I would just like to bow out of this discussion with this: We are extremely lucky as Houston Rockets fans to have been so fortunate to see so many of the great centers play for our team. Ralph Sampson and Yao Ming have many similarities and a few differences. Ralph Sampson was more athletic and Yao Ming is more cerebral. Both entered the league with hall of fame talent. Unfortunately for Ralph Sampson his career was cut short well before he could finish what he started. Hopefully Yao Ming will be more fortunate than Ralph Sampson and have a very long and healthy career.
His career with the Rockets lasted until late in the 1987 season. His career was basically over a year so afterwards, although he hung around the league for a few more years trying to overcome the numerous knee surgeries. His injuries started, I believe in 1987. Maybe Crash can help me out here, but I believe the hard fall in Boston occured early in the 1986-1987 season.
The game that he hurt his back he was completely dominating. Boston had no answer for him until the fall.
Codell, I think you are totally wrong!! Nah...just kidding! Yao still has things that he can work on and I think we agree that he can be even better. Maybe its a matter of expectations between the two. Ralph coming out of Virginia was considered the next Kareem. People here just wanted Yao to be better than Rik Smits. In terms of appreciation, Yao's gotten more love this season than Ralph ever did and that is pretty sad. On a side note...I do wish basketball had a way to compare players of different eras like baseball does. Maybe compare a player's stats with the league average?
I thought the fall actually happened the year the Rockets went to the NBA championships. I beleive it happened before John Lucas lost his job with the Rockets. His first knee injury happened in 97 the same year that Wiggins and Lloyd were banned for drugs. Man those teams went through some serious turmoil with the loss of Lucas, Wiggins and Lloyd to drugs and Ralph Sampson injuring his back and blowing out his knee all in a 12 to 15 month period. For some reason it seem like Ralph Sampson had been having problems with sprained ankles prior to the knee problems as well.
You may be right. The time of the fall always escapes me. For some reason i always thought it was the season after the 86 finals, but it may have been the same season. I remember Ralph did have problems with his ankles from time to time, but nothing serious. He just had no meat on his lower legs like Yao does. They didnt coin Sampson "Stick" for no reason.
Its actually interesting that you say that. The NBA of the mid 80s was much more offensive minded league than it is today. I vividly remember the Paul Westhead/Doug Moe led Nuggets would consistently score 130-140 a night on other teams (although they would usually give up 140-150 and lose). Its very hard to compare eras in the NBA because they are so different. One thing that might be interesting to debate or to start a thread on (hint to anyone that wants to start a thread on this subject since I cant): How much more dominant would Yao be if zones were still illegal?
I remember hearing that Ralph had gotten into coaching. Was it high school or college? And is he still there? SI has to do a "Where are they now" for Ralph? It's also a shame that Ralph's number is not retired. The guy may not have lived up to (bloated) expectations but he still was an all-star and led the team to the finals.
Ralph actually served as an assistant coach at James Madison for a season or two. I think he runs his own sports apparel company now.
BTW, just for the record Ralph Sampson played in just a little more than 4 years for the Rockets. He was traded early in his fifth season. His Rockets career avg is: 19.66 PPG 10.46 RPG 1.92 BPG 49.93 f/g % 2.71 APG His rookie year may have been his best where he had career bests in rebounding, blocked shots and field goal percentage. Perhaps codell is onto something when he suggests that pushing Ralph Sampson out of the paint in order to make room for Dream hurt his career.
Sampson’s career bests and year accomplished: 11.3 RPG 82-84 and again in 85-86 22.06 PPG 84-85 2.4 BPG 83-84 3.59 APG 85-86 52.3 F/G% 83-84 Once again all of Sampson’s career bests happened prior to or the year of the big fall. Once again it appears that codell is onto something.
His rookie year, he shot around 53% when he played the 5. It went down to 50% and 48% the following two years. Not necessarily enough to prove my theory really. But his shots came further out once Hakeem came on board. His shot blocking numers dropped off slightly too, while is rebounding stayed about the same. Yao is kind of in the same situation. In fact, you can compare Ralph/Hakeem to Yao/Steve very favorably. In the coming years, this may become Yao's team instead of Steve's depending on Yao's development. If the Rockets start making Yao the focal point instead of Steve, perhaps Steve wont realize his full potential either? Hmmmmmm ...very interesting to me.
Actually, i think its the exact opposite. If Yao become s a dominant player, Steve may finally reach his full potential. Steve can score. If he was a better passer and defender, he can become a great, great player. Having Yao will help his assists and create open driving lanes. There have been several times when Steve went to the hole uncontested because Yao's man refused to leave him. Steve is most effective on the move , not when he's a standstill shooter. If Steve will let the game come to him, Yao can improve his game tremendously - not to mention taking the pressure off to score 25 points a night.
In theory I agree. The main point of my question, was in regards to Steve's mental state more than his physical play. If this become's Yao's team and Steve becomes a complimentary player to Yao rather than vice versa, will Steve become moody and bitter like Sampson did (allegedly! )when Hakeem came onboard?
Ralph would have been better stat-wise without Hakeem (but that's the case with any team and two stars-- it's my one ball theory ) but whether or not he would have been a better player is up in the air. I feel the true measure of Ralph's potential would not be if he was average 24-14 as opposed to 20-12, but whether Ralph would lead the Rockets to the championship with only him manning the middle? Hakeem certainly short-changed him of that opportunity. But from the opinions given on Ralph, it seems like he had the same playoff difficulties as the person he is compared to -- KG.
The current player who most reminds me of Ralph is Pau Gasol -- same build, same athleticism. Of course, Ralph had another 4 inches of height and could dominate a game, which I've never seen Gasol do yet. Neither one is a prototypical center, and both at times seem a little flimsy even for power forward. I saw that Laker playoff game (with THE SHOT) on EPSN Classic recently, and I'd completely forgotten that Dream had been tossed from the game midway through the 4th quarter for fighting with Mitch Kupchak. Smart move on Kupchak's part. At that point, Ralph stepped up big time and almost single-handedly kept the Rox in the game. Sure, THE SHOT was pure luck, but the 5 minutes that preceded it included some awesome playing by Ralph.
Of course KG is still looking for his one shinning moment in the play-offs like Ralph Sampson had with the shot.
There may be a few similarities but Ralph was a 100 times better passer than Pau Gasol is and Ralph also handled the Rock a lot better than Pau.
This is the most fascinating thread so far this year. One question: I remember "the shot", but don't know much about "the fall" (was too young at the time), can somobody elaborate a little bit? Sailor
It was during a game against against the Celtic in Boston. The exact details escape me, however, I remember he went up and came down very hard right on his back. In the years after, his back injury caused him run differently. This put abnormal pressure on his knees. It was pretty much downhill for him that as he kept having knee problems because of they way he ran.
