Yeah, the pj debut was a dark day for the 'chise. Fitting the Rox got their last meaningful win in the retro colors - and begged to keep them. Well, the curse is over! Look out now, league! I think you could put '92 MJ in the pjs and even he would look like a loser.
I wish I were a fly on the wall because neither Stevie nor the Rox were the same after Lake Game with Franchise's 44 on the national stage, topped by the winning assist to finish the night in high style. I believe that caused some kind of problems inside the locker room as Stevie became more passive, the team tottered and now Rox will move the MaxMan to the 2? Shortly after is when Cat started acting funny, as well. Maybe if I were that fly on the wall I would know the 'inside story'. I'll bet it's rich.
yeah b/c yao was so much better early on than JC. really, getting stripped by jeff foster, traveling, getting abused on D, not being able to post up, having zero stamina. he was clearly helping us win more than even ol' crappy JC. those 8 minutes a game he was giving us really showed he needed 8 more.
BTW, don't you love when the home page looks like it does today. The Rocket red, with Hakeem vs. Kareem picture. It makes me a little a teary eyed.
yeah he freezed out those teammates to the tune of a mere 11 assists. some people would call it willing a team to victory, you call it freezing people out. nice. then in the 2nd half of the season he became more of a distributor, really killing the team game. and how did we exactly implode? yeah we started losing more but we were right there until rudy left. you threw some serious melodrama into that whole situation. and to whoever said barkley was a has-been, wtf? he averaged 19-13 and we got to the wcf his first year, not exactly a horrible result. i mean i did want to beat seattle again sometime before i died. and we would've beat the jazz in the first round the next year being led by barkley if carr didn't tear barkley's tricep iirc.
dude. moochie could do better at the 5 than JC. speaking of whom, what did he ever do to deserve more than 5mpg? or what did collier ever do to deserve even being courtside? if you're gonna sit there and defend JC playing over yao ming, you'll won't be discussing it with me. that's just too stupid for me to even bother with...
I think that JC has every right to be pissed. He's never gotten the opportunity that Eddie has gotten, just because he was a lower pick. I predict that he'll sign somewhere else and do well.
ok i did have a long explanation written down, but then i went and checked the season stats. jc played the first two games, i believe coming in before yao both times. yao actually got more minutes in game 1. jc did not even play games 3, 4, or 5, and never got significant minutes after that. so rudy put yao in 3rd for all of two games, after only having him for a week, and even though he played horrendously in both games. it isn't like he just kept putting jc in ahead of yao (and if he did, i forgot it, and the stats don't seem to reflect it and jc got like 6 and 9 minutes the two games before yao exploded so i don't think he was backing up cato)! when you have no idea how a guy will react and all the pressure in the freakin world is on him, there's nothing wrong with a little breaking in period. it lasted 2 games. big whoop. find other things to complain about rudy for other than that.
Back on topic: I agree with those who say the PJ was the starting of Rockets curse. Never underestimate the clothes of a champion.
My only point is that it was the beginning of the end of the Hakeem era. I still believe it was a desperate move because it killed chemistry. You can't tell me Hakeem and Barkley got along, especially on offense, and even worse, the Rockets used to be able to count on good defense from the power forward spot, whether it was one on one or help. When Stockton made that shot, with Barkley looking on in dismay, it marked the beginning of the end.
Hopefully, looking back 10 to 15 years from now, we will not remember "jumping the tank", so much as "the tank." That is, the tank from last year that netted us Yao. Hopefully, the defining moment will be the day we won the lottery, with this past season's near-playoff miss just being a blip on the screen.
Bingo. I'd say if we're looking at the Rockets as a franchise from the days of Ralph and Dream, the moment they jumped the shark was when they traded for Barkley. It destroyed team chemistry and signaled the end of Hakeem as unquestionable team leader. There's a reason Barkley never one any rings, despite being on some very good teams.
exactly. it's clutch's fault. hmmm... well... i think it was one of two seasons: 99-00 season: cuttino was no longer coming off of the bench this season because michael dickerson was traded. cuttino was the spark being the sixth man. he should have stayed there. who's are sixth man now? this forced rudy to move from a center based, in and out offense to a pg and sg tandem... something that he's unfamiliar with. 00-01 season: matt bullard was the only pure three point shooter left on the team. maloney, drew, price, chilcutt, mack, and murray were all dealt away in previous seasons up to this point. without a dominant center, rudy could have at least used the dribble-penetration and kick out to the pure three shooter. nope. all of them... gone. clutchcity witnessed the birth of the one on one isolation plays. person or piatkowski (sp?) in the offseason... pretty please? sigh... we have the center back, but i think rudy's forgotten how to use one.
No kidding. Everybody knows that the Rockets coaches and players come to this site. Imagine how confused they are. There's the PRC vs. ARC battle. There's the Yao-only-fans vs. MASH battle. And there are all those trade ideas. They must be confused by all this bickering and ideas on this board. Also, can you imagine how confused they are when they are required to admit being stupid before they can say anything? No wonder Rudy can't make good substitution. He's confused. No wonder Francis can't decide when to shoot and when to pass. He's confused. No wonder Moochie keeps dribbling. He's confused. No wonder Griffin's shot is so flat. He's confused. No wonder Yao is not aggressive. He's confused. No wonder Mobley keeps jacking up shots. He's confused. No wonder Posey can't shoot consistently. He's confused. No wonder Taylor can't rebound. He's confused. No wonder Boki does play. He's confused. No wonder Collier is always in the IR. He's confused. No wonder Maddox missed a game. He's confused. No wonder Rice gets injured so easily. He's confused. No wonder TMo can't decide whether to play at the 4 or the 3. He's confused. The only guy that's not confused is Cato. He doesn't surf the internet. So he doesn't come here to get confused. Clutch, you cause the demise of the very team you love so much by creating this site. But if you asked me to choose between losing or closing down this site, I'd say keep this site everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. I'm sure everyone here would agree with me.
Well it is pretty hard to argue with the Pajama comments. When my Mom first saw them, she, a kind soul and retired elementry teacher, said "All I know is if you dress kids like clowns, they will act like clowns". For me however the point at which I knew I had to much emotionally invested in this team was when Steve missed the free throw late in the Jazz game. All star break had just ended, we were in the top eight and were three games behind the Jazz. Back to back with the Jazz, home then away. A sweep really anounced us as a force (among the bottom four playoff teams) to be reckoned with. We are up by two with the ball, about 35 seconds to go. They foul Steve. Clank, swish. Three point lead, trade baskets (or misses, I lost interest instantly) they put in the buzzer beater three, win in OT. We go to Salt Lake and beat the Jazz by 30. What really bothered me was we had our best player in a position to close out the game, and we just passed on it. I knew that was it right there.
I think we jumped the shark when Larry Smith took over. Let's face it. The Rockets were a pretty mediocre "show" all season long, but they pretty much were in it up until that point. All they had to do was take care of business against the crappy teams and they had the playoffs locked. Of course, as we all know now, they couldn't beat the teams they were supposed to and the rest is history ... annoying .... frustating ... painful history ...
And who didn't they take care of business against when Larry was coaching, Cleveland, Washington, Chicago, Miami, the Clippers. Oh my bad, that was while Rudy was coaching.
