Bill Laimbeer And The Lameness Of The '95 Rockets?

Gangsta D:

Why does Bill Laimbeer hold such grudges? lol

"I'm still glad that we didn't shake their hands," Bill Laimbeer said Wednesday. "They were whiners and criers. Piss on them."

Da Realist:

Thank you, D. That was the best read i've had in a long time. The Pistons were the reason we won 6 titles. We would have eventually won some anyway, but not 6. Adversity builds character. The Celtics, 76'ers and the Lakers taught each other how to win. The celtics taught the pistons. The pistons taught the Bulls.

There are no real obstacles out there right now. Now you win titles by default. The two NBA finalists lose in the first round. Somebody's going to win it this year, and probably lose in the second round next year.

The last time a team had an opportunity to go through a real obstacle on the way to the title was sacramento playing the Lakers. Ultimately they couldn't do it, but that was the last real time. Everything since then has just been blah...

Gangsta D:

Why is that the case? It can't all be blamed on free agency because the Kings and Lakers battled 5-7 years ago. Is this year just a fluke year or is it symptomatic of something larger?

Waldini:

Something larger. Look at last year. It was a foregone conclusion San Antonio and Detroit would meet again in the Finals. What happened? Spurs lose an improbable Game 7 to the so called "soft" Mavs and the Heat get revenge on Detroit in the Conf Finals. I think that Heat team is the most suspect champion since the '95 Rockets.

Expansion and free agency are the 2 biggest culprits. Makes it hard to build AND maintain a winner. Look at the Suns. If they dont win the title this yr or next yr, they're breaking that team up. Why? Too much dinero.....

Da Realist:

I don't understand your hate on the rockets. They were a good team. Very good. They beat san antonio and orlando, and didn't have home court advantage in either series. They probably don't get the credit they deserved because their titles came while mike was either retired or working his way back but olajuwon was a BEAST.

Both of our best teams would have had problems with the 95 rockets. Not saying the bulls or lakers would have lost, but they would have had PROBLEMS. They were better than the 92 knicks team that pushed us to 7 games, and they were better than both the 00 blazers and the 02 kings that pushed you to 7 games.

Waldini:

When I say suspect, I use it in the sense where a team wins a title out of nowhere. That '95 rockets struggled to make the playoffs and when you looked at the road to win the title from their perspective, the odds were stacked. They went through 4 teams that most pundits would pick ahead of them for that year to win the title. I respect what they did b/c they stepped up when no one else did. But if you look at the past champions of the previous 25 years, would you take THAT rockets team against? Stack them all up and I can almost guarantee you they lose in a 7 game series to most of the champions

I wouldnt compare the Rockets teams to the ones you mentioned below, b/c those teams didnt win anything. I only compare them to past and current NBA Titleists. If I started including teams that were great in the regular season but flamed out in the in post, then what about the '06 Pistons, '94 Sonics, '89 Cavs, '86 Lakers, etc. Too many teams and that becomes trivial.

Hate is a strong word.

Da Realist:

I'll leave the bulls and the lakers out of it (for obvious reasons), but i think they beat the '99 spurs, '03 spurs, '04 pistons, '05 spurs, and the '06 heat. I'm not sure if they would have beaten the 94 rockets or not, but '95 was the first time hakeem developed a mean streak. Think david robinsion...

Neither the 99 spurs or the 06 heat would have had a chance in hell.

The 03 and 05 spurs won because of tim duncan, but hakeem at his best is better than tim at his best. tim couldn't match up with the unbelievable skill level of hakeem and would have been put in foul trouble. Tim's slow and steady, fall-back-and-hit-the-corner-bank-shot approach wouldn't have caused foul trouble on hakeem. The spurs double-teaming would have left cassell, elie, drexler and a young horry wide open. And hakeem would have blocked most of parker's floaters and ginobli's layup attempts.

04 Pistons would have cause the most problems because they were more versatile. I still think hakeem would have eaten ben and rasheed alive, though. Ben is a good defender against big bulky slow centers. Hakeem was too agile. No lay-ups for rip hamilton or chauncy billups because hakeem was well known for his defense and blocking (the man owns a quadruple-double!)

They weren't as bad as their regular season record. They kicked vernon maxwell off the team and added clyde drexler. It took time for the pieces to jell. The record wasn't indicitive of how good they were.