That was an arrogant and uncalled for comment by Zen. The Spurs did what no other team did that year -- won the championship. Give it up for them. I suspect Phil winning it would have been indicative of great coaching.
To partly answer my own question. I've went back twenty years, and the only team in that span to win a championship with one hall-of-famer (or <i>future</i> hall-of-famer) has been the 93-94 Rockets. It probably goes back even longer than that, but I haven't had time to research it more. This is a pretty amazing accomplishment for Hakeem.
How do you define "worst champions"? Worst in what sense? If worst in the sense of having the least talent compared to other championship teams, then it may be true. I'm not sure. It's debatable. But we did have only one true star on the team, which is very rare for a championship team. But why is talent even be an issue? Championship is not a competition of talent. (This might be with college football.) It's a competition of actually winning games. "Heart" is as much a part of a champion as talent. This comes to another possible definition of "worst champions": They got there in the least deserving way. That could mean they got there through the lowest quality competition--bad or injured opponents. But the Rockets beat several very good teams in the playoffs. It could also mean they got it in the dirtiest way. That distinction should belong to the Pistons. It could also mean the official gave it away to them. That should belong to last year's Lakers. So, no, the 94 Rockets weren't the worst NBA champs. BTW, I don't know if the 99 Spurs were the worst champs. If they were, it shouldn't be because of the shortened season. They went through a legit playoffs and that's what it counts. But it can be argued that they faced one of the worst competition that year due to the decline of talent in the NBA. But the same thing can be said about the 98 Bulls and the 2000 Lakers.
The Pistons back to back titles in 89 and 90. Isiah is a Hall of Famer. Joe Dumars MIGHT be a HOFer. Nothing against Joe D, I love him and he was great, but what Zeke did with those teams was truely great. I think that is why my two favorite teams of all time are those Pistons and the Rockets. Both played excellent team ball and had great chemistry. Both were willed to victory by sinlge players though, Zeke and Dream.
Exactly, the Spurs team they beat (though in 95) were arguably better than the Spurs team that won the title. Since I can remember, yes the 99 Spurs team was the worst that won the title--this doesn't mean they were not very good or didn't deserve it though. I don't know how Walton's Blazers, the early 80's Sonic champions, the Big E's Bullet's champions or the NYN championship team of the 70s match-up--none of those strike me as much as great teams as much as teams that played great for some pivital stretches. People forget that Jordan did play in 95 and the Bulls lost in the playoffs. The Bulls never won a ring without a terrific 4 who could rebound and play great D (first 3 with Grant and then three with Rodman)--this is always forgotten as a key component--it wasn't just Jordan and Pippen and a couple of good shooters.
I believe seattle had the best record that year. Nuggets knocked them out giving us home field throughout the playoffs. Could be wrong tho..it was a long time ago
Dumars was the MVP of the 2nd run, not Isiah. Isiah in his prime was not the best PG in the league--Isiah just had more depth (8 or 9 outstanding players) and health around him than Magic did for a couple of his team's runs. Isiah was very, very good, even great at times, but if ever there was a case for the better team overcoming greater individuals (Magic, Jordan, Bird) it was those Pistons teams.
Talent wise that may be the worst Champ ever (SA had Mrs. Robinson, Duncan, and Elliot who was all-star caliber at one time). However, we made up for our lack of talent with HEART, DEFENSE and Hakeem the Dream. Seriously, for those 2 years and 2-3 years before Hakeem played at a level only matched by the greatest of the great. God, the guy was just a monster who could only be stopped by the fastest D I have EVER seen triple-teaming him. On another note, remember the game 7 against the Sonics that went into OT and we needed a 3 to tie at the end? The sonics covered everybody BUT Hakeem who missed the shot, it was after that that Dream started "practicing" his 3 ball at the end of games (the one to end the sweep against the Magic was sooooo sweet!).
People just remember how ugly the NBA Finals was that year but the Rockets weren't quite that ugly of a team. They had great teamwork and were a lot of fun to watch until Pat Riley decided to play football in the Finals to give the Knicks a chance to win.
