OT had a jumphook, crashed the boards, and used that jumphook, or dunked! He was a solid, unmovable rebounder. He was a position player in the post. Very few people could move him. He passed the outlet more than he received them. That was Maxwell's job (open lay-ups off of OT's football style passes). OT's greatest asset? He's legs and huge hands! Legs of steel and hands like claws. I know what OT did well. But I also know what Grant did well too.
But if you only choose results, you wont understand why you are getting those results. Then what? You become more of a spectator (Rudy) rather than a orchestrator(Jackson). That reminds me of how Rudy used to just let Barkley "do his thing" in the post, but he never understood why Barkley got results. It's recognizing the small things that make players great/good. I chose form and fundamentals. The results follow. Then, I know why they work and why I get results.
It is quite useless to argue with a person such as DavidS. he is all style and no substance when it comes to his views of how basketball should be played. a missed jumper that came from 3 passes and a double pick is a far far greater thing than a simple dunk that came from backing one's man down. DavidS is clearly the only impartial man on this board. to insinuate that any rocket other than Hakeem Olajuwon had at any time any discernible basketball talent or IQ is to speak blashpemously of the NBA game and clearly indicates a partiality vested in the soul of only the truest of homers. a player being able to get, through skill and talent, the requisite shots to score 20 pts while maintaining a high fg% means nothing b/c dunks are the simple man's love. they satiate only the vulgar masses, who's minds are no doubt numbed from the great three-headed monster of tv, sportscenter, and AND1 mixtapes, and are not meant to be enjoyed by the refined man. all-around skill, even if the sum total of that skill does not measure up to the skills of the aformentioned man, is desired. they show the capacity to perform on multiple fronts, even though in reality they may simply mask the inability to excel in walking the path of least resistance. somehow player B being able to physically jump and dunk a ball into the rim equates his dunking ability/inside scoring ability with player A who can get that shot far easier and far more often, much to the delight of the team's scoring efficiency. and also, if statistics ever run contrary to one's opinion, simply fall back on the intangibles of life, that which can be neither proven nor disproven but which can most easily be bent to one's own ideals. and if an offense wins a title, criticize it and put forth the notion that your ideas of basketball would certainly not only have produced the desired title, but done it more efficiently and aesthetically with complete disregard to how it would have molded to the talents of the team or how it would have changed chemistry. in short, rudy tomjanovich was a complete moron and the rockets title teams are the worst in the history of mankind. p.s. - no matter how ugly any other finals appear to be, they can never be as ugly as the rockets' 94 finals, because, well, i'm impartial and since i am i must be speaking true of those finals while all others wear rose-colored glasses. thank you
David S, you are the polar opposite of a homer if you think tha t Horace Grant was some great all around player compared to OT. OT had the ability to barrell people in and shoot in the mid 50's FG% clip most of his career and was a good rebounder and defender as well. Grant simply did not have much offensively beisdes a nice midrange J; he had many seasons without MJ to show his skill set. -There's no damn artistry points in the NBA. A 78-73 game is ugly despite whether MJ is on one of the teams or not. A dunk is 2 points and so is a 22 footer.
Well all I have to say is this. The question at hand pits the Bulls against the Rox, not the rest of the league, so whomever else they beat is not important. As any Rox fan would know that in 95 our lineup was riddled with injury the whole year, right up to the playoffs. Our starting lineup only played like 38 games together, so going into the playoff the Rox were still getting better. So I am sure those teams would make that claim, but leave out the fact that the Rox did not have a complete team at the time. For the next point, the NBA is a game of matchups. Some teams just have trouble with others. The Rox gave the Bulls fits, and to say they could not have beat the Bulls is just not accurate. We had our troubles against the Sonics, we just did not match up well against them, but we did against the Bulls.
Scottie Pippen said that the reason he joined the Rockets was that they were the only team that "kick our (Bulls) butts". Rockets were destiny in those champ years, Jordan or not. Oh wait, Jordan did play in 95...
Man! You guys are blind!!!!! Kelvin Cato = 52.2 FG% Incredible, huh? Most of your post are evident that you never watched anybody play besides the Rockets. Or if you did watch the Bulls, you didn't watch other players that weren't named "Jordan." Who said anything about "artistry?" We taking about the ablity to get your points in more than one way. You can say that 2 points is 2 points all you want. But you are refusing to addresses the main point! And that is wether or not OT was a better player than Horace Grant. Let me exapain it better. Person A = Can only count to ten Person B = Can count to ten and also to twenty. But your arguement is. Yeah, but he did his job. And couting to ten is all that matters. So there!!! Blah blah blah!!!!
Scottie sounds like a politician. Ooo oohhh! Oh, wait, oh wait...yes. Jordan did play in 95!!! OOOOhh!! I guess that means that we did play them in the Finals after he got a full-season for training? No. Guess not.
DavidS, you have become a caricature of yourself. It's one thing to argue that the Bulls were better than the Rockets or vice versa, it's another to engage in the persistent, stubborn assault on anybody who even dares pose the question, in any potential aspect, be it Otis Thorpe vs. Horace Grant, Hakeem Vs. Michael, Uglyball vs. "artistry", or whatever; all the while contorting your arguments and logic in every possible way to match your preordained conclusion. You like the Bulls. We get it. You think we are homers whenever we dare even question the Bulls. We didn't need your last 3 posts to figure that out. We get it. Thanks for the info.
