[Kelly Dwyer] The NBA's all-time starting five: Houston Rockets

BTW, I look at a team that could beat the GSW or any other small ball team.

Dream, Horry, McGrady, Harden, and Murphy. We would drop 9,000 on them with ease.

 

5: Moses
4: Dream
3: T-Mac
2: Vernon
1: Harden


I've never seen Moses Malone play first hand, but I've seen footage of his game and was named MVP. Hard to argue with that. Dominant.

Dream at the 4. Self explanatory.

T-Mac could score at will, capable of distributing. He has the tools to play a point forward type of role if he wanted to.

My choice at 2 may be a bit from nostalgia, he was so clutch and played with such aggression. It was a joy to watch.

Harden pretty much ran the 1 last year. Midas whale.

 

That would be my lineup.

Calvin was a PG, just a shoot first one. Pairing him with a distributor like Harden would certainly be crucial.

Clyde was a very good player here, but not great like he was in Portland. He was probably still a better player than Murphy, but I admit I value the duration of Calvin's career here. Calvin also gets the benefit of being a PG, even if it was in name only.

If you had to pick a guy that played PG, who would be a reasonable pick over Calvin? Kenny Smith? John Lucas? Kyle Lowry? Matt Maloney?

 

All your rebound are belong to us!

 

No love for Eldridge Recasner?

 

Smith and Horry? Red colored glasses, sir

 

PG: Harden
SG: Drexler
SF: Pippen
PF: Barkley
C: Dream

 

Dream
Sampson
Artest
Tmac
Harden

Size, speed and 3 point shootings to match the today game.

 

Agreed. I love Rudy but Moses was 50X that basketball player. Hakeem/Moses is such an easy, no-brainer pick. It isn't even something that's debatable in my book.

 

And tmac was an orlando magic because all the dumb tmac fans kept fapping about his orlando days when he was here. It's the same dude, we got him in his prime and paired him with yao.

We didn't get drexler in his prime, but non prime drexler got us a title.

 

Harden
Maxwell
Olajuwon
Thorpe
Yao

 

Get the **** over it already. They both spent about the same amount of time in a Rockets uniform. One had Olajuwon, one had Yao. Clyde wasn't injury prone, T-Mac was. That's all to it.

 

Check kennys stats the first 2 years, look at his rocket career shooting % 3pt%

Horry did play small forward. Tmac played shooting guard.

Horry was awesome in 1995 playoffs, you could argue he was our second best player.

Definitely top 3 clutch playoff shooters of all time.

If i had to win a playoff game with a last shot, horry over tmac 400 days a year

 

That's not all. Clyde didn't demand a trade did he?

If that is all like you say, I'll take the hall of famer with his jersey retired in the rafters over the guy who is injury prone.

Do me a favor, show me where tmac jersey hangs in the rafters. I can't find it.

 

So you say drexler played about the same amount as tmac.
So why does drexler play in 31 more playoff games than tmac ?

 

What's the criteria for including on Rockets?

1. Won a championship with Rockets and contributed
2. Best years with Rockets instead of other team

 

I don't see how Moses Malone can't be in here somewhere. Moses had 2 MVPs and helped lead us to a Finals.

Is it just that he didn't want to put two centers on the team? For a franchise that has famously featured a twin-towers lineup, I don't see why not.

Given importance to the team's history and overall greatness, I would say the top 5 Rocket players were:

Hakeem Olajuwon
Moses Malone
Calvin Murphy
Yao Ming
James Harden

Can't have 3 centers, and I'd like to fill in someone as a wing player. The candidates, IMO, are Tracy McGrady, Clyde Drexler, and Rudy Tomjanovich. Drexler was very good, if not consistently great, in his last 4 years with us, and he did play a big role in helping us win a championship. McGrady had years where people were talking about him being an MVP candidate, but no playoff success (despite some great individual performances). And Rudy was a lifelong Rocket, very solid for a long time with us, but not great (though he did make the all-star team 5 times).

My team is:

C: Moses Malone
PF: Hakeem Olajuwon
SF: Rudy Tomjanovich
SG: James Harden
PG: Calvin Murphy

 

Also, I don't know if we could play Dream/Moses or Dream/Ralph together in today's NBA with 3 point shooting. But trust we would kill them in the low post.

 

I didn't choose Moses personally, because we already have Dream at 5. I know how Dream and Sampson plays together, but not Dream and Mo, just how they played against each other. I also refuse to move Dream to 4 like a lot of people are hellbent on doing.

 

Ralph sampson was versatile, he was kg before kg.