As the NBA honors its 75th anniversary with a list of its historical greats, we look back at the top players in Houston Rockets history.
As part of a celebration of its 75th anniversary, the NBA is releasing what it calls the NBA 75 — a list of the greatest players in league history.
With that in mind, we’re looking back at the greats over that same time period who played for the Rockets. Founded in 1967 in San Diego before moving to Houston in 1971, the Rockets are clearly one of the league’s flagship clubs. With 2,286 wins and 2,074 losses, the .529 winning clip by the Rockets ranks eighth among the league’s 30 active franchises, and they are one of only 11 teams with multiple championships (1994, 1995).
Some ground rules: Since this exercise is to determine an overall roster, this list contains position biases. For example, even though the Rockets have a long history of elite centers, a team wouldn’t be likely to carry six centers on a 15-man roster. Thus, some greats did not make the cut.
Also, this roster defers to each player’s specific contributions in Houston. In other words, even though Scottie Pippen is a Hall of Famer and an all-time NBA legend, he played just one season with the Rockets and was past his prime at that time — which makes him not a fit for an all-time Houston list. Similar logic holds true with Russell Westbrook.
Without any further delay, here’s our all-time Rockets roster, and be sure to check out our other NBA Wire sites for rival comparisons.
“We had a group of guys who weren’t scared,” Elie said of the 1990s Rockets. “A lot of these players were scared of Michael Jordan.”
Of the nine NBA championships awarded from 1991 through 1999, six were won by legendary guard Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
The other three champions of that era — the 1994 and 1995 Houston Rockets, and the 1999 San Antonio Spurs — shared a common thread in the form of defensive minded swingman Mario Elie.
Known as the “Junkyard Dog,” Elie’s combination of perimeter defense, toughness, and clutch shotmaking made him an essential role player for those title teams. While he admires the Bulls for their accomplishments, which have been featured in recent weeks thanks to “The Last Dance” documentary release, he understandably is partial to his own teams.
In an interview with Rockets broadcaster Craig Ackerman, Elie was asked about those Houston teams not being brought up in the film.
“I don’t really care if they didn’t mention us,” said Elie, whose teams never faced Jordan’s Bulls in the playoffs. “We still got those championships, first of all. “Second of all, we’d have matched up great against them.”
“We had Vernon [Maxwell] and myself,” he said. You’re not going to stop Michael Jordan, we all know that know that, but we’re two guys who can make him work. And Jordan really didn’t face a big man at the caliber of Hakeem Olajuwon. If Michael Jordan would have beat me and Vernon, he would’ve had to meet No. 34 at the rim.”
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Elie said the Rockets’ title teams were mentally tough, which he believes was in contrast to many other contenders in that era. He explained:
We had a group of guys who weren’t scared. A lot of these players were scared of Michael Jordan. It was like that Mike Tyson effect. When Mike Tyson was first on the scene and you walked in the ring, he’d have those guys beat by the staredown.
I thought we had guys that weren’t scared. We weren’t scared of nothing. Especially the two years we won, being down [in series]. We had adversity we had to deal with. We just had some tough, gritty guys.
In terms of the Xs and Os of a hypothetical matchup, Elie said he would have been fascinated by the potential of a young Robert Horry going against Scottie Pippen, as well as Otis Thorpe at power forward versus Dennis Rodman. Coaching strategies may also have played a key role.
“Robert would tell me that Phil Jackson didn’t like to double team,” Elie said. Years later, Jackson coached Horry with the Los Angeles Lakers.
“I played with Hakeem Olajuwon for five years,” Elie explained. “This man sees double and triple teams on a nightly basis and still gets 30 and 40 points. So imagine if Phil Jackson doesn’t double. He would kill them and get them all in foul trouble, etc.”
There’s certainly reason to question whether Chicago’s nondescript centers like Bill Cartwright and Luc Longley could have held up against Olajuwon’s Rockets, who were 5-1 against Jordan’s Bulls in six regular-season games from 1990-91 through 1992-93.
By comparison, many teams Chicago defeated in the NBA Finals in their title runs — such as Charles Barkley’s Phoenix Suns, Karl Malone’s Utah Jazz, and Shawn Kemp’s Seattle Sonics — lacked the offensive production at center to challenge the Bulls at their weakest position.
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But in the end, Elie believes it’s the role players that would have given the “Clutch City” Rockets an advantage versus Chicago. He said:
I would take us in seven [games]. It would have been a great series. Jordan would have got his for sure, and Olajuwon would get his. … Both guys were on top of their games at the time.
