Revisionist History - Simmons mentions Rockets

I would make that trade 10 times out of 10. After Cassell and Horry reach their primes, Dream and Clyde would have already been retired.

 

That's when I became a Rockets fan

 

absolutely!!!
Western Conference Finals plus finally beating Seattle > no playoffs or 1st round exits
barkley was a monster on the boards

Plus, even though we lost, that was a classic series.

 

I think it's an apt comparison, with one exception IMO: this Celtics 'trio' has more left in the tank and should have more longevity (health-wise). The real challenge for the Celtics is to keep all three guys happy and develop a good team chemistry around them.

Even though he has a bit of that infamous NE 'snobbery', Simmons is a sharp basketball mind and he is a great, great writer; truly gifted...

 

I wouldn't have made the trade then. Nor ever. Barkley was past his prime. I do appreciate his playing for the Vet minimum to try to help the Rox win a championship though.

 

i hear ya! i became a rockets fan when sir charles was brought here. and from then on, i supported the whole team regardless of who the players are.

 

never agreed with getting barkley....we needed a better point guard, NOT another post option.

but at least chuck was good on the boards and getting to the free throw line.

But every touch he took was one less for hakeem.

i'd rather go into hakeem first.

 

Me too.

 

It was a great trade at the time -- finally got us past the Sonics.

 

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CHUCKSTER FOREVER!!!!!!

 

That was a great article to post. I forgot the details of how good the Rockets trio was. It is a good comparison. Look at their stats! Pretty impressive.

I wish the Celts veterans luck. Rondo is supposed to be talented and as someone else pointed out I believe the Celt guys have a bit more left in the tank, so they should be players in the East for two or possibly three years.

It is also probable that another veteran role player or two will try to tag along for the ride. Good thing we signed Steve or maybe he would have joined!

 

Hell yeah we needed Barkley. The Sonics consistently destroyed us with their frontcourt and Shawn Kemp kept running over us day in and day out. They were the one team I was truly terrified of. I'd rather see the Rockets play the Bulls then see them play the Sonics. We had zero answer for that team.

Barkley delivered on what we needed, he got us past Seattle. Unfortunately, Utah kind of messed things up. Hakeem was still getting his shots, he was clearly past his prime at that point. We had no chance without Barkley.

We mortgaged our future with that trade and its part of the reason why we had nearly a decade of mediocrity after that move. But who's to say we wouldn't have fallen off anyway (we probably would have)

 

I love the Chuckster ... but, IMHO, it was a very bad trade for Houston.

Here's why:

1) We traded for Chuck to get past Seattle, but we didn't make it past Utah. We could have kept Horry and Cassell. If we hadn't traded Cassell, we wouldn't have signed Maloney, and been stuck with his horrendous contract. Maloney was totally schooled by Stockton, so we didn't win it all. Perhaps we could have won it all with Cassell and Horry, but even if we didn't, we'd have kept Horry and Cassell for the long term.

2) McDeyss: The next year, he was a FA, and was interested in the Rockets, but didn't want to come because we were without a PG. McDeyss would have been our missing piece.

3) Drexler: He retired the next year, because he could not stand Chuck. He was in great shape, and had a few more good years in him. With Dream/McDeyss/Horry/Drexler/Cassell, I think we would have won it again, even if we skipped a year.

4) Pippen: With Drexler here, we would never have traded for Pippen, nor been stuck with all those players we got rid of him for.

5) Lewis: Without Pippen, we would have taken Lewis. We didn't want to offend Pippen, so we didn't take Lewis. Drexler would have been thrilled to take him under his wing.

6) McGrady: Toronto offered us a trade of Dream for Willis, Christie, #5, #12 and McGrady, if we'd have thrown in Dickerson or Drew. We could have taken Shawn Marion and Ron Artest with those picks.

Imagine in 1999, we could have transitioned from Dream and Drexler to a team of:

McDeyss/Willis/Harrington
Horry/Thomas/Bullard
Marion/McGrady/Mack
Lewis/Christie/Mobley
Cassell/Drew/Maloney

That would have been one hell of a team, without all the drama we went through. We wouldn't have gone through dealing with Shandon Anderson, Cato, Norris, and all those bad contracts.

Yeah, its true, we wouldn't have gotten Francis, since he'd have wanted to start probably, and we wouldn't have hit bottom and gotten Yao, but we'd have been contenders this whole time with a young McGrady, not the injured one we have now.

I bet we'd have won a few more championships with that crew.

I know ... woulda coulda shoulda ... but, that trade set us on a bad path.

 

I can't think of a more silly post. None of this was guaranteed. LOL.

 

/\/\/\/\/\

What's the point of these counter-factual posts. None of those things happened. We could have traded Sampson for Drexler at the #2 pick in 1984 and created the greatest dynasty in basketball history.

And it didn't happen either...

Fact of the matter is that we needed a power forward to get past the Sonics and we got one and we won. Ok, we didn't win the championship but the window was closing anyway.

You can twist and spin and concoct alternative universes in which the Rockets win 50 straight championships but none of that is a guarantee and neither are the assertions in your post. We weren't winning with Horry and Cassell and we needed a top-tier PF and we got one.

End of story.. it was a gamble and we didn't hit the jackpot. But you still make that trade every chance you get.

 

Imagine Dream, Clyde and the Chuckster against the 2008 Eastern Conference. Wow....we could have ran Othella Harrington at the point and still made it to the Finals blindfolded.

 

LMAO...nice, Sherlock

 

Well said. Tinman posted this in the other thread, almost brought me to tears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsHeaIIvZwE

Btw, how do you embed videos into your posts?