Who is the most overrated Rocket of all-time.........

1.) Pippen
2.) Calvin Murphy
3.) Kevin Willis

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Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead.

No, wait, not me...you.

 

Hoop you are falling into the same trap as Haven and basically making my argument for me. You are basically admitting that he didn't have any game -- but he "overachieved." Haven says he was "our energizer." Basically, you are both arguing that Scott Brooks was a valuable player -- which he wasn't! He sucked! Definition overrated.

As far as what his being white has to do with anything, the reason it makes sense is that (mostly white) fan base has a tendency to relate to "scrappy overachievers" like scott brooks: to wit, haven's otherwise inexplicable "love" for scott brooks.

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JF: That's crazy. NBA teams don't keep a player on the basis of color. I don't buy the theory that it's harder for a white guy to make it in the league either (Wally, Dirk) due to prejudice.

If you've got game, you're going to find a job. I remember watching the Rockets, and seeing Brooks spark the team to victory. He could hit the 3, and he didn't make too many bad moves. Occasionally, when things were gonig wrong, Rudy would put Brooks in to change the pace, and it worked quite a bit.

Brooks was a pretty good back-up. Don't call someone else irrational because they disagree with you. Show me where I'm irrational, if you want. Let's see a statistical comparison between Brooks and other back-up points with comparable minutes. Let's see a PT to win/loss record relationship ratio.

Or show me where my statement's have flaws of internal logic. Fine. I say the guy was good for our team, you say he was bad. Fine. There's always room for difference of opinion. But if you're going to call me racist and irrational, that's another story.

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Why is it that everytime BC defeats a major conference opponent, that opponent promptly goes on a losing streak?

PS. Notre Dame sucks

 

Brooks was a change-of-pace type player. He pushed the ball on the break much more than Smith did. He seldom turned it over, and got his share of steals. He shot for a good percentage, mostly off of pull-up jumpers in the lane. The Rockets record at one point was like 40-8 or something similar when Brooks played the entire fourth quarter, and some of those were of the come from behind variety.

He wasn't the most talented player, and really was a factor for only a season and a half (92-93 and half of 93-94). He lost his backup PG spot to Sammy halfway thru Cassell's rookie year, and didn't play in the Finals.

As for the race card, that must be why there are so many white players in the NBA today. White NBA fans just don't like watching black guys who can play.

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In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

 

I would concur with the Pippen crowd. Not only is he the most over-rated Rocket, he's one of the most over-rated guys in NBA history! Certainly does not belong in the Top 50. While with the Bulls he continually shrank from pressure... can anyone remember a significant game-winning shot from him? Can anyone remember when he really wanted to be the top dog? For awhile after we got him, I let my emotions overpower my intellect and really hoped my previous opinion of him was wrong. Well, my previous opinion of him was wrong, as I didn't think that he could be so utterly disingenuous and classless. How stupid I was and how pathetic he is.

[This message has been edited by rimrocker (edited March 01, 2001).]

 

RimRocker,

Pippen is one of best small forwards to ever play this game. You're so wrong. The reason that I (like many others on this board) hate pippen is because he dissed the rockets, rudy, barkley and basically the whole organization. He also didn't play up to his potential here. But to say he is one of the most overrated players in history is just stupid.

Now to my most overrated player:

Clyde Drexler. I pick Clyde somewhat out of respect for Thorpe. I think that the rockets could have won the championship without him, keeping Thorpe, yet Clyde seems to get tagged as the player that drove the rockets to the championship that year while Thorpe somehow fades into the memory of most (and I say most not all) rockets fans.

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I am an invisible man.

[This message has been edited by kbm (edited March 01, 2001).]

 

Turbo.


Old School

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I voted YES!

 

othella harrington:

people always jocked him and i just never saw it...i think he sucked...

i support that by saying that he didnt really do much and everyone talked of what he was 'going to do' and potential being a lefty.. whatever he sucked...

the guy never ever ever passed the ball...

he's an nba journeyman at this point..

pippen nis the obvious already mentioned first choice...

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"no matter how good she looks someone... somewhere..is tired of her sh*t"

 

Snottie Big Nose Quitten is easily the most overrated of all time.

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I always thought pippen had a long nose. At any rate, rockets03, you are just not looking at the facts. Besides just saying he is the most overrated of all time, why not back that up!

PTS AST REB
7.9 2.1 3.8
14.4 3.5 6.1
16.5 5.4 6.7
17.8 6.2 7.3
21.0 7.0 7.7
18.6 6.3 7.7
22.0 5.6 8.7
21.4 5.2 8.1
19.4 5.9 6.4
20.2 5.7 6.5
19.1 5.8 5.2 Bulls
14.5 5.9 6.5 Rockets
12.5 5.0 6.3 Portland
10.7 4.7 5.2 Portland

I don't think any player with these types of numbers can be called overrated. Consider his last year as a bull compared to his first year as a rocket. His assists and rebounds increased while only his scoring went down. This is largely because the rockets had Hakeem and Barkley to keep happy while the bulls only had jordan. We also expected pippen to be the team leader which he was never comfortable with. If anyone should be at fault, it is (us) the rocket fans and our coaches and management for asking him to do something that we knew ahead of time wasn't in his nature. By the way, how many years did it take the bulls to beat detroit and what was the reason? I remember the pistons would take pippen esentially out of the game with hard fouls. The rockets knew (and we should have to) that pippen would not thrive being the leader but could be a great second option just like he was as a bull. And if it hadn't been that pippen forced a trade by dissing the rockets players and organization he would still be a rocket!

