Two words for you: Chuck Nevitt. 7'3" former Rocket who won like 4 championships with the Lakers. I, as most people on this BBS love Barkley. There will never be a guy as short as him dominate on the glass. He was like 6'4 1/2" and still managed to muscle out like 12-13 boards per night. Some of ya'll seem to have forgotten that in '96 we got SWEPT by the Sonics. The next year with Barkley we finally beat them, and we came within a heartbreaker of what would have been one of the most anticipated NBA Finals ever. Barkley could have been as good as Jordan, IMO if he conditioned and trained harder instead of drinking and going to titty bars every night (except in SLC). Be that as it may, he is a definite hall of famer and one of my favorite players of all time. Some argue about Sam Cassell. Who would you rather have running the show, Cassell or Francis. Sam is not a good point guard despite his high assist numbers. He has quarreled with George Karl on numerous occasions because of his halfcourt offense. As for Horry, anyone who watches NBA on NBC knows that the guy has a tendency to put on disappearing acts on a regular basis.
So Horry was not a star... on that we agree. He was a piece of our puzzle, then he was a piece of the Laker puzzle. On any team, there are more pieces to the puzzle than stars. He is one that we should not have let get away, in my opinion. Outside shooting and defense. Wow! No doubt, he never fully lived up to his abilities, but that doesn't make me not want him on my team. I hate it when the Rockets give up on their younger players. We cut James Silas to keep Johnny Egan. We ship out Horry and Cassell. Signing Rick Barry cost us John Lucas. I know it wasn't a trade, but who of comparable value could have been sent over by league order? We probably knew we were losing him if we signed Barry. How many years between when Cassell left and Frances arrived? I'm not saying that any of these players could never be moved. I think selling out the future for the present seldom works anyway and is also a steep price to pay.
NJ, Sampson's per game rocket numbers attained from CC.net. Min 36.285246 REb 10.259016 Ass 2.9114754 Ste 1.042623 Blk 1.8229508 Points 19.947541
Horry was everything. He was a major piece to the Rockets success. We were miserable before he came along and took us to the next level.
The only thing I wish we did differently with the Pippen trade was INSISTING that we got Oneal instead of Cato. I got to believe it easily could have been Oneal instead, Pippen was still highly thought of then. The Barkley trade was a good trade. Would have been a great one if the 3-way with Denver wasn't nixed by the league before the eventual trade went down. By then, Hakeem and Clyde needed help more than our role players could provide, and it was a heck of good run at another ring. Along with Horry, Steve Kerr and Ron Harper have 4 or so rings too, but I don't think those players would have helped us that much either. Horry's last years with us and his time in Phoenix he wasn't very productive. Horry is a pretty good role player with the right team, nothing more. The Hayes trade seems to fit the question. Also, what did we get for sending Moses to Phily? Granted I was happy because Phily was my 2nd favororite team and got a ring with one of the most dominant teams ever (or 1 year), but I don't remember what Houston got in return. Maybe enough suckyness to get <i> the right </i> to draft Sampson
Without the Barkley trade, Hydra would never have become a CC.net BBS poster. That right there makes it worthwhile.
so RichRocket are you saying we shouldnt trade decent role players/potentially good young guys for the ultimate superstar, esp if we are a veteran team with our window of opportunity closing fast? Reason I ask, is because if you wont be willing to include the robert horrys of the world to get a superstar you never can rebuild a franchise(ie..the time to acquire horrys is after you get the cogs in place, like on the present team we got francis,mobley then complemented them with mo, moochie, rice anfd in the future the francis,mobley,mo,griffin combo gives the rockets a rarity in the NBA-4 excellent scoring weapons, 5 if jackson comes...)
DVauthrin: We'll never agree because right off the bat you are characterizing CB as the ultimate superstar. Maybe once upon a time but never in The PJs. We acquired Frances and Griffin before they ever played an NBA game. This would have been analgous to acquiring Barkley before he ever signed with the Sixers. I stated that I would have been happy to have Charles for his career here. I love the guy and I used to love his game. He became a black hole on offense with us. When Charles started back-dribbling toward the iron, I could pee and get a beer and get back in time for the fadeaway. In acquiring CB, we jettisoned young maturing talent for a star passing/past his prime. We shouldn't do that again. In acquiring Franchise we get a unanimously acclaimed talent while give up lesser talent (Dickerson) and role players (Othella et al). In acquiring Griffin we give up three lesser rookies at least one of whom we probably had no roster space for (at least that was the thinking at the time!). No doubt, we have been unbelievably lucky in our latest rebuilding effort to pull off deals for Franchise and Griffin and to draft a guy like Mobeley when we did. Plus we got MoT. Moochie came out of nowhere. Collins and Langhi will probably be contributors in due time. Rice is a great patch. T Mo plays like a Rocket. None of those acquisitions cost us players (unless you want to count Pryzbilla!)