I think it’d have been up to the role players, and I sort of like our role players a little better than theirs, you know. It’d have been interesting, but I would like our chances, especially with that ’94 team. We had size, we had athleticism, and we had toughness.
The 1994 team featured Otis Thorpe starting at power forward. Before the 1995 title run, Houston traded Thorpe in a deal for star shooting guard Clyde Drexler, which led to Horry sliding to power forward.
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Jordan didn’t play in the 1993-94 season after an abrupt mid-career retirement in October 1993, which lasted until March 1995. Stylistically, the 1993-94 Rockets with Thorpe had the most in common with the group that went 5-1 versus Chicago in the previous three seasons. Olajuwon was also regular-season MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in 1993-94.
Jordan returned the next season and played well in the 1995 playoffs, but his Bulls lost in the second round to the Orlando. The Magic were later swept by Elie’s Rockets in the 1995 NBA Finals.
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The Bulls regrouped in the subsequent 1995 offseason and signed Rodman as their next power forward, filling Grant’s old role. From there, Chicago took the next three championships from 1996 through 1998, which was when the Olajuwon-era Rockets were aging out of contention.
In the end, Olajuwon’s Rockets and Jordan’s Bulls peaked at different times in the 1990s, and NBA fans never saw the playoff matchup they craved between the two MVPs and Hall of Famers. But even decades later, it’s a debate that still lives on in NBA lore. Understandably, Elie is partial to “The Dream” and his teammates from that golden era in Houston.
“Houston just had great matchups all over the floor,” the Chicago Tribune’s Sam Smith says of how the Rockets and Bulls may have fared.
Count former Chicago Tribune reporter and “The Jordan Rules” author Sam Smith as among those skeptical of how the Bulls might have fared in a hypothetical playoff matchup versus the Houston Rockets.
The Bulls won three consecutive NBA titles from 1991 through 1993, while the Rockets won the next two championships in 1994 and 1995. Though Hall of Fame guard Michael Jordan was temporarily retired in 1994, he returned in 1995, only to have his Bulls lose in the playoffs to the Orlando Magic — who were later swept by the Rockets.
Hypothetically, had the sides met in the NBA Finals in any of those years, there were signals that Houston may have had the upper hand. In the 1991 through 1993 regular seasons, with Jordan playing in all six games, Hakeem Olajuwon‘s Rockets went 5-1 against those Bulls.
In a new Q&A with the Tribune, Smith said he doesn’t believe Chicago left any titles “on the table” during the 1990s. Here’s what he said:
Houston used to beat them quite a bit. They had a losing record against the Rockets during the championship years. Vernon Maxwell would play Michael, and Michael was better but Maxwell was nuts. He used to attack Jordan and curse at him and run him all over the court. Michael could still get his 35 points, but now he’s really working for it as this guy is harassing him endlessly, like nobody else did. And then the frontcourt, the Bulls were just so overmatched. Otis Thorpe dominated and Hakeem Olajuwon, none of the centers they had could do anything with Hakeem. Houston just had great matchups all over the floor.
In those regular-season meetings when Jordan played, Chicago’s nondescript centers such as Bill Cartwright and Luc Longley offered little resistance to Olajuwon. By contrast, many of the teams the Bulls defeated in the NBA Finals — such as Charles Barkley’s Phoenix Suns, Karl Malone’s Utah Jazz, and Shawn Kemp’s Seattle Sonics — lacked the offensive production at center to challenge the Bulls at their weakest position.
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Olajuwon clearly earned Jordan’s respect, as evidenced by Jordan selecting the Houston legend for his all-time NBA team. Recently, former Rockets head coach Rudy Tomjanovich shared a story in which Jordan told him that Houston was the team that gave the Bulls the most trouble.
“He gave our team great respect,” Tomjanovich told The Athletic last month. “He didn’t feel that they could contain Hakeem [Olajuwon]. They just didn’t have the personnel to do it. And he said he thought we were the team that gave them the most trouble.”
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One popular theory is that Jordan was “rusty” in the 1995 playoffs after only playing in 17 regular-season games. But that’s not shown in the data. Jordan averaged more points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks per game in the 1995 playoffs than he did in the 1996 playoffs (when Chicago won its next title), all on superior shooting from the field.
Ultimately, the Rockets and Bulls peaked at different times, and NBA fans never saw the matchup in the playoffs. Fortunately for Houston’s legacy, it appears even Jordan himself — now back in the spotlight, given “The Last Dance” documentary — acknowledges those teams as legit.