This is your comparison of the Bulls-Jazz, Rockets-Knicks. Funny, it's amazing how, when rodman scores 3 putback tip ins, you find it as aesthtetically pleasing, yet when THorpe scores 15 on dunks, you consider it to be an affront to Dr. Naismith, and markedly inferior to Horace Grant's 10 point contribution. I also like how you describe the Bulls secondary contributions as "Harper's swooping layups" "Longly's 15 foot jumpers" "Kerr's Clutch 3-pointers""Kukoc's finger rolls and threes", you dismiss the Rockets secondary contributions in one phrase "role players". Yeah, I guess the term "role player" doesn't apply if you play in the United Center, instead you get to "swoop" for layups. It reminds me of your dismissal of the Rockets offense that year, "All they did was hit threes"; that's correct, and all Cris Carter did was catch touchdowns. Why do you have this agenda?
SamFisher, you are new here. This is not new to me. But you are Francis for Pres are homers to the max. And resfuse to acknowledge another players (not from the Rockets) skill or talent. This is only confusing to you. Yeah, and??? Why are you confused that non-Rocket fans found it boring? Basketball IS entertainment in the end. But you defend the title with the phrase, "We got the job done, and that's all that matters." Well, that nice ear candy for the Houston crowd. I was explaining why it was such an ulgy Finals for everyone else. Perspective man!
I remember Jordan himself saying the Rockets were the only team he did not ever want to play in the finals. He hated playing in the Summit too. The Rockets would of had it much easier with the Bulls rather than the Knicks. Dream would of been unstoppable. It would of been incredible. Jordan played 17 regular season games in 95? If anything he should of been fresher for the playoffs. He looked real rusty against the knicks scoring 55. , and 48 against the Hornets in the playoffs... In Chicago's second-round matchup with the Magic he scored 38 points in Game 2, 40 in Game 3, and 39 in Game 5, but lost the series to a team with a big man who was better than Ewing. In 10 postseason games he averaged 31.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 4.5 assists. No excuses please.
I don't think Cato has taken the same amount of shots as OT in any season, especially not in the season where he averaged 20 ppg (on a career low fg % of 50%). Your point is moot. I did watch the other Bulls players, in the years with and without MJ. Grant showed me nothing in those two years to say the he was definately better than OT, especially when it comes to offense. I never said the Knicks finals were not ugly. However, they were no uglier than the Bulls/Jazz matchups. You just fail to admit that because "Jordan" was on the team.
Hmmm, that sound frighteningly similar to the point I made about Grants shot attemps and OT's (ONE YEAR in Sac).
You mean the point that you made when you omitted telling us the Thorpe played in more games that year? Oh, yes, that point. That was a good one
OH, yes. The 12 games.... If Grant played in 12 more games, do you know how many more shots he would have to take in order to get to 1226??? ...that would be 29 shots for twelve more games. For 349 more shots. Player, Shots made-attempted, year, games played Thorpe 622-1,226 in 88 (82 games) Duncan 714-1,392 last year. Grant 254-507 in 87-88 (81 games, but only started 6) Grant 405-781 in 88-89 (79 games) Grant 446-853 in 89-90 (80 games) Grant 401-733 in 90-91 (78 games) Grant 457-790 in 91-92 (81 games) Grant 421-829 in 92-93 (77 games) Grant 460-878 in 93-94 (70 games) Again, it's the AI effect. Even in the years that Grant played 79,80,81 games he still only took 733-878 shots for those years. And please don't say, "Yeah, but he didn't play 82 games, so it doesn't count..." Why do you keep bringing up the 88 year, and then claim it's some type of justification for OT's "greatness."
DavidS, are you really this big of a moron or do you just play one on this board? you don't seem to understand that all people who score much more than another person will shoot more. when the person doing the extra scoring is doing it at much the same fg%, the AI effect is meaningless. the AI effect would just jacking up a ridiculous number of shots to score more points, not hitting 50 freakin' percent of your shots. you also don't seem to understand that the ability to get a lot of high percentage shots is paramount to scoring a lot. horace could only get himself enough high percentage shots to score 14 on 50% shooting or whatever. thorpe, through more ability, could get enough to score 20 on 50% shooting. kelvin cato can only get enough to get 7 pts on 50% shooting, and mostly has to have those opportunities created for him. 20 point scorers don't have all there opps created for them. you seem to think that dunks, layups, and easy inside shots just drop from the sky and that you can score 20 pts simply on putbacks and passes for dunks. you must know how to work inside and get yourself those close in attempts. clearly, grant could not do this as well and thus was more relegated to the outside and thus also could not garner the same number of shots to be as prolific a scorer. how hard is this to recognize. what, is cato better than yao now since he shoots a higher percentage? no, because yao can get more clean shots in a game, create more for himself, and is expected to create more. no picking and choosing when you're the main man. duh. polar opposite of a homer = non-biased you have answered wrong once again. a homer would be one partial to his own team. thus the polar opposite would be one partial to all teams but his own (i.e. you). the non-biased person would lie in the middle. Why do you have this agenda? this is indeed the eternal question. to not completely disparage the rockets is to be a homer to DavidS.
