I tried to find what I was looking for on google, but I must not be good at it. What I remember reading, years ago, was that the fall in Boston, with the resultant back injury, caused Ralph to favor one leg over another. Maybe it was sciatica, I just don't recall, but he changed how he was running enough to screw up his knees. If anyone has an article or column from back then talking about it, that'd be much appreciated.
After reading through this thread again I am now convinced Sampson is the most overrated Rocket - strike that most overrated player in history at least by the Houston fans anyway.
Maybe by Houston fans. But league-wide, my vote goes for David Robinson. Don't bring up DRob in front of a Spurs fan unless you're feeling especially suicidal and need extra motivation to pull the trigger. And if that's the case, do us all a favor and make it a murder-suicide. Better yet, let that Spurs fan be Steve Kerr.
Good point. As sad as it is to see fans claiming Sampson was better than Yao (surely this is a joke right?) Spurs fans actually think Robinson was better than Hakeem. Yeah I know I know that sounds too absurd to even imagine but yeah you are right, they will even argue that Robinson played Hakeem "close" in that 95 WCF series.
I gotta agree with others here that the problem is many Clutchfans never saw Ralph play. Like with many players Ralph's stats don't tell the full story especially since in his heyday he was sharing scoring and rebounding with Dream and the mid-80's Rox had many other great scoring threats. What people missed was what Ralph's versatility brought to the game. For instance on a lot of the Dream highlight videos from the 80's you see him getting great dunks. Lost in that though is many of the passes including alley-oops are being thrown by Sampson. When Sampson was on he could break down D's in so many ways that would create match up nightmares to opposing teams. Not to take anything from Dream but Sampson's driving and ball handling for a guy that big allowed the young Dream to thrive in the paint. Without having seen Ralph in his prime taking the ball at the top of key and dribbling it past 3 defenders you can't appreciate how talented of a player he was.
Sampson was actually one of the greatest players to ever play for the rockets.. I think Sampson was a very good center and it's awfully hard to compare him with Yao because they have different styles.. I would say they are about the same..
I agree at this point in their careers they are about the same. But with Yao i think the sky's the limit.
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Plus Sampson at his height was in the dunk competition.....I think he might be the tallest person in a dunk comp ever?? and his dunks werent weak as well, it was very entertaining...dunked like larry nance
Yeah, well I did. I remember a quote, can't remember where or who said it (a coach of another team- maybe Doug Moe, K.C. Jones or Pat Riley, etc.), but the basis of it was that they actually liked it when Ralph made a jump shot B/C it gave him the confidence to take five more (which he supposedly wouldn't make more than two out of five). I loved Ralph and was devistated when they traded him for Sleepy & Joe Barley Cares, but to compare him against Yao is blasphemous. Yao is heads and tails better than Ralph ever was.
sad but true, gotta order tha league pass now. damn you houstonians. RR, can i buy you lunch, i'll b down around x-mas time?
maybe this only bothers me, but I still for the life of me can't understand why people can't grasp the useage difference between dominate and dominant...it really, really irks me.
Tinman, just as always, great video and great memory of the good times.. btw guys, did y'all see the block at the 2:00 mark.. that thing was really scary,, the ball hit the guys head really hard I am afraid he had a concussion!! Concussion describes an injury to the brain following trauma. Doctors use the term concussion to describe an injury to the brain that results from an impact to the head
Man, are some of you guys talking about the same Ralph Sampson I watched? I ask because Ralph was ripped a new one every other week by the fans and media because he was so inconsistent in his play. And this was before anything major went wrong with his knees. The guy was inconsistent - he'd get 30 pts and 15 rebs one night and the next night would have stats like 8 pts and 5 rebs. As for Ralph's handles, that was one of the big knocks against the guy. He always wanted to dribble the ball and be a 7'4" guard instead of playing down low and banging with the big boys. He never wanted to play like a center. One of the points in Ralph's favor is that back then, you had guys down low that would abuse you - they were real centers. Nowadays Yao plays against PF's that play the C position or some scrub that happens to be tall and could give up 6 fouls. I honestly think Ralph would've been a bigger force in today's NBA than he was in those days. In my opinion Ralph played too short a time at peak level to know how good he would've been and Yao hasn't played long enough to know how good he is going to be. The Yao at the end of last year was a force. Will we see that Yao this year? If so, he's every bit as good as Ralph was early in his career. If you ask me to choose between the Yao towards the end of last year vs. the Ralph in his prime, I'd take Yao. Yao was pretty much unstoppable towards the end of last season. Ralph even at his best was very inconsistent.
NO QUESTION. At this point Ralph was much better. Howevr, I expect Yao to become a dominante player this year.
Thanks, tinman. Bless you. DoD, of course I agree with a lot of what you said there, but parts of it make me believe you've skipped your medication again, man. You KNOW you're supposed to keep up with that, right? You're older than dirt, and have to keep those brain cells lubricated. I suffer the same problem, although I'm a LOT younger than you!