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I am an invisible man.

 

Geez Gascon,Calvin Murphy is a legitimate Hall of Famer.Why do you think he is overrated?

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Well then by your own admission how could you possibly call Clyde overrated ???? If it's just out of love for Otis then that's weak !


PPG RPG APG StlPG
College 14.4 9.9 3.2 2.8
Rookie 7.7 2.9 1.9 1.3
1985-86 17.2 5.6 5.5 2.2
1986-87 21.7 6.3 6.9 2.5
1987-88 27.0 6.8 5.8 2.5
1988-89 27.2 7.9 5.8 2.7
1989-90 23.3 6.9 5.9 2.0
1990-91 21.5 6.7 6.0 1.8
1991-92 25.0 6.6 6.7 1.8
1992-93 19.9 6.3 5.7 1.9
1993-94 19.2 6.5 4.9 1.4
1994-95 21.8 6.3 4.8 1.8
1995-96 19.3 7.2 5.8 2.0
1996-97 18.0 6.0 5.7 1.9
1997-98 18.4 4.9 5.5 1.5

Career 20.4 6.1 5.6 2.4




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Watching Pippen's weak act,on and off the court,makes me appreciate M.J. that much more.

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[This message has been edited by hardwood (edited March 01, 2001).]

 

That's true. By my own standards, Clyde cannot be considered overrated. But you must look at what I'm saying in context. Maybe I should have said I think his contibutions as a rocket were greatly overrated. On the whole, Clyde was a great player in the same manner as pippen was a great player. They both played well as a rocket. But Clyde (it seems to me) gets undeserved glory for helping the rockets win the championship, which I do think is overrated because in my mind if the rockets had kept Thorpe we still would have won the championship. It was a matter of coming together at the right time. The rockets had to come back from a huge hole to beat the suns and the team seemed to get better from then on.



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I am an invisible man.

 

Stats DO NOT tell the story about Pippen....
He is, in my opinion the MOST overrated Rocket EVER. Do you remember how much of a huge deal it was when we signed Pip to a gigantic 14 mil/year contract? Rockets fans were talking threepeat and touting Pippen as the key to our championship hopes. Pippen gave us a ton of empty talk about how much he loved to be a Rocket and how badly he wanted to win with us.
Throughout the season, I found myself yelling my ass off at what a horrible player he was. He was a poor shooter, a crappy defender, (he got torched by the likes of Bryon Russell and other defensive assignments on a VERY regular basis--check the stats) and he always looked as if he was just doing the motions when he played. I wanted his overpaid and overrated ass traded long before he said what he said about the Rockets and Barkley.
In the playoffs (one round and out against the Lakers) and regular season, he screwed up left and right and almost never took it to the hole (which was what he supposedly did best). When he DID try, he lost the ball. He was never man enough to take the blame either. He pointed fingers at the offense...he pointed fingers at Chuck, and he pointed his fingers at everyone who wasn't named Pippen. If the games he played with the Rockets didn't show that Pippen was a role-playing punk who would never be anywhere without Michael Jordan I don't know what would....oh wait...I do know.....he's the highest paid role-player on an underachieving Portland team....a mediocre and overrated ROLE PLAYER. As a matter of fact...name one ex-Bull that's making an impact ANYWHERE who isn't named Michael Jordan? Ron Harper is the closest thing to it, and he's playing with Kobe and Shaq...but I digress.
Pippen should do us all a favor and do one of two things.....
1) become a towel boy again (god knows it might improve his defense)
2) retire and save us the horrific pain of watching him pretend to be a star
We got a STEAL in the trade with Portland....put things in perspective....
Imagine if we had the burden of Pippen's GIGANTIC contract while he would be averaging 10 and 5 for us? Doesn't sound so appealing. Walt may be inconsistent as hell, but he has his good games and at least he's not 14 million dollars against our cap.

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On the subject of Kevin Willis....
How can ANY of you call him overrated?
Willis, remember, was signed as a free-agent as an afterthought of the Charles Barkley deal.
He was not asked to be the man or a star on our team. He was signed to be a serviceable backup to Hakeem and Chuck, and he did just that. Willis rebounded and scored and he was a solid contributor. The Rockets would never have been able to stay above water (with injuries to Olajuwon) without Willis's superb play during the 97/98 regular season which even garnered him some minor all-star attention. Willis's performances in the playoffs were not stellar, but he is still, by no means OVERRATED. Arguably, Willis was the best backup that Hakeem has ever had and one of the best insurance policies the Rockets have ever owned, and you want to call him overrated?
If the Rockets of today could have the Kevin Willis of 1996-1998, I think we'd snatch him up in a second. Was Kevin Willis a solid player? Yes...I think he was.....is he overrated? No....I doubt it

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Where do you get your information from? That is truly funny, and equally as ignorant. Did you see a survey somewhere that told you this? If the white folk like "scrappy players" then what do black folk like, lazy ones that don't hustle? Nobody said he was a great player, but he definitely added value to the team.

