Coach's Corner
By Andy "Coach" Cotton, Fri., June 16, 1995
Look at the components, piece by piece. Hakeem Olajuwon was the first pick of the '84 draft. An excellent player his entire career, over the last two years Olajuwon's game has completely matured. He now displays a stunning combination of low post skills never before seen from the center position. The average center is a huge fellow who can score at close range and take up space. The great centers - Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt, Walton - combine magnificent all-round skills with intangible qualities like courage and will to win. Bill Russell, a center who must be included in any such list, defined and vividly displayed the total devastation possible in the hands of a gifted athlete determined to play defense.
Tedious and a waste of a finite amount of breaths, I hate the ancient sports arguments over who was better than whom. Olajuwon does things these other legends only dreamed about. His footwork is so quick... well, ask MVP David Robinson. His array of creative moves is dazzling. On defense, Olajuwon's superb. He'd give up nothing to Russell. He's as good as anyone who's ever played the position. Sam Cassell/Kenny Smith: These guys are one. One night, Smith will set a record for three-point shots and Cassell will be 0 for the game. The next night, uncannily but with unerring certainty, Smith will be dreadful and Cassell will score 30. Cassell's shots always seem to be the ones that stick the dagger in the other team's back. Cassell, I'm convinced, feels no pressure. He's like John Starks, but a lot better. When Cassell/Smith are hot - and one always seems to be - it appears they'll never miss, a confounding experience if you're rooting against them.
Robert Horry has been discovered. He rebounds, plays underrated defense, and routinely hits monster three-point shots. In college, he was a center. With Houston, he plays anywhere. He runs the floor and, at 6'10", presents serious, frequently unsolvable match-up problems for any team they play. Not long ago, they almost traded him to Detroit. It's called a great trade never made.
It's hard not to like Clyde Drexler. He's a classy guy without a world championship ring. Sentiment aside, rarely has a mid-season trade borne such sweet fruit. At 34, he's no longer able to dominate an entire game. With Houston, he doesn't have to. He picks his spots. Each basket seems to come at a crucial time.
Rudy T: Like Phil Jackson before him, Rudy T. has come from nowhere to prove he can flat-out coach. His inside-out European system is risky and sometimes looks bad but he stuck with it and held the Rockets together through a nightmare season of injury, discord, and bad luck. Anyone who thinks all a coach has to do is roll the ball out on the floor and tell the guys to play, need only look at 25 other coaches, all sitting at home.
The decade past has seen a number of NBA truisms shattered. The Pistons and Bulls showed you don't have to have a great or even a good center to win a title. Chicago proved you can win without a point guard. Houston has disproved the oldest myth of all: You can win without rebounding and you can win relying on the outside shot. Houston revolutionized the concept of the three-point shot. Last year, Houston showed the league an offense predicated on taking open threes whenever available. The axiom was lost in the grisly finals where New York mugged and hammered the Rockets, until they were forced to alley-fight. With this year's rule changes brought on by that ghastly affair, Houston showcased the impossible conundrum of guarding The Dream and the three-point line with only five players.
Last year, Houston came out of nowhere to win an NBA title. This year, seeded sixth with a humdrum 47-35 record, they staggered into the playoffs on the heels of a three-game losing streak. Nobody being honest (even those people sitting on the Rocket bench), thought they were going anywhere. I don't believe the Rockets will ever be accorded the proper amount of public respect they deserve. If they could play those great teams of the past, after they won their share, we'd still shake our heads and wonder how. It's because they're an odd team who win in an odd way. They seem lucky, but after two championships, it's clear they're not. They're versatile, able to beat the Knicks in a knife fight or outrun Orlando. They're tough and resilient. They seem chaotic, but they're not. What they are, from a city traditionally the home of losers and slugs, is two-time world champions. They've made Houston, Texas, home to heat, humidity, and mosquitoes, a barren, broiling, and desolate land of Astros, Cougars, and Oilers. This landscape of also-rans is now the basketball capital of the world. If the Astrodome is the Eighth Wonder of the World, then this is surely the Ninth. n
Comments? I'm at: coach36@aol.com
