[chron]No Bull? Rockets say they still would have won like Mike

not to say that maxwell would have locked jordan down, but he definitely would have given the guy fits. i'm sure there would have been several techs between the two. man... that would have been a bad arse series. i'd give "(insert tmac640 quote here)" to see rox/bulls in the finals.

 

i miss the Hakeem days, the man flat out knew how to play.

 

Nice article. That has always been a big hole for me. Everybody puts an * next to our championships but those that do so don't know know the Rockets.

 

I think the Rockets would have beaten Chicago too, but let's face it, there's no way the officials would have let Vernon guard Jordan honestly in the finals.

The biggest thing that gets my goat is how people act like the 1996-98 Bulls were a straight continuation of the first threepeat team. Outside of Pippen and Jordan, they are entirely different teams, and the later version would not have been built the same had Jordan not originally retired.

Plus, no team since the 60s Celtics has won four in a row. I actually believe that the two years off gave Jordan an edge. He was a 12 year veteran with only nine years of mileage.

 

96-97 would have been a HELLA GOOD FINAL if we didnt lose to UTAH!


Barkley/Drexler/Hakeem

vs

Jordan/Pippen/Rodman

 

anyway to get this as a poster?

 

Edge to Rockets for Barkley's offensive output + rebounding vs. Rodman's.

To be fair, I think Chicago's long-armed perimeter athletes would have given Maloney and Threatt FITS, but Olajuwon, Barkley, and Willis would have just been too much for Chicago inside.

 

I personally think the 96-97 team would have lost to the Bulls, but the 94 and 95 teams would have beaten MJ. The Rockets role players on their title teams were mucn better than anything the Bulls saw in their Finals years.

 

Dont forget we had really good primeter shooters in Horry, Ellie, Cassell, Smith and jent during our championship runs. the bulls would have had to collapse on olajuwon , hence our primeter shooters would have destroyed them. those two championship teams were phenominal squads.

 

Some of you guys might think I am stupid for saying this but I'll go ahead and say it Michael Jordan is overrated. Yes I agree he is the best player player of all time in terms of what he achieved on the court.

But was he really that much better than Bird, Magic, Dream or Shaq??? I don't think so,Jordan was in a perfect situation his supporting cast is way underrated. I mean I hate Pippen as much as anybody but lets face it the 93-94 Bulls won 2 less games than the year prior and they got to the semi-finals. Pippen was a legit star in Chicago. Pippen is often called overrated I personally think he was the most underrated player of all time. I believe we can plug any of those players I mentioned above and they would have had similar success with those Bulls teams.

I believe he was as good as anybody but I don't think he's hands down the best player of all time it was all about situation. The Bulls were a far cry from the Boston Celtics or the UCLA teams. The Bulls were a dynasty but they weren't a juggernaunt.

It also forgotten that Jordan lost in the 95 playoffs!!! Maybe he wasn't typical Jordan. But I'm pretty sure that the additions of Ronnie Harper and Dennis Rodman may have had a "tad" to do with the the Bull's success the next year.

Bottom line is that this argument is impossible to win with typical NBA fans so don't try. Jordans popularity is up there with a god. You can't beat a god. I'm saying Jordan isn't a god just a hell of a basketball player.

And on a sidenote the Rockets run of 95 (Jazz, Suns, Spurs, Magic) is up there with the Bulls 72 win season. I doubt we will see 72 wins again, I also dont think we will see a playoff run that compares to the 95 season.

 

There have to be better photos of Dream stuffing Jordan in their earlier years. Dream stuffed everybody, but the reason MJ stands out in my memory is because when he was young he could hang in the air forever. In a split second you could see Jordan in-midair waiting for Dream to foul him and he'd just be standing there. Then Jordan, still in mid-air, would make his move and SWAT!

Every truly great shot blockers knew how to make "statement blocks" and those seemed to happen a lot early on against MJ. But I specifically remember one of those against Clyde circa '86 or '87.

Clyde went to the rack in his typical bull-dozer fashion and Dream blocked the ball into Clyde's nose and knocked him flat on his back. The ball went out of bounds and Clyde got up and got in Dream's face like we was scolding the hell out of a little brother.

It seemed like this:
"That was necessary? You didn't even want possession of the ball, you just wanted to knock me on my **s." Dream just smiled like a Chessire cat. Glory days.

 

If I'm not mistaken, we beat everyone, EVERYONE, Michael Jordan beat. I understand that will always be asked of Houston's championships. But how were those two teams ('94 and '95 Rockets) not as good as any playoff team in the last 20 years? David Robison, Malone, Barkely, Stockton, Shaq (baby albeit).

Sigh...those were the days.

 

Jordan overrated? how come someone being the BEST player in the past 20yrs or maybe even EVER be OVERRATED? The only reason he lost in the 95' playoff was because it was HIS FIRST YR back after retirement he was just getting his legs back. Did you see the Bulls from 93-95 without Jordan? with Pippen running the show?

Jordan = the greatest
Hakeem, Shaq, Bird, Magic = superstars

Kobe,AI,Garnett = OVERRATEEED!

 

I love the Jordan double standard...

when you remind someone that he played in the '95 playoffs and got beat by the team that Houston swept in the Finals, people say "but he was out the first half of the season..."

but I thought he was the best player on the planet? Surely the best player on the planet should win in a playoff series against Shaq...

 

i remember during the mid 1990s when jordan was going for the win with a 3 in a game at the summit and hakeem rejected him, then got the ball, and slammed it on the ground in jordan's face as time ran out....and the dream was right, they had nobody that could contain him....chicago better be glad they didnt play the rockets in the finals

 

No kidding... that and the whole argument that Jordan wasn't in "playoff form" yet since he'd been out earlier... I guess he wasn't in "playoff form" when he'd dropped 55 on the Knicks that year.

I guarantee that that team would have won against the Bulls in the Finals without losing more than 2 games. At most... the way Hakeem and Clyde were playing during that stretch, it would have likely been a sweep just like against the Magic.

 

Well, there is no Nick Anderson on Bulls.

 

I stand by what I said nonetheless...