Just to clear it up, we were 15-0 to start 93-94 and finished 58-24, the #2 seed in the west behind seattle 63-19. in 94-95, we were 47-35 and the #6 seed in the west. the pistons had great talent, i think i remember heypee saying they could have something like 5 HOFers from that team. not that all were peaking on that team, but i think that's what he said. i just remember thomas, dumars, laimbeer. jordan never won w/o a great SF in pippen AND a very quality 4 who could board and play defense (rodman even made all-nba defense at least one year, maybe 2 times during those 3 years). of course he did have crappy-ass centers. the bulls were our b****es during their first three-peat. 5-1 means they couldn't stop hakeem. since that's the key to beating us, who says they would've figured it out in the finals? the lakers finally didn't get great ref treatment against the spurs and they lost. they would've lost in 2000 and 2002 w/o the refs, no doubt about it the strike-shortened season was 50 games. the spurs shouldn't get an asterisk by that title (even though i would like it since it looks like they might tie us with 2 after this year). every other team got a shot at winning it and no one else did, too bad. they won it fair and square. the rockets probably are the least-talented team to ever win a title. hakeem olajuwon was a singular bad-ass back then. unstoppable on O and dominating on D. man he was fun to watch. he'll probably never get his due from a historical perspective, but perhaps a more enlightened media will come along to fully appreciate his accomplishments in the future.
Just look at it this way, the starting 2 on the Spurs championship team was an older version of the 7th or 8th man on the Rockets 94 title team and the Spurs starting PG wasn't good enough to make the Rockets squad a few years before. The Rockets team was more talented at the top (Hakeem) and through at least 8 deep.
Mario in the Rockets 95 season was more athletic and better than the 99 Mario--even if the 95 stats didn't show it because the Rockets were deeper and better. I will agree maybe the 94 Mario was still feeling his role, but also remember the reason we were so elated to get him that year is that he was already a very tough, explosive, versitle and athletic player for the Warriors. Thus the 99 Mario (as with the 94 Mario) would have at best been the 7th man on the 94 team--no way he starts over Maxwell or gets off the bench before Cassell. The 94 Rockets team, especially in their backcourt, was just more talented 4 deep than the Spurs 99 backcourt was. The overall talent and depth of the Rockets was just better. The overall talent and depth of the 95 Spurs might have been better than the 99 Spurs too.
avery johnson averaged 9.7 pts and 7.4 asts on 47.3% shooting that year. he was a quality PG. david robinson wasn't the david robinson of 94-95, but he was still damn good and a huge defensive and rebounding factor. and he could've still scored, he just deferred (and correctly so) to duncan. drob was better than our second best player in 93-94. sean elliot was a very good sf. horry was also very good for us in 93-94, but i don't have stats on either to accurately compare. i guess that's why they were almost traded for each other. i definitely wouldn't say our 7th and 8th guys were starting for the spurs. the spurs may not have been loaded, but they weren't starving for talent. and considering drob gave them two all-star quality players while we had one, they could still edge us out.
Avery Johnson < Kenny Smith Avery Johnson < Sam Cassell Avery Johnson > Scott Brooks David Robinson was an allstar then because of the same reason Yao is one now, lack of depth at the position. The reason why the got Tim Duncan to begin with was because of his back injury of years before; he was not the same player afterward.
I can't believe that you actually think the regular season is the same as the playoffs (finals). It means nothing what you do in the regular season. 94-95 season is proof of that. The Bulls had better offense (dynamic and NOT predictable), Jordan (who was better than Hakeem) and more offensive depth. The 95 Rox team might have had a chance. But not the 94 team. No way. Scoring for that team was like pulling teeth. Ugly, no flow, and depended on defense. Much more so than even both Piston teams (89, 90). The Piston had a better defense than the 94 Rox. And a better offensive *team* (sad, but true). But remember, the Pistons defense HAD to have the BEST defense. They had to stop the Lakers, Bulls and Celtics!. We had to stop the Blazers, Suns, Jazz and Knicks. Comparibly, they were NOT offeseive juggernauts. Your right about Hakeem, though. He carried the 94 team. But that's why the "team" was so ugly on offense. It AWAYS when through Hakeem. The rest of the team were basically "spot up shooters."
It's not about whether your 6th guy is better than someone else's 6th guy, in the end. Basketball by nature is tiered...and its virtually impossible to win without at least 2 players in that top tier. The 1st Rockets championship probably was the least talented ever, in that respect. They had exactly one guy who was in the top tier. It's a testament to how dominating Hakeem was that he was able to defy history in that respect. Yeah, some of our role players were as good or better than the role players on other championship teams...but the key element, the 2nd star nobody but Hakeem has been able to win without in the last 35 years, was missing. David Robinson would have dominted anybody on our team but Hakeem the year the Spurs won it...
The 1994 championship series was the last great finals, 7 games and a O.J. chase. The 1995 run was the greatest ever, each series was insane until the finals sweep against Shaq and Penny---
