For someone who was unable to watch the Rockets of the 1980s Twin Tower days (me), the Wikipedia page of the Houston Rockets was a great read. I'm thinking someone from Clutchfans must have written it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Rockets It's crazy that we got the #1 overall pick twice in a row. And that those picks were Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon, both once in a generation type players (until Ralph got hurt). A quote from the Wikipedia page: It's probably karma now just not wanting to get back around to us just yet. Two #1 picks in a row takes up a lot of karma.
It takes a lotta tanking, too. God bless tanking. Of course afterwards, they instituted the damn lottery.
The league has created A LOT of rules specifically against the Rockets. The top three draft order Hand checking rule implemented after the 94 finals slug fest (this was as bad or worse by the Knicks) The Barkley 5 second rule The Francis/Moochie rule: eliminating illegal defense and killing the whole Rockets offense. ...and now the Kevin Martin rule which has neutered our poor boy. Yao actually had one change in his favor which was the clarification of a blocking foul. The offensive player can't just run into you and get a blocking foul if your arms are straight up and you jump. But this rule was enacted too late to help. I'm surprised they never had an anti Hakeem rule. They tried though to get him on traveling but they finally realized he really was just that fast. I'm sure I am forgetting more conspiracies to make sure the Rockets never have an edge. Can you remember others?
I was glad about this one, because the Francis iso offense was killing ME to watch. What is that one? I didn't know about this. Does this have to do with backing a guy down in the paint?
Yes. You have to either shoot, pass, or pick up your dribble within 5 seconds if you start dribbling with you back to the basket anywhere below the free throw line (extended). Mark Jackson used to do it, too.
Others might be able to describe it better but this allowed teams to sag off their defenders and zone up. This made it really hard for ISO players like Stevie that relied on taking their man off the dribble. The complaint at the time is teams would stop running plays and run the clock all the way down before initiating a play making it not fun to watch. Stevie was the poster child for this and that rule change effectively was the beginning of the end of his NBA career.
