Adaptable Popovich is among NBA's best

[Whottt]

Of winning a le? No. I don't think they had a snowballs chance in of winning a le without Hakeem.

I do think they could have been a playoff team without him.

Kenny Smith, Otis Thorpe, Matt Bullard, Vernon Maxwell...were all on that 90-91 team that was the best team in Rockets history to that point, in terms of W-L...and most of it happened after Hakeem was injured...

Add Mario Elie, Robert Horry and Sam Cassell to that mix? Easy playoff team.

Otis Thorpe was an All Star you know, a former 20 and 10 player......And Sam Cassell killed us in game 6 the following year. Cassell's pretty good under pressure...just ask Garnett and his MVP award. We already know what Mario Elie did for our own franchise as far as teaching us how to win.

[Nikos]

Thorpe was solid, but I think they played a little over their heards in those 26 games Hakeem was out.

Give that team 3-4 seasons without Hakeem, and they don't start making the playoffs until they get Cassell, Elie, Horry. Even then they would just squeak in at best.

Somewhere between a 30-40 win team without Hakeem, but the 40 wins is being nice.

They had some great defensive role players, who could hit threes (clutch ones at that).

But without Hakeem, those clutch three point opportunities don't even present themselves.

My guess is they would be something like 34-48 without Hakeem, maybe worse (from 1990-1993).

Keep in mind there were a few seasons Hakeem did play, did do well, and they still barely got in the playoffs. Took a while before the Rockets made their pieces fit (Thorpe, Max, Smith), followed by Elie, Horry, and Cassell.

A team filled with good role players, but no all star's alongside Hakeem by the time they were ready to compete for the le. Thorpe was borderline in those times, Maxwell was inconsistent, Smith was basically a short SG, and Horry and Cassell were still young.

[Whottt]

Insteresting stuff...Worst teams the following HOF'ers played on(player must have played in at least 75 games and been healthy for the playoffs)

The worst record for a Charles Barkley team: 35-47.

1991-92 Sixers. No playoffs, with Barkley playing in 75 games.


Worst record for a Jordan team(Other than old Jordan): 38-44.

1984-85 Bulls. 1-3 First round exit with Jordan playing in all 82 games.

Or how about the team that had both Michael Jordan and George Gervin on it that got it's ass kicked out of the playoffs in the first round? Swept.

Worst record for a Hakeem Olajuwon team: 41-41.

1989-90 Rockets. 1-3 First Round Exit. Hakeem played in all 82 games.

Worst record for a Shaq O'Neal team: 41-41.

1992-93 Magic. No playoffs. Shaq played in 81 games.

Worst record for a Wilt Chamberlain team: 31-49.

1962-63 SF Warriors. No playoffs. Wilt playing in 80 games.

Worst record for Kareem Adbul Jabbar team: 40-42.

1975-76 LA Lakers. No playoffs. Kareem played in all 82 games.

Worst record for a Karl Malone team: 42-40.

1985-86 Jazz. 1-3 first round exit. Malone played in 81 games(and with John Stockton and Adrian Dantley).

Now we go for the biggies...

Worst record for a Bill I wiped my ass with Hall of Famers Russell team: 48-34.

1968-69 Celtics. NBA Champs. Russell played in 77 games.

Worst record for a Larry Bird team: 52-30.

89-90 Celtics. Second round exit. Bird played in 75 games.

Worst record for a Magic Johnson team: 57-25.

1988-89 Lakers. Lost in finals to Pistons. Magic played in 79 games(and was injured IIRC).


and now..

Worst team of David Robinson: 49-23.

92-93 Spurs. Lost in the second round. Robinson played in all 82 games.

This was the year the Spurs let Strickland walk, that TC destroyed his knee and career in a pick up game...the year Willie Anderson developed shin problems.

Do not tell me that this was a good team. This team had 3 rookie coaches in 1 year, it had career altering injuries to it's two best players other than Robinson and it let it's starting PG walk to replace him with one with no perimeter shot.


Yet in all of that...the only people that ever had a better sustained level of succes through thick and thin...are Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Bill Russell(and DR J in his NBA career
)...And by the way...this goes for just about all players in a span of 10 years.

