Would we had won championship, had rules been changed earlier?

The rule changes are what killed that team actually. ISO ball which made them (Francis in particular) so successful died out. That team overachieved because Rudy found the "glitch" and sucked it dry.

 

that infamous Kenny Smith rule!

 

I think the most annoying aspect of the rules change is that it gives more cadence to the physically gifted than the highly skilled. I don't think that changes much about the outlook of those rockets teams with Francis/mobley. What i do think it changed is that it created a loophole for players who are bigger, faster, and stronger. The two players that come to mind are DWade and Lebron, before the rules' changing they wouldn't have been as dominant (still great players but not nearly as dominant).

Basically, they can thrust their themselves at the defender and if they get the step on them they can literally charge into them (since when is it only a charge when someone is standing still for like 5 seconds, then falls down?). Particularly, Lebron lacks many skills that mediocre perimeter players had back in the day. He has no mid-range game whatsoever, a shaky 3pt shot, and isn't as great as everyone thinks around the rim. He finishes on people but when he has to change his shot he isn't as efficient.

If not for those rules i don't think Maggette would be anywhere on our radar...

 

I think the rule change regarding zone hurt the Yao regime more than handchecking hurt the Francis Mobley era, which was never gonna be much in the first place. With Hakeem we used to draw so much illegal D penalties it was funny. They could have called it every play against some teams but just had to tone it down by the end. Yao would have been the same way.

As it is, Hakeem still could have thrived. He was the best at passing out of the double/triple team or rolling away from the help defense to still get a good shot off. But Yao really could have used the benefit of illegal D calls, esp with his FT%.

 

Of Course Not!!!

 

exactly right.

 

If anyone care to remember, the rox lost a lot of games by 3pts or less with cat and steve. Why? They were low iq high turnover guy. U couldn't trust either with decision making late in games. Now if it was a play to just go get a buckets, yeah you could, but if its a option, neither could handle it.

Regarding zones, I personally think Yao benefits now more than he would have under the old rule. What would keep a team from isolating yao and attcking him. Remember in the playoffs when he would have to check Josh Howard? What about Hassel. Not to mention the physical contact that went on on the blocks. He's not the most physical person in the world. If you allow the murdering with the pushing that used to go on down low, I'm not sure he could handle it. Go watch the 94 finals against La and tell me if Yao could handle and the pushing and tugging from Oakley,Ewing, and Mason. I still think the zone is a dumb idea. Why would u turn the atheletes into jumpshooters if you're trying to increase scoring? That was coangelo making sure his non defensive phoenix team could run junk defenses to hide sorry ass defenders.