didn't happen. Roberts while skilled, didn't have half the drive to be great like Shaq.

It's crazy to look back and think what might of been. That deal would have totally erased history, no clutch city, hence no ClutchFans. I myself could not imagine a world without Rockets championships and Clutch Fans!!!

So trade, I say to you, thank you for not happening!! Can I get a witness?!?!