baki wrote:When you have that much team potentials riding early in your career you would think that he would have tasted success a lot faster, so I say his attitude problem and ego was probably a strong hindrance in Houston's early chance for a championship run.
That's ridiculous. Yes, Houston seemed promising, but they exceeded expectations in '86, which was just Hakeem's 2nd year by beating the showtime Lakers who were heavy favorites with more talent than Houston with a roster that consisted of Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Scott, Cooper ect. to get to the finals where they lost to arguably the greatest team in NBA history. And they did that with point guard John Lucas not even playing in the playoffs because he left the team due to a cocaine relapse and was released by them in the postseason, which forced Robert Reid to play point forward for Houston during their playoff run. I mean, yeah, the '86 team had the great twin towers duo and a few really good supporting players, but that core didn't last long.
Sampson was obviously highly skilled for a player well over 7 feet with those hooks he'd shoot, his mid-range jumper, his passing from the high-post and he was a solid rebounder due to his size and would pretty much just play volleyball with Dream on the offensive glass giving them a huge advantage there. Though Sampson also had flaws. He only weighed about 230 pounds and really lacked strength, he was just a good enough ball-handler to try to do too much for a 7 footer and led to some careless turnovers, and he was still making too many of the rookie mistakes that resulted in turnovers and unnecessary fouls in his 3rd year, and Sampson's head wasn't always in the game. Despite the hype, it was clear by their second season together that Olajuwon was the one destined for true greatness and had firmly established himself as the man by their 2nd year together. That's not to take away from Sampson, though. He was clearly a hall of fame talent, and had he stayed healthy, probably would have been a hall of famer based on his NBA career as opposed to his college career with averages of 21/11/3/2 on 51% shooting through his first 3 years with an all-nba second team selection and a finals appearance under his belt.
They also had a nice cast around the towers with a veteran like Robert Reid who had been on the '81 finals team and stepped up big in the '86 playoffs filling in as a point forward to average 15/4/7, but the young players, even around the towers really make you wonder what could have been. Rodney McCray was an excellent all around player, particularly for his defense, but a great rebounder at the 3, and he was also a very efficient scorer who was good for about 15 ppg, and topped the 5 apg mark one season. Lewis Lloyd was a very talented offensive player with excellent size who from what I've seen excelled in the open court, had a great touch on his mid-range jumper and averaged 17/4/4 on 53% shooting for the '86 team.
I don't think Dream underachieved at all during those early years. In Sampson's rookie year, the year before Dream arrived, Houston had gone just 29-53 and they had the 7th worst defense in the league, but Dream replaced Caldwell Jones in his rookie year who had always been a very good defensive center and Houston improved to 48-34, had a top 4 defense and made the playoffs. There were other changes to the roster, but Dream was clearly the biggest difference.
That team just fell apart after '86. Sampson missed nearly half the season with injuries in '87, didn't play nearly as well as his first 3 years as he wasn't in all-star form and continued struggling with injuries in '88 as Houston finally traded him in December. Both Lewis Lloyd were suspended for a couple of years for cocaine early in the '87 season and they traded Rodney McCray with Jim Petersen to Sacramento prior to the '89 season, though at least they got Otis Thorpe in return.
That's the thing, the one season we got to see that team with all of the great talent, they got to the finals upsetting a Laker team that had won the previous championship and would win the 2 after that. That team definitely seemed like a future championship team and it's extremely disappointing we'll never how they turned out, but considering how short of time Hakeem had with that team and how early in his career it was, I definitely wouldn't expect more success, and certainly not a title. It's impressive that Dream even led the '87 team to a record over .500 and got to the second round of the playoffs considering Sampson missed half the season with injuries in addition to the suspensions to Loyd and Wiggins. Dream also anchored a top 3 defense that year, and did everything in his power in the WCSF averaging 30.5 ppg, 12.7 rpg and 3.8 bpg on 60.3 FG% and 63.8 TS% including 49/25 with 6 blocks in a 3 point double OT loss in game 6, coming ridiculously close to pretty much single-handedly pushing that series to 7.
As mentioned, that was the last year with that core, and with context, it pretty much ended up as Dream carrying the team. After that, Houston did a poor job putting a contending team around him. It'd be rare to have such a promising young core fall apart so suddenly and build another contender overnight. It took Houston over half a decade, though they had quite a bit of their '94 championship core in the early 90's, they just didn't have a coach who properly utilized it, put it a system that worked and was a championship-caliber coach until Rudy T's first full season in '93, when they almost instantly became a legitimate title contender.
