1986 Houston Rockets vs. 1996 Chicago Bulls

[Lebron23]

Who wins in a best of 7 series?? Rockets had the a twin towers of a 23 yrs.old Hakeem Olajuwon, and 25 yrs.old Ralph Samson while the Bulls had a trio of 33 yrs.old Jordan, 31 yrs.old Pippen, and 35 yrs.old Dennis Rodman.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S3qtJJRIPPs/UZsHQIA-iQI/AAAAAAAABww/LmTV-_CKiVg/s1600/RSH9512.jpg

http://www.hoopsvibe.com/images/stories/JordanRodmanPippen.jpg

[SHAQisGOAT]

People gonna just say '72-wins' or whatever but this is actually a pretty good question/battle.

Sampson and Hakeem's size, skill and athleticism would be too much for the Bulls' frontcourt and they were also great at protecting the paint at the other end.
Hakeem was not at his best but already great, and who would guard him? He was the C but I think Rodman would be on him because Sampson was too tall for Dennis and Longley/Wennington would get murdered... On the other hand how could those two hang around with basically a 7'3'' PF? Sampson was really athletic, could handle the ball, pass, rebound, scored inside and even shoot, plus blocked shots, really good player before all the "issues". Rodman could also rough up Sampson, a good strategy.
Houston was not all Hakeem and Ralph though, they had a pretty good all-around SG in Lewis Lloyd, John Lucas, the PG, was a nice baller (injured in the playoffs and also drug problems afterwards), Rodney McCray at SF could play some mean D, also pass and rebound plus some efficient points. They also had a good bench with versatile SF Robert Reid, plus Jim Petersen, Allen Leavell and Mitchell Wiggins.

So yeah, we all know about Chicago but Houston had a great team and the misfortune to face one of the GOAT teams, if not the GOAT team, with peak Bird, in the Finals (plus great potential that went down the toilet pretty much)... I could've definitely see the Rockets winning due to their twin towers against the Bulls.

[Bigsmoke]

Bulls in 4.

[K Xerxes]

Not a bad hypothetical, but Bulls in 6 (maybe 7) nevertheless.

[SHAQisGOAT]

Don't forget that this Rockets' team was 11-3 in the playoffs before facing the Celtics in the Finals. They beat the 62-20 record, showtime Lakers (with Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Scott, Mo Lucas, Cooper, Rambis..) 4-1, and they still took Boston to 6, a team better than the 96 Bulls with a more-than-legit PF/C duo (with peak Bird also playing PF and Walton off the bench). All of that without John Lucas, in the post-season.

[iTare]

Would go to 7 games. Bulls take it because they have the GOAT.

[SamuraiSWISH]

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/pUVrv6QslOs.zu0N5xBQdg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusnbaexperts/MJ1993NYK505050.jpg

GOAT gonna GOAT

[Psileas]

That 1986 season was crazy competitive: The Rockets won "only" 51 games and yet had the 2nd best record in the West and the 5th in the whole NBA.
As for that series, it's going to be tough. Will probably go to 6 or 7 games, with the Bulls being the favorites due to experience and HCA. As for the most dominant player of the series, it could either be Jordan or Hakeem. Their potential matchups with Reid (though he may guard Pippen) and Rodman would be very interesting.

[LAZERUSS]

That 1986 season was crazy competitive: The Rockets won "only" 51 games and yet had the 2nd best record in the West and the 5th in the whole NBA.
As for that series, it's going to be tough. Will probably go to 6 or 7 games, with the Bulls being the favorites due to experience and HCA. As for the most dominant player of the series, it could either be Jordan or Hakeem. Their potential matchups with Reid (though he may guard Pippen) and Rodman would be very interesting.

One thing is almost a certainty... the 95-96 Bulls would not have gone 72-10 in 1986.

[Owl]

One thing is almost a certainty... the 95-96 Bulls would not have gone 72-10 in 1986.
What is meant by this?

Bulls taking the place of the '86 Bulls or do they get to play them?

What conference are the new Bulls in? Chicago played in the West up to 1980. But at that point in time the West was larger so the Bulls are likely in the East. Scheduling is important, is my point.

Do the Bulls get the benefit of non-expansion and get to keep BJ Armstrong?


That 1986 season was crazy competitive: The Rockets won "only" 51 games and yet had the 2nd best record in the West and the 5th in the whole NBA.
As for that series, it's going to be tough. Will probably go to 6 or 7 games, with the Bulls being the favorites due to experience and HCA. As for the most dominant player of the series, it could either be Jordan or Hakeem. Their potential matchups with Reid (though he may guard Pippen) and Rodman would be very interesting.
Depends on what you mean by competitive. There was much more competition in the middle of the pack. But there was little competition for elite teams in the West. The Spurs made the playoffs with 35 wins (albeit this is partially because at that time a large proportion of the league made the playoffs). The Lakers were the only team in the Pacific not below .500. So it (the West, at least) was competitve in terms of closeness but maybe not so much insofar as the term indicates quality of play/competition.

