NBA.com Legends profiles include plenty of Rockets lore

Over the last few days, NBA.com has released some additional content for their NBA History section, and the Houston Rockets are well-represented.

The big standout to me was the full recap of the 1994-1995 season in which the Rockets won their second straight title, this time out of the sixth-seed. Hakeem Olajuwon also won his second straight NBA Finals MVP award by leading Houston through a murderer’s row of all-time great talent, including the 60-win Karl Malone-John Stockton Utah Jazz, the 59-win Charles Barkley Phoenix Suns, the 62-win San Antonio Spurs with newly crowned league MVP David Robinson, and the 57-win Shaquille O’Neal-Penny Hardaway Orlando Magic, who incidentally, beat Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

So remember that the next time someone out there downgrades Houston’s titles because MJ was “off somewhere playing baseball.” Jordan’s numbers in the ‘95 playoffs were better pretty much across the board than in Chicago’s title season in ‘96. Remember that when someone says, “Well, Jordan wasn’t fully back yet because he only played half of a season.”

In addition to the 1994-1995 recap, they also posted the 1976-1977 recap, in which Rockets head coach Tom Nissalke took home Coach of the Year honors for leading Houston to the Eastern Conference Finals (they hadn’t switched to the Western Conference yet).

There’s also the 2005 All-Star Game recap, in which the Rockets were represented by Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady.

Some of the other season recaps added in the last few days are the 1988-1989 season in which Houston was ousted in the first round of the postseason, but Olajuwon won the rebounding title, the 1990-1991 recap in which Olajuwon won the blocks title and Houston coach Don Chaney won Coach of the Year, the 1980-1981 recap in which Moses Malone led the Rockets to the NBA Finals, where they lost to Boston 4-2 (Malone also won the rebounding title), and the 2017-2018 recap, in which Houston set the franchise record for most wins in a season (65) behind James Harden and Chris Paul, but lost to the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals in seven games. Harden also won the scoring title and the MVP.

Two new NBA Legends profiles of former Rockets were also uploaded, including Charles Barkley, who played the twilight of his career in Houston, and Moses Malone, who is the second or third-best Rocket of all-time and won two MVP awards in H-town.

You can check out all of the Legends recaps here and the seasons in review here. It’s pretty neat looking at all of these cumulatively, as it shows just how much the Rockets have been ingrained in NBA history. Their only two titles usually put them behind teams like the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics when discussing the all-time great franchises, but the Rockets have just as much a rich tradition as anyone in the Association.