Techniec
Drugs and Kalashnikovs
Nelson: The money that he was making, it was just a matter of time before we had to move him. It was a short period of time, but very enjoyable.
Richmond: He taught me a lot of lifetime lessons. He would tell me not to give anyone power of attorney or things of that nature some of the pitfalls that some of his teammates went through. He used to tell me a lot of things I should watch. He gave me a lot of input as a rookie. I always talked with him when we were on the plane.41
Reid: [In October 1988], Rodney called me because I was in Charlotte by then. He said, "We just took our team picture. I was on one end and Jim [Petersen] is on the other end." I said, "You got your bags packed? Because your ass is about to go somewhere in the morning." That was a joke. If you were asked to stand on the end, you were on your way out. Go home and turn on ABC News because your ass just got traded.42
Petersen: Rodney and I got traded to Sacramento, and I'll never forget that flight. We're on the flight to Sacramento and getting ready to land. We had both fell asleep and we're looking out the window and all we see are cornfields. Rodney looks at me and goes, "Goddamn." That moment meant the dream that we had been living was over.
Eleven months later, Petersen was traded to Golden State for his old teammate Ralph Sampson. Once upon a time, he had been Ralph's backup. Now they were being dealt straight-up for one another, just two big guys with bum knees on their way out of the league.
Jerry Reynolds (coach, Sacramento Kings, '86-'87): It was really tough. Ralph was one of the most professional players I've been around. The guy worked hard and tried to get healthy and get his game back, but quite honestly, he just didn't have any legs at all. It was really sad for such a great player, certainly one of the great college players of all time.
Ainge: Playing with Ralph in Sacramento gave me a real appreciation for Ralph as a person. Here was a guy who was a great, great, college legend, a star NBA rookie, an All-Star player in the NBA, and he was struggling physically with his knees. But that guy worked and he was being paid. He sort of made the money already. But he was determined to continue playing. I was very impressed with how hard he worked and how determined he was to get back on the court.
Reynolds: We worked out a buyout deal I'm sure it was Ralph feeling he could play better and play more than he was playing for us. Our feeling was, quite honestly, that that wasn't going to happen. I wish I'd been wrong. He went to Washington for a little while, but his career was over.
Dawson: I always felt a lot of admiration for [Sampson] because with a three-time player of the year, the expectations were so high that nobody could have lived up to what people wanted. People forget. I go to bat for him all the time.
Ryan: Ralph didn't want to be 7-foot-4. But he accomplished what he accomplished. I think Ralph was a prisoner of his psyche. A lot of big guys are. He was one of the great examples. He played like a man who wished he was a foot shorter.
Blinebury: In his heart of hearts, Ralph would have loved to be a point guard or at least a shooting guard.
Parish: [Ralph] reminds me of Sam Bowie a little bit. All that's different is, Ralph was able to play a little longer and be more of an impact player than Sam Bowie was.
THE IMPACT OF THE TOWERS
Sampson played just 154 games over four-plus seasons after leaving Houston, before retiring in 1992. He fell into issues over child support payments, bankruptcy, and mail fraud later in life. Phoenix recently hired Sampson as an assistant player development coordinator. Meanwhile, Lucas turned his life around, became an NBA coach, and now tutors athletes on how to overcome their addictions. Lewis and Wiggins both rejoined the Rockets in 1989-90, but their NBA careers ended shortly and unspectacularly after that. Olajuwon claimed his elusive championships in 1994 and 1995 when Michael Jordan took his baseball sabbatical, doing it without any of his teammates from the '85-'86 season. Those Rockets left nearly as soon as they came. But for that brief stretch, the rest of the league feared, respected, and tried to duplicate them.43
Donnie Walsh (general manager, Indiana Pacers): If one team that's really good has two big guys, then the other teams will try to get two big guys.
Heisler: After 1986, the Lakers went into the next season bound and determined to find another 7-footer. They almost made the [Roy] Tarpley trade. That was going to be for Worthy and [Byron] Scott and that was at Magic's instigation because they were going to get [Mark] Aguirre too. The deal was made by Jerry Buss and then Buss called up Don Carter, the owner of the Mavericks at the time, and asked him to let him out of the deal because he was afraid he was going to lose his general manager. West wasn't happy about it. They didn't do the deal and it wound up saving the Lakers because Tarpley went into rehab soon after. The Lakers really thought they had to get another 7-footer to match the Rockets. They looked everywhere and almost went through on this ruinous deal.
Dawson: We got the shooters around [Olajuwon] in the early '90s with [Vernon] Maxwell, Kenny Smith, Mario Elie, and [Sam] Cassell. We started making 3s and we could kick it into Hakeem. That's how we won our championships.
Olajuwon: When you win, you thank God. You're on the other side so many times, which makes it more valuable. You've been close so many times.