What is your definition of overrated...that he sucked? I thought that if you sucked, you just sucked. In order to be overrated, you had to have not met expectations at some point. Brooks was not expected to even make it to the NBA. That makes him an overachiever.

But don't worry, I value the black players that hustle and overachieve too. I would say the same things if we were talking about Andre Turner or Muggsy Bogues (although Muggsy has longevity). Admirable qualities regardless the color of the player, don't you think?

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

[This message has been edited by HOOP-T (edited March 01, 2001).]

 

i'm not trying to offend anyone here, and i'm not claiming that the NBA and its fans are racist. The reason I hate(d) Scott Brooks with a passion is the faulty logic that Rudy used to play a guy WAY too much and in key situations, particularly in 93-94.

That was a team that had a solid Kenny Smith and a rookie change of pace named Sam Cassell. Rudy mistakenly believed, for quite a while, that playing Scott Brooks in the 4th was smart because the Rockets, as someone else mentioned above, won 55 games or so and basically kicked ass from the first tip of the season. However, the fourth quarter was by far the worst quarter for that team. Scott Brooks did not lead comebacks; he 'masterminded' a stagnating offense and got worked on D as the Rockets clung to a lead that continued to slip away as the quarter dragged to a close, only to be bailed out, usually by Dream, in the last couple of minutes.

The Rockets won in spite of Scott Brooks, not because of him. I really do believe that he is the quintessential "overachiever / scrapper / smart player" that is the fan and coach stereotype / code for "white basketball player." I do not think the problem is insidious, but I do think race affects people's perceptions of players.

In any event, I think the guy was maybe an 11th or 12th man type. However, he was regarded quite a bit more highly than that by the coaching staff (for a relatively short period, however) and the fans. That's why i think he's overrated. I don't think Derrick Chievous and guys like that really count because while they may have been highly thought of before joining the team, they were pretty much exposed immediately upon joining the team or soon after.

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1. Scottie Pippen: gave this guy a huge contract and started saying the Rockets would let this become his team. He was suppose to team with Barkley and Dream and give us the best front court of all time. Instead all he did was whine like a little b****.

2. Rodney McCray: he was the third pic in the 83 draft and avg. something like 12 pts and 6 rebounds in 5 years with Houston

3. Steve Harris: He was a first rounder in 95 and was supposed to have that great outside shot to go along with Dream and Sampson in the post. His shot looked good coming off his hands but it looked like hell when it clanked off the back of the rim.

4. Derrick Chievous: a.k.a. Band-Aid, this guy was drafted with a mid first round pic. He was supposed to move Buck Johnson out of the starting line up and give us the scoring at the 3 spot that we had not had since Rudy T. Buck Johnson did not loose his starting job and Band-Aid got shipped out. Enough said on that.

5. Dave Jamerson: I can still read the Chronicle Sports now, “Rockets Draft Dave Jamerson, guard with a silky smooth shot”. I remember the Chronicle or Rockets doing a photo shoot with Jamerson, Sleepy Floyed and Kenny Smith all dressed like Royal English Guards with those tall goofy black fury hats. I think the caption read something like “Changing of the Guards”. Anyway Jamerson was worse than Steve Harris.

6. Terry Teagle: Drafted out of Baylor in 82. Another guard the Rockets drafted that was supposed to be some kind of great scoring threat. He sucked with the Rockets then got shipped of and had a decent career with someone else.


I don’t consider guys like Buck Johnson and Scottie Brooks overrated. Buck was not drafted to start, but to back up McCray. When the Rockets traded McCray he was thrust into the starting line-up. The Rockets spent the next 3 years or so (starting with Derrick Chievous) trying to find some one to replace him.

Brooks was never intended to be a starter when he was brought in here. He was a back up period. He played a lot of minutes in the fourth quarter because Rudy thought he played good fundamental ball and did not turn it over a lot. I think the Rockets success speaks for itself. We one 55 games in 93 and 58 games and a championship in 94 using that strategy. In 95 when it was not working Brooks got shipped off to Dallas.

Ralph Sampson is another I can’t put on this list. He won ROY, made 4 straight All Star appearances and avg’d nearly 20pts 11boards and 2blks during his stay as a Rocket. His skills deminished primarily due to injuries and he was shipped off. If you want to start a thread on the most disappointing player or player with the least heart then he probably makes those lists.


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The Cat. Boy was last night's game enjoyable. So much better shooting. So few stupid shots. It was a real pleasure. So how many games is he going to have to sit out?