When was the last time you were this excited when the season started?

When we traded for Trevor Ariza the next Tmac

 

When we got stro swift



































..

 

when I heard we got barkley I immediately stated that we had just won the championship. In the end we were a nasty shot by stockton from getting to the finals and jordan. What never was I guess.

People talk about 'clogging the lane' with asik/howard and if you remember barkley and olajuwon both preferred the left block. So that was much more clogging. Having 3 stars doesnt always work out. It took a long time for them to gel and they never really did in some ways. Sure there were times with barkley olajuwon and drexler looked unbeatable but ultimately they were beaten.

All that said I feel even better about this team. I am not going to say championship outright but I think this team this year is very special. This is the most excited I have been in a long time about the team.

Thing about this team is we have a collection of really good players and young too. And guy that is just super special in harden.

If you remember even with the olajuwon barkley drexler teams one of the common themes was 'age'. There is none of that here and I think that hopefully helps us in the injury dept.

Morey has painted a masterpiece of interchangeable parts.

Not to be morbid but the 900 lb gorilla in the corner is injuries and I can't get too excited or too connected when I know we are always one or 2 acls away from lottery. Some teams are just lucky and if anything lebron and kobe have been fortunate to not have real hardcore injuries. Well kobe up until now has been remarkably lucky on the injury front.Kobe had YEARS of no significant injury.

So yeah the injury curse is our only stopper.

This team has nasty defense and scores in bunches. opposing teams will struggle to get a shot inside and will be relegated to 3s and midrange. That is not sustainable for any team to score with percentage.. usually not for 4 quarters at least. On the other hand due to the running nature there are lots of garbage and hustle buckets that we score in bunches. It is easy for us to rattle 10-15 points like butter.

I agree that perhaps in playoffs the running style doesnt fit the playoffs and its more of a half court game. But I also feel with our team over the year we will be able to hone some of that halfcourt offense enough that we can match that and still try to run in playoffs. We have a whole year to develop some more half court .. Again our team is so interchangeable and small and twin towers we can optimize as needed.
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So yeah I am pretty much as hyped and high on this team as I could ever or maybe have been. Well since my innocent youth when I knew for sure barkley was going to bring us multiple titles.

 

When we got dalambert

 

it would have to be back in 84 when we had pairing of the twin towers, but then again i'm an old fart

 

I would say in 1998. When we got Quitten coming off the Jazz series where the Bulls won the title I thought he was the final piece. However Quitten had that back surgery in the offseason and looked like thrash all throughout the season. He had one good game in the playoffs where he scored 37 and quit as soon as the fakers advanced.

Olajuwon was carrying niggling injuries allthroughout the year and Barkley was the same. Othello Harrington was the starter for a lot of the time.We had Dickerson, Price, Antoine Carr and Pig Miller coming off the bench.Maloney, Mobley, Quitten,Bsarkley/Harrington and Olajuwon as the starters.

 

you havent been excited about any of the teams going in since sampson and olajuwon?

Were you not excited and hyped when we got barkley?

 

2008-2009 waw the last time that I had a lot of excitement in terms of the teams potential and ability to really make a valid push. After that year the team was just stuck in ho-hum world.

Last season was exciting as well but more from a new blood perspective.

 

not really b/c he was already on the decline as a player and i knew it would get significantly worse every year...and I really wasn't too fond of giving up cassell and horry for his old ass

 

fair enough but the cassell horry team had run its course. I wanna say we got swept the one year.

Also I felt with barkley being HOF that he would just be that icing to put us back over the top.

I was very excited about that team. I am just as excited if not more about this team now.

 

Barkley was clearly coming in towards the back end of his career. It was exciting but not quite the same as when the Rockets had back to back number 1 draft choices and everyone expected a dynasty, not just a championship.

I was excited about Barkley, but not as excited as I am now and not as excited as I was in 84.

 

Whichever season we got Pip. He was my favorite player. I was 100% sure we'd be great that season lol.

 

Yao/Tmac/Artest years (year?)

 

When healthy, which team is better? This year's team or the team in the picture?

I'd pick 08-09 team. T-Mac is otherworldly when healthy and motivated. Yao is on par with Howard (Yao less defense, but better offense). The wildcard though is imo Scola. Current Rox don't have any PF that can sniff Scola's jock strap.

 

The young folks will never understand the excitement of getting UH hero Akeem Olajuwon to pair up with "Player of the Century" Ralph Sampson.

That's back to back #1 picks and we got the unquestionable BEST big man for each year. How often can you get that?

 

Yeah, great team. Don't forget Dikembi got injured in the 1st round, too.

 

This...but it also was followed by some of the saddest years as a Rocket fan.

 

Bonzi Wells ya'll

 

After Hardens trade

 

Can someone photoshop that overpaid flop out of the background?

This.

Great question. I'd probably side with 08-09 as well due to experience and maybe coaching, but it could go either way. Great matchups across the board.

I thought great addition too. Bonzi had beasted SA in the previous year's playoffs. Too bad he and JVG couldn't get along.