The difference between those guys and Robinson?

They played for the NBA's most historic franchises...Drob played for an ABA refugee in the NBA's smallest market.


The multiple HOF'ers they were surrounded with for virtually their entire careers.

Russell never had less than 3 and Johnson and Bird both had at least two for nearly every other year of their careers.

I assure you...there were no other HOF'ers on that 92-93 Spurs team.

There is everything to indicate that Drob carried teams among the best, if not the best, of any player in NBA history. 5 IBM awards seem to agree with this fact.

Passionate..or not.

[Whottt]

I'm sorry but acting like first(Manu Ginobili) and second(Tony Parker, essentially Stephen Jackson) year players are a liability is not going to go very far with me.

Bottom line, take Hakeem and Jordan off their teams, they won.

Take Drob off of his team and it lost badly.

The 94-95 team was essentially the same team that won a le in 98-99.

Subtract Rodman,, Person, and Del Negro and add Elie, Duncan and JJ.

What you have there are two teams one that was a finalist and one that was a WCF that lost to the eventual champs 4-2...

Take Drob out of that mix and replace him with Dominique Wilkins, before adding Duncan and it was the worst Spur team in history.

The only team in NBA history to become an NBA champ without having someone who either was, or will be an All Star guard.

[IcemanCometh]

Or how about the team that had both Michael Jordan and George Gervin on it that got it's ass kicked out of the playoffs in the first round? Swept.

you mean the one that jordan missed almost the entire year after breaking his foot, then came back and scored 63 pts on one of the best teams of all time the 85 celtics in the playoffs. that team?

[Whottt]

Yup. Obviously he didn't have enough passion to win or else he would have won.

[IcemanCometh]

David Robinson the perfect basketball player, never a bad word to be said about him.


unless one is to compare him to the coyote

[Whottt]

And seriouly Ice, as bigoted as you are about white guys I wouldn't think you would make such a big deal about Jordan scoring 63...I mean he was being guarded by a white guy.

[From Way Downtown]

All I know is that Hakeem beat David a total of 12 times in his career...16 if you include that series...They played in the same division for 12 years...and they played each other in 13 of those years...Yet Hakeem won 1/3rd of the time he faced David Robinson...he averaged less than 1 win per year when they ususally met 4 times per season.

This, to me, is one of the more interesting thoughts in this thread: after a series of posts claiming that Hakeem's supporting cast was substantially better than Robinson's, you post fairly conclusive evidence to say that the Spurs teams were much, much better than the Rockets' teams during the Olajuwon-Robinson era. You can't have it both ways, Whottt -- you can't say that Hakeem's teams were better overall, and then point to evidence that shows that to be untrue.

You've also omitted some fairly substantial history in making a few of your points. The bulk of your proof as to the Spurs being far worse without David is their record during 1996-97 (a disproportionate number of Robinson-less games come from that season). You point to the demise of the Spurs in 1996-97 as being solely attributable to David Robinson's injury, but you might remember that the Spurs were only 3-3 with Robinson that year (again, your overall number for 1996-97 is way wrong -- the Spurs were actually 17-59 without Robinson in 1996-97).

But you might also remember that a big chunk of the team's intended rotation missed the majority of the season. Sean Elliott (who was coming off an all-star season in 1995-96) played in only 39 games in 1996-97, and none after February 5 (the Spurs were 9-34 in the games Elliott missed); Chuck Person didn't play in any games; Charles Smith played in only 19 games (and was terrible when he played); Vinny Del Negro missed 10 games and Avery Johnson missed 6 games. Adding in David's 76 absences, the Spurs were without 6 of the players intended to be in their top 9 for a total of 280 aggregate games.

While David's injury was certainly a significant factor in that season, it's not as if the Spurs suffered from that alone, and trying to argue that the 1996-97 Spurs were representative of the Spurs between 1989-90 and 1995-96 is ludicrous: for crissakes, Carl Herrera started 58 times for that team; Greg Anderson started 48 games; even Monty Williams (26 starts) and Vernon Maxwell (31 starts) saw substantial time. And, though you might try to suggest otherwise, not all of them got time just because David Robinson was injured!!