Tomjanovich: We grew up here. Especially Hakeem and myself. We grew up in that organization. You rarely see that in sports, where somebody is right there in that spot where they lived and spent a lot of time.
Thomas: The team that won it was the identical team that I sold [in 1994]. If I had known they were going to win a championship, I might not have even sold it. Six months later, they were world champions.
Sampson: I think a lot of people thought What if? with the Rockets back in that day. Because the Rockets during that era were the only team that dethroned the Lakers in the Western Conference, with Moses Malone in the early '80s and us in the mid '80s. We had some issues with teammates and getting a good point guard, but that could have been a good dynasty.
McCray: I don't think, to this day, you've had two 7-footers with the caliber of Ralph and Dream on the court together.44
Reid: I talked to James Worthy at a golf tournament a couple years back he was telling me, and Magic was telling me, how they really didn't like to play us because we matched up too well for them.
Worthy: We got our mojo back after losing. That was embarrassing. I think Houston kind of lost their drive after they beat the Lakers. Beating the Lakers in the '80s was a big thing.
McDowell: You sure weren't expected to beat the Lakers four times in a row. The Lakers? Who saw that coming? Who saw that, really? Even to this day.
McCray: To this day, we still believe that if we would have had everybody clicking at the same time of the Finals, we would have won the championship.
Sampson: You marvel at some of the things that could have happened.
Reid: If we had not lost John Lucas, all of us would have had a ring. There is no way anyone was going to stop us.
Lucas: [Fitch] really had a major impact in my life 26 years ago. We had all the pieces to win a championship, but I might be dead now, so it's a curse and a blessing.45
McCray: We were just the young guns, the new kids on the block, that were supposed to be together for years to come. Us being selfish and not taking anything away from those championship teams, whenever I run into a Robert Reid or an Allen Leavell or Ralph, we say that we could have beat those other teams. But when you win championships, that's number one on the list.
McCray: When you talk about the Rockets, you talk about the back-to-back championship teams [in the '90s]. Not the team that could have been.
Lloyd: It was one of the greatest teams in the history of the game that didn't get to make a run for three, or four, five years. If we would have had three or four years to stay together, we would have won a couple of championships. We had beat the Lakers and we had their number.
Blinebury: These guys self-destructed. These guys did it to themselves.
Parish: I always wondered how good they would have been had Sampson not had the knee problems he experienced. What if he had played as long as Hakeem did? What if those two were able to play together for the duration of their careers? Think about how many championships they would have won. It would have been real interesting, I'll tell you that. I think about that sometimes.
Richmond: He taught me a lot of lifetime lessons. He would tell me not to give anyone power of attorney or things of that nature some of the pitfalls that some of his teammates went through. He used to tell me a lot of things I should watch. He gave me a lot of input as a rookie. I always talked with him when we were on the plane.41
Reid: [In October 1988], Rodney called me because I was in Charlotte by then. He said, "We just took our team picture. I was on one end and Jim [Petersen] is on the other end." I said, "You got your bags packed? Because your ass is about to go somewhere in the morning." That was a joke. If you were asked to stand on the end, you were on your way out. Go home and turn on ABC News because your ass just got traded.42
Petersen: Rodney and I got traded to Sacramento, and I'll never forget that flight. We're on the flight to Sacramento and getting ready to land. We had both fell asleep and we're looking out the window and all we see are cornfields. Rodney looks at me and goes, "Goddamn." That moment meant the dream that we had been living was over.
Eleven months later, Petersen was traded to Golden State for his old teammate Ralph Sampson. Once upon a time, he had been Ralph's backup. Now they were being dealt straight-up for one another, just two big guys with bum knees on their way out of the league.
Jerry Reynolds (coach, Sacramento Kings, '86-'87): It was really tough. Ralph was one of the most professional players I've been around. The guy worked hard and tried to get healthy and get his game back, but quite honestly, he just didn't have any legs at all. It was really sad for such a great player, certainly one of the great college players of all time.
Ainge: Playing with Ralph in Sacramento gave me a real appreciation for Ralph as a person. Here was a guy who was a great, great, college legend, a star NBA rookie, an All-Star player in the NBA, and he was struggling physically with his knees. But that guy worked and he was being paid. He sort of made the money already. But he was determined to continue playing. I was very impressed with how hard he worked and how determined he was to get back on the court.
Reynolds: We worked out a buyout deal I'm sure it was Ralph feeling he could play better and play more than he was playing for us. Our feeling was, quite honestly, that that wasn't going to happen. I wish I'd been wrong. He went to Washington for a little while, but his career was over.
Dawson: I always felt a lot of admiration for [Sampson] because with a three-time player of the year, the expectations were so high that nobody could have lived up to what people wanted. People forget. I go to bat for him all the time.
