just a question which i've always wanted to ask... during the post-championship years, '95 on, we struggled to find a decent PG (starting inexperienced Maloney, Price, Mobley, and other scrubs). and i always wondered why we didn't pick up Terry Porter, Clyde's old partner, on the free agent market. i always thought that such a combination would have put us over the top (we were always so close those couple of years)... Porter continued to contribute veteran leadership, playoff experience, and court savvy to various teams well up to last season... Furthermore, i can't help but think that perhaps Clyde might have stayed on an extra year to help his buddy get a ring... anyone know why it never happened?
I don't really remember the Rockets being even remotely interested in Porter. Now that I think about it, he would've been a pretty good pickup for us. I know for a while we were going after Stoudemire, Derek Harper, and other mediocre pg's around the league.
I think the Rockets had the inside game going strong at that time and were looking for more of a shooting PG than a true PG. Price and Maloney were of that type.
wasn't porter a pretty decent shooter himself? the 2nd option on a pretty kickass blazers team way back when, wasn't he?
some background for those not familiar with Porter's role in 'Rip City' For five seasons from 1988-89 through 1992-93, his scoring average was between 17.0 and 18.2 points per game. In Portland's trips to the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992, Porter poured in more than 20 points per contest in the postseason. He played in the 1991 and 1993 NBA All-Star Games. Porter was more than a shooter from the point guard slot. For three straight seasons in the late 1980s he averaged better than 9 assists, with a career-high 10.1 in 1987-88. With the Blazers' acquisition of Rod Strickland in 1993, Porter moved into a reserve role, serving as the team's third guard behind Strickland and Drexler. Injuries limited him to only 35 games in 1994-95, the first time in his career that he made less than 77 appearances. With Portland having turned to new faces, Porter moved on to Minnesota in 1995-96 and appeared in all 82 games for the Timberwolves, averaging a team-high 5.5 assists to go along with 9.4 points per game. He again played in all 82 games for Minnesota in 1996-97, backing up rookie Stephon Marbury at the point and also seeing some time at off guard, and averaged 6.9 points and 3.6 assists. 1992-93 NOTES With Porter in his eighth NBA season, the skeptics could figure him to be wearing down. But that was anything but the case. He posted the highest scoring average of his career this season at 18.2 points per game. In the season finale against the Los Angeles Clippers, Porter became only the third Blazer in franchise history to reach the 10,000-point plateau. He moved into second place on the team’s all-time scoring list (10,008), ahead of Jim Paxson and trailing only teammate Clyde Drexler. Among his many fine outings was a 40-point game against the Warriors at Golden State on November 14. He set an NBA record in that game with 7 consecutive three-pointers, a feat duplicated by the Seattle SuperSonics?Sam Perkins early in the 1993?4 season. Porter scored 20 or more points in 33 games and shot .484 from three-point distance in April. He played in his second NBA All-Star Game and totaled 7 points and 3 assists in 19 minutes. i mean the dude was better than any of our guys at the time in EVERY single category... shooting, passing, 3's, steals, you name it.
Or it might have been salary issues. We might've also thought that Maloney had a chance to be a real pg in this league.
Maybe he wanted more money than we were willing to give. But weren't we talking about the 95 season and later. His scoring average was less than half by that time. In 92-93 he would have been a good pickup but we had Kenny Smith and Mad Max at that time and he would come off the bench which he may not have been willing to do plus he wanted starters money.
The Rocks went after Stoudamire the hardest and almost had him (by the way he was NOT mediocre at the time... if we had him we woulda gone to the finals IMO).. but harper was a guy we went after also.. Porter i think was also old at the time.. the plan was to go for youth (Maloney) .. its surprisin that Porter played for as long as he did and as well as he has.. woulda been a good pick up but hindsight is 20/20
actually another guy that intrigued me at the time was Kevin Johnson, who had freshly retired from the Suns... After all, we had barkley anyways... would have made a team of legends...
It was '97 that the Rockets needed somebody, ANYBODY, to play point. '99 was pretty much the same deal. Starting two rookies in the backcourt that year absolutely killed us. Heck, one more win that year and they would've had homecourt in the first round.
I don't know how much Pippen had to do in not picking up Johnson,after all he preferred to play as a point forward. Kevin Johnson could have helped us out.
