What if... Leslie Alexander never came in and bought the Team from Charlie Thomas? Hakeem wanted out like nobodies business and hated Charlie Thomas and was on the brink of being traded at the time for Charles Barkely if anyone remembers that. Then came Leslie and he was able to work out the problems with Hakeem and we won the championships
Actually, this never would have been a problem as Hakeem and Thomas worked things out the season before Les bought the team.
I thought that they didn't really fix their differences and that it was more for plublicity. From what i remember it was pretty heated when they accused him of faking his injury and stuff.
That was the beginning of the '92-'93 season. I remember they supposedly worked their differences out on the plane flight to Japan for the first two games of the season with Seattle. That's right...when I actually started thinking about that shot, I remembered it was included on the "Clutch City" video. Eddie Johnson and Mario Elie have two of the best game-ending threes in Rockets history, but does anyone remember the game against San Antonio where Sleepy Floyd hit a last second three? I don't remember what season that was from, maybe '90. Another one of my favorites was Clyde's 30 footer in '95 to win in Denver.
I know this is kinda off topic but i just got a nice smile when i thought back to the first game at the summit against Orlando in the finals when they played "it's a small world after all" in the background of the players being announced for Orlando.
LMAO!!! That's great verse! What if Clyde, Dream, and Chuck had remained healthy for the most part from '96 till every season until they had all left? We would have more than two championships, fo sho! What if, the 2003-2004 Rockets show how f***in awesome they are to everyone, win 50+, and make it past the first round? No need to answer, cuz it's gonna happen this year! 2004-2005, NBA Champions!
yep. i believe there were only 0.7 seconds left, and he caught it about 30-35 feet out, just turned and fired. i still remember thinking it looked short and then it just seemed to speed up and ripped through the net. amazing shot. i'm almost sure the game went to double OT, and yet, after remembering all of that, i can't remember if we won the game or not. anyone know? as long as we're remembering stuff. did hakeem ever block a 3 by jordan at the end of a game to either tie or win it. i have this memory of jordan shooting from about 5 feet behind the line on the left wing and hakeem blocking it and us winning. i'm sure i remember the play correctly, i just wonder if i inserted jordan in there somehow when it wasn't really him. so did that happen? i don't really have too many memories from before the 93-94 15 game winning streak but those two are a few of them.
answer: 1. moochie would use them to dribble the 24 second shot clock to zero. or 2. cuttino would dress them the balls up in prada. (by the way... the devil wears prada.) or 3. francis would turn the balls over to his opponent. or 4. yao would lay the balls up into the basket instead of dunking them with authority. THROW THEM DOWN, BIG MAN... THROW THEM DOWN!!! OR 5. griffin would either smoke the balls or shoot the balls from the three point line.
What if Hakeem Olajuwon would have not blocked John Starks shot in Game 6 of the 1994 NBA Finals.... Would Starks have made the 3 to win the championship.. WHO KNOWS?!?!?! And Starks was on fire that night
All I know is that I really, really would have loved to have seen that first Hakeem/Drexler/Barkley team take on the Bulls. I'd been telling everyone the previous few years that the Rockets would have beaten the Bulls with Jordan in 94 and 95, and this was a chance to prove it once and for all. Plus, everyone wanted to see the matchup -- NBC would have hyped it beyond belief. The two best teams of the 90s, blah blah. Man I wanted to see that series. Barkley psyching out Rodman like he always did. Drexler maybe not stopping Jordan, but making him work on the defensive end. And Olajuwon dominating inside against the Will Perdues of the world. So my what if is, What if The Bearhug never happens and we go on to beat the Jazz to play the Bulls in the Finals?
There are so many what-ifs regarding the Rockets, but the what if the Rockets play the Bulls in '94 and '95?... that has to be up there at or near the top. Of course, I'd say we still have 2 championships. I love the earlier posts about Sampson and the what-ifs regarding him. The what if Ralph stays healthy and our backcourt doesn't discover coke?... has to be one of the biggest as well. Great thread. What if ClutchCity.com/.net had never been created by Clutch?? Our lives would be missing something priceless. Thanks, Clutch.
What if Clutch never met his future wife who was able to host the original cc.com on her student account. What if the referendum didn't pass? What if beer was $2 at the stadium? What if Drexler had talked for another 10 minutes during half-time at his retirement ceremony? What if JVG was coach when Barkley bodyslammed Shaq? What if Kenny had caught up to Shareef, faster? What if the Dream had taken a liking to Calvin's taste in clothes? What if Bob Lanier was allowed to pick out his own clothes to wear to the games Elise? What if Gene Peterson hadn't gotten tangled up in his headset cables when reaching for the Utah scorekeeper who conveniently forgot to start the clock? What if Bob Worrell didn't have a master on/off switch for controlling Calvin's mic? What if we hadn't sent Francis to the lottery ceremony? What if Yao Ming was Brazilian like Hilario and the stadium and cc.net got swamped by Yao-only soccer babes sporting short-shorts and revealing avatars? What if Mobley had said Rigaudeau is a consummate professional and he looks forward to many challenges against a worthy opponent? What if Tim had come up with an idea for promotional giveaways of rubber duckies that have the face of Rockets players, with an orange duck bill? What if it really was Boylen's wife who bit Kenny on the lip for sticking his head in her car window to say goodbye to her at the airport and not that little Boston terrier? and...for the young kids on the site...What if Colin Pine had farted at Yao Ming's first interview.
C'mon- there has to be an award for Best Post of the Year for this one. Except I'm not sure about the Kenny catching up to Sharif reference.
In the 97-98 season, Houston was 41 and 41 while Utah was 62 and 20. Even if the Rockets win that series, what basis do you have for saying we go on to face the Bulls. Its ludicrous, the big three were on their last legs. We were the worst team in the playoffs according to records, and we were probably the oldest. The injury was bound to happen, Barkley was out of shape as usual.
True, but we definitely put it on Robert Horry "regular season cruise control" that season. I don't know, I thought they would play a lot better in the playoffs. As for the basis of me predicting us to beat LA and SA. Well, I'm just going off of what Utah did to those two, winning 8 out of 9, after struggling to beat us in a 5 game set. I may be wrong, but I saw a totally different team in the first 3.5 games of the playoffs than during the regular season.