Ryan: Ralph didn't want to be 7-foot-4. But he accomplished what he accomplished. I think Ralph was a prisoner of his psyche. A lot of big guys are. He was one of the great examples. He played like a man who wished he was a foot shorter.
Blinebury: In his heart of hearts, Ralph would have loved to be a point guard or at least a shooting guard.
Parish: [Ralph] reminds me of Sam Bowie a little bit. All that's different is, Ralph was able to play a little longer and be more of an impact player than Sam Bowie was.
THE IMPACT OF THE TOWERS
Sampson played just 154 games over four-plus seasons after leaving Houston, before retiring in 1992. He fell into issues over child support payments, bankruptcy, and mail fraud later in life. Phoenix recently hired Sampson as an assistant player development coordinator. Meanwhile, Lucas turned his life around, became an NBA coach, and now tutors athletes on how to overcome their addictions. Lewis and Wiggins both rejoined the Rockets in 1989-90, but their NBA careers ended shortly and unspectacularly after that. Olajuwon claimed his elusive championships in 1994 and 1995 when Michael Jordan took his baseball sabbatical, doing it without any of his teammates from the '85-'86 season. Those Rockets left nearly as soon as they came. But for that brief stretch, the rest of the league feared, respected, and tried to duplicate them.43
Donnie Walsh (general manager, Indiana Pacers): If one team that's really good has two big guys, then the other teams will try to get two big guys.
Heisler: After 1986, the Lakers went into the next season bound and determined to find another 7-footer. They almost made the [Roy] Tarpley trade. That was going to be for Worthy and [Byron] Scott and that was at Magic's instigation because they were going to get [Mark] Aguirre too. The deal was made by Jerry Buss and then Buss called up Don Carter, the owner of the Mavericks at the time, and asked him to let him out of the deal because he was afraid he was going to lose his general manager. West wasn't happy about it. They didn't do the deal and it wound up saving the Lakers because Tarpley went into rehab soon after. The Lakers really thought they had to get another 7-footer to match the Rockets. They looked everywhere and almost went through on this ruinous deal.
Dawson: We got the shooters around [Olajuwon] in the early '90s with [Vernon] Maxwell, Kenny Smith, Mario Elie, and [Sam] Cassell. We started making 3s and we could kick it into Hakeem. That's how we won our championships.
Olajuwon: When you win, you thank God. You're on the other side so many times, which makes it more valuable. You've been close so many times.
Tomjanovich: We grew up here. Especially Hakeem and myself. We grew up in that organization. You rarely see that in sports, where somebody is right there in that spot where they lived and spent a lot of time.
Thomas: The team that won it was the identical team that I sold [in 1994]. If I had known they were going to win a championship, I might not have even sold it. Six months later, they were world champions.
Sampson: I think a lot of people thought What if? with the Rockets back in that day. Because the Rockets during that era were the only team that dethroned the Lakers in the Western Conference, with Moses Malone in the early '80s and us in the mid '80s. We had some issues with teammates and getting a good point guard, but that could have been a good dynasty.
McCray: I don't think, to this day, you've had two 7-footers with the caliber of Ralph and Dream on the court together.44
Reid: I talked to James Worthy at a golf tournament a couple years back he was telling me, and Magic was telling me, how they really didn't like to play us because we matched up too well for them.
Worthy: We got our mojo back after losing. That was embarrassing. I think Houston kind of lost their drive after they beat the Lakers. Beating the Lakers in the '80s was a big thing.
McDowell: You sure weren't expected to beat the Lakers four times in a row. The Lakers? Who saw that coming? Who saw that, really? Even to this day.
McCray: To this day, we still believe that if we would have had everybody clicking at the same time of the Finals, we would have won the championship.
Sampson: You marvel at some of the things that could have happened.
Reid: If we had not lost John Lucas, all of us would have had a ring. There is no way anyone was going to stop us.
Lucas: [Fitch] really had a major impact in my life 26 years ago. We had all the pieces to win a championship, but I might be dead now, so it's a curse and a blessing.45
McCray: We were just the young guns, the new kids on the block, that were supposed to be together for years to come. Us being selfish and not taking anything away from those championship teams, whenever I run into a Robert Reid or an Allen Leavell or Ralph, we say that we could have beat those other teams. But when you win championships, that's number one on the list.
McCray: When you talk about the Rockets, you talk about the back-to-back championship teams [in the '90s]. Not the team that could have been.
Lloyd: It was one of the greatest teams in the history of the game that didn't get to make a run for three, or four, five years. If we would have had three or four years to stay together, we would have won a couple of championships. We had beat the Lakers and we had their number.
Blinebury: These guys self-destructed. These guys did it to themselves.
Parish: I always wondered how good they would have been had Sampson not had the knee problems he experienced. What if he had played as long as Hakeem did? What if those two were able to play together for the duration of their careers? Think about how many championships they would have won. It would have been real interesting, I'll tell you that. I think about that sometimes.
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