OK, found out some details on this, looks like it's gonna happen. Since the 2005 team makes no mention of "Houston" on the jerseys, they will be referred to as simply "Rockets". July 2 - Game 1 - Houston Rockets vs. Rockets @ The Summit July 3 - Game 2 - Houston Rockets vs. Rockets @ The Summit July 5 - Game 3 - Rockets vs. Houston Rockets @ Toyota Center July 6 - Game 4 - Rockets vs. Houston Rockets @ Toyota Center July 8 - Game 5 - Houston Rockets vs. Rockets @ The Summit (if necessary) July 10 - Game 6 - Rockets vs. Houston Rockets @ Toyota Center (if necessary) July 12 - Game 7 - Houston Rockets vs. Rockets @ The Summit (if necessary) Tickets go on sale for game 1 at The Summit tomorrow, but only to season ticket holders of more than 10 years. No admittance under 35 allowed for games held at the Summit. For each game, Gene Peterson will be the homer voice for the home team, and lambaste and insult whichever Rocket players are the visitors. Expect Maxwell to be praised until game 3, when Gene will call him a punk. In another blow of disrespect for the world champions, the only national network covering the event will be Spike-TV, tape-delayed at 3:30AM, barring any infomercials pre-empting that time slot. Anyone else know more details about the event?
Critical moments of game 5 will be pre-empted by a live highway chase featuring a hall of fame NFL running back.
Let me preface this by saying that I a level 1 Hakeem fan. That said, I remember a Hakeem that had problems with really big centers like Shawn Bradley, Sabonis, Muresan, Rik etc. Someone correct me if I am wrong here but just like Shaq finds it hard to score against Yao, Hakeem will find it hard to do so too.
Not much, However.... The type of defense JVG deploys now would get a ton of illegal D calls under the old rules.
Hakeem had trouble with Gheorge Muresan and Shawn Bradley? If by "trouble", you mean "made them his personal b**** repeatedly", then you are right. In fact I remember watching him live and in person put 38 on the Bullets and my Giant at the Capital Centre in Landover back in 1995. He had no chance - zero, none, nada, rien - of stopping Olajuwon. Hakeem destroyed him, and he destroyed Bradley too, and Sabonis had no prayer at stopping him either. Slow players were especially susceptible to Olajuwon's game of fakes and drives - they had no chance of keeping up with him. I don't know where this myth comes from that Hakeem can't play against tall players - Yes, rookie Akeem had his shot blocked by Mark Eaton a few times - he still put up 21-13 against him for five games in the playoffs - which was an improvement over his regular season numbers (and would have been more had he not been ejected in game 5). The only time Hakeem ever had trouble with Shawn Bradley was when stick boy would clumsily elbow him in the face or back. Other than that it was first degree murder.
The type of defense he deploys now isn't much different from what the Knicks ran in 1994 - while that was effective to an extent (I believe Hakeem was held to a pedestrian (for him) 27 ppg), the players they had running it (Ewing, Mason, Oakley, Harper, Starks) were vastly superior defensively to what the Rockets have today.
Thing is, he'd foul out Yao in record time if Dream doesn't just stick to turnaround jumpers. Today's refs favor quick driving moves to the basket (see Amare). Yao still gets little respect against the mediocre centers of the league today, so you can imagine the foul trouble Dream's post moves would cause. They'd have to constantly double Dream (just to even contain him) and leave the perimeter shooters open. And hope that you can win a three-point shooting contest with those guys. That and get Wesley/Sura to get Kenny to commit a bunch of turnovers (pressure defense was an Achilles heel for that team, no question).
Present beats past, 7 games, T-Mac has 2 triple doubles and dream has a quadruple double. So says the Swamee.
Come on, Sam! You're saying an over-the-hill Derek is ten times the current Sura, who is often getting several steals a game? Remember, this is Kenny Smith we're talking about here. Do you not remember the humiliating ten-second violations? If we're talking 2005 rules, Derek wouldn't even be able to do the hand-check thing anyway.
On defense? Harper is one of the best man defensive point guards I ever saw. He was only 32 in 1994. Sura is average at best - on a good night. Also, Sura is 31, and turns 32 next month - so how was Harper over the hill and he is not? EDIT: I should also say that Derek Harper was one of the all-time great Rocket Killers - Dallas, NY, it didn't matter, he just would burn us whenever he was out there.
Yao doesn't have much problem against Amare Stoudemire, but I know Hakeem was 10 times the player Amare is.
Hakeem had huge edge in defense, but offensively, with a good PG, Amare is slightly better than Dream. His FG% is insane and he draws a lot of fouls. Sam was exaggerating too much to claim Yao would be fouled out in a second. Dream was never that good in drawing fouls. He was primarily a finesse player relying on fadaway as his bread-and-butter in his peak. Had he ever fouled out the slower Mark Eaton?
That many posts...and still such a statement? Even then, you seem to be making a weird comparison. It's like you're saying "well Jordan can outjump Stockton. But with Turbo's trampoline, Stockton has more ups."
There's no comparison to me. One is proven veteran team, the other is up and coming and have yet to reach their potential. Old team wins
This is an argument that is opinion and can never be settled, but statistically, it does not follow that DH is that much superior to Sura defensively. They might be close in age, but DH's stats were in decline across the board (blocks, rebs, steals, offense), and somehow Sura is sustaining pretty good athleticism (perhaps because he had great hops in the beginning of his career). I realize steals/gm is not the best defensive stat to use, but Sura is getting 1.26 a game in 33 minutes right now. In 1994, DH got 1.52 a game in 27 minutes. In 1995, DH got only 0.99 steal a game in 34 minutes, which Sura is surpassing. Anyway, the point is, throw Sura (w/ Wesley) in with the ability to hand-check, and I think Kenny Smith would get into trouble, just like DH did to him. The old-schoolers would still win easily. Four, maybe five.
You are remembering the Hakeem when he initially came into the league, I think. He had problems with Mark Eaton because Eaton was 7'4", 290-300 pounds, and strong as a bulldozer. It was because of running into people like him, James Donaldson, Smits, etc. that Hakeem started working on his outside game. He knew that if he had a slow player on him, he could drive or pop jumpers on him all day long. If he had a weak player on him, he'd go at him on the low block. To snowmt01, See above. It was because of Eaton that Hakeem started moving away from the basket when needed.