As such if you were to drop the '96 Bulls team in as a new west coast franchise (or, since we're dropping in a good team, put them in place of the Lakers), the odds of a 72 win season would be greater than in the superior East.


Anyway to the main question, the twin towers matchup thing has the potential to put a spanner in the works in any given series (as it did versus the Lakers), but on paper the Bulls have to be heavily favoured, especially if they can press a sans-Lucas backcourt.

[OldSchoolBBall]

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/pUVrv6QslOs.zu0N5xBQdg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusnbaexperts/MJ1993NYK505050.jpg

GOAT gonna GOAT

Any idea what season/game/play this pic is from?

EDIT: Has to be from 1993 at some point, because that was the only year that Rivers was on the Knicks while MJ was playing.

[RoundMoundOfReb]

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/pUVrv6QslOs.zu0N5xBQdg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusnbaexperts/MJ1993NYK505050.jpg

GOAT gonna GOAT
That's a pretty nice pic.

[Owl]

Any idea what season/game/play this pic is from?

EDIT: Has to be from 1993 at some point, because that was the only year that Rivers was on the Knicks while MJ was playing.
I was going to say what you just put in the edit (plus the url of the pic calls it '93 and Oakley's 'do ages it to around then too).

My best guess is it's from the playoffs and if so there are a lot of game videos and highlights if you really want to search for it. NY are in white (i.e. home) so that narrows it down (game one, two or five, if it is indeed playoffs).

[SamuraiSWISH]

Any idea what season/game/play this pic is from?

EDIT: Has to be from 1993 at some point, because that was the only year that Rivers was on the Knicks while MJ was playing.
It's from the '93 ECF. Notice the small wristband on MJ's shooting wrist. He wore that when he had wrist problems 2x times in his career. In the '93 playoffs, and a portion of the '98 season. And I think some of his tenure in Washington.

[97 bulls]

The 96 Bulls woukd destroy that Rocket team

[Psileas]

Depends on what you mean by competitive. There was much more competition in the middle of the pack. But there was little competition for elite teams in the West. The Spurs made the playoffs with 35 wins (albeit this is partially because at that time a large proportion of the league made the playoffs). The Lakers were the only team in the Pacific not below .500. So it (the West, at least) was competitve in terms of closeness but maybe not so much insofar as the term indicates quality of play/competition.

I said it was a competitive season, meaning that the winning discrepancy among the teams of the whole league was small, despite the Celtics and the Lakers still dominating. For me, having multiple 55-60+ win teams doesn't necessarily make a competitive season, as long as we also find multiple 15-25 win jokes.
Like you wrote, the Spurs made the playoffs at 35-47, but 67% of Western teams made the playoffs, compared to 53% now, so the closest analogy would be to have the first 6 make the playoffs. Even so, it would make a 40-42 team make the playoffs, while the worst team of the whole conference was at 30-52. Even the Knicks, with the worst record in the league, still managed to get 23 W's (18-32 when Ewing was playing), which is a pretty high number for last place standards.

[get these NETS]

if Sampson could let little Jerry Sichting get into his head....he'd be ejected by game 2 facing up against Rodman

[Owl]

I said it was a competitive season, meaning that the winning discrepancy among the teams of the whole league was small, despite the Celtics and the Lakers still dominating. For me, having multiple 55-60+ win teams doesn't necessarily make a competitive season, as long as we also find multiple 15-25 win jokes.
Like you wrote, the Spurs made the playoffs at 35-47, but 67% of Western teams made the playoffs, compared to 53% now, so the closest analogy would be to have the first 6 make the playoffs. Even so, it would make a 40-42 team make the playoffs, while the worst team of the whole conference was at 30-52. Even the Knicks, with the worst record in the league, still managed to get 23 W's (18-32 when Ewing was playing), which is a pretty high number for last place standards.
Yeah just trying to be clear, because by competitive some people mean balanced (and this is probably closest to the literal meaning), some people mean many plausible title winners and some mean the league is of a high quality.

And because that related to my point about teams record depending on schedule I thought it was worth pointing out that an elite team in the West would have a good chance of running a high win total relative to its ability, and so whilst competitive is accurate, you couldn't conclude that the West would be a difficult conference for an elite team to dominate.