Those knocking the Barkley trade, do you believe a team of Cassell/Pippen/Olajuwon/Horry/Dickerson makes us better? I'm in the middle about this trade. I think Barkley brought toughness to the team, and it was needed. He also helped us beat Seattle. I think we were a better team with Barkley, imo. Besides, fate has a way of making things work out. If Cassell was still here, would we have aquired Francis? I know not everyone loved the Francis trade, but I think he's gonna be better than Sam in the next two years.
People are against the Francis trade? I wasn't on this board at that time. Surprise. I checked the historical rosters. It looks like there was a 3-year span between Cassell and Francis. Who played point guard then?
Maloney, E-mail, Livingston, and Brent Price. Price was the guy I was pinning my hopes on. To his credit, when Brent was healthy, he did play well. Matt was a spot up shooter. Needless to say, none of these guys are in Sam or Steve's class.
I don't know what we are really discussing here. Half of the pro-Barkley trade people are arguing that we got close enough with Chuck, that we "gave it a good shot", etc. The 95 championship team was dismantled one year after they won the title. They got blitzed by Seattle with a banged-up Drexler, Cassell, and Elie (3 key contributors). I don't know that we would've won the next year with those guys healthy, but it certainly wouldn't have been a sweep. And in building a team that could beat the Sonics (our previous nemesis) we lost our ability to beat the even-more hated Jazz, who we used to own. And the Sonics quickly disintegrated on their own by 97. The other half of people are arguing around a hypothetical that can never be proven: that somehow keeping Robert and Sam meant never getting Cuttino and Steve. You can't hypothesize with any degree of reliability as to who the team would have had in 1998, much less now, without making the decision to trade for CB4. But I still think the roster I listed in my previous post (E.T.-Cuttino-Rashard-Othella-MoTay-Horry-Dickerson-Thomas-Mooch-Chucky) would have been a powerful one, and that doesn't involve any free agent signings after Drexler left.
Huh? 94-5: 10.2 ppg, 3.4 apg, 5.1 rpg 95-6: 12 ppg, 4 apg, 5.8 rpg 96 (pheonix): 6.9, 1.7, 3.7 So, he was still improving with us, had his carreer year in his last season, and then was bad the next year.
True points Rimbaud. I guess my memory of him his last season with us was jaded by what I remember as an atrocious playoff effort against the Sonics in 96 (made Detlef look like an all-NBA player), and also by his similarly atrocious 96-97 year with Pheonix. I believe instead of trading directly to Phoenix we intially included Denver (where Mutumbo would go to Phoenix). The league nix it because word got around the negotiations occured at a time they were not allowed by the league. In the former trade, we would have not haved to included Cassell, Horry, Bryant and Brown to get Barkley (I don't remember the particulars beyong this right now, but do remember it was fewer players involved than those 4). About that time we also lost out on Derick Harper via FA because he didn't think we were getting Barkley (then we focused on BP instead which obviously did not work out), I don't remember if Harper's decision to sign elsewhere occured during the limbo period when the Denver-Hou-Pho trade was nixed though. Yep, E-mail would be Emanuel Davis. He looked like a real find but based on his limited success post injury recovery he probably was never going to be a 1st rate starting PG. Losing him did hurt us though because he would have been our best defensive PG to throw on Stockton and Payton, I think we resorted to Clyde on the latter most of the time.
I tell you some of you guys really crack me up! You honestly think that trading for Barkley was bad? It's like others pointed out, the Rockets never would have gotten by the Sonics without CB. I don't give a rat's a** about him and Clyde; superstars with egos will clash with others--that's just a given and something you accept. Barkley's problem is that he was too old as was Drexler and Olajuwon. Hell, the three of them were only on the court together for a total of 30 games, and in those 30 games the Rockets were 26-4. They still wound up winning 57 games, 1 less than the all-time single season record of 58 by the '93-'94 Rockets. If the Big 3 had been able to stay healthy all season, the Rockets finish with the best record in the West not the Utah Spazz. Then they would have made it to the NBA finals to play Da Bulls, and most people who followed the Rockets knows that Da Bulls always had problems with the Rockets in the regular season. But alas, it was not meant to be. So, we gave up Sam Cassell and Robert Horry (Chucky Brown and Mark Bryant are immaterial). Big freakin' deal! Horry has proven that he is nothing more than a role player and I would definitely rather have the Franchise over Cassell. People can say what they want--we all knew that the Rockets would have to rebuild somewhat with the aging of Olajuwon, Drexler, and Barkley. For them to win 45 games in the 2nd year of a major rebuilding plan and almost make the playoffs is pretty damn impressive. I guarantee you that with Cassell and Horry starting over Franchise and Shandon Anderson (now replaced by Glen Rice), last year's team is lucky to win 40 games. Barkley trade bad?? No, not making the Barkley trade is bad!
I guess this site must be full of new rocket fans. Does anyone remember the reigning MVP Moses Malone being traded for a bunch of scrubs. Moses only avg 24pts and 20reb then was traded for iavaroni and some other scrub. Not only was he dominant and the reigning MVP of the league, the next year the Rockets had the worst record in the league and moses was the MVP of the league and finals.
