What are you Favorite ERAs of Rocket Ball! 1. Hakeem Championship Era 2. Mo Malone Finals Era 3. Hakeem Sampson Finals Era 4. Harden Era 5. Yao and TMac Era 6. Sura et crew Hustle Era 7. Barkley Era 8. Elvin Hayes Era 9. Calvin Murphy / Rudy Eras 10. Other EDIT - I forgot the FRANCIS YAO Era
I included Yao/TMac, but TMac had nothing to do with it, if anything he took away from that era with his b****assness
I typically enjoy the Rockets so basically mid 80s and on is my favorite era. The Westbrook trade kind of killed my mojo. The Rockets did get a pick that turned out useful when trading him away, but that trade damaged the Rockets a lot. The Rockets are still down the 2026 pick from that trade.
Harden, he was god tier in his prime. Playoffs sucked yes but at least we were in the conversation for a championship every year
The Silas Era was the Golden Age of Tanking . . . good for laughs, good for memes. Runnerup: Linsanity before Murray traded for James Harden. This was briefly all J Lin's team, and it was epic.
Scolandry, Brooks, Lowry, Dragic, Chuck, Budinger I enjoyed the post Yao&Mac - Pre Harden era quite a bit. All of the Harden era save for 15-16 was great
If not for that lockout in 98-99.... Clyde plays another year, we get Pippen mid-season and we roll out a line up that's 80% top 50 all-timers. The Lakers pulled off the same feat in a few years with creepy mailman and GP then failed spectacularly in the playoffs
I was a bit too young to comprehend the difficulty of winning a title in the Hakeem era. I had just started watching basketball and thought that we'd win more in the not so distant future. The first Harden/CP3 era was incredible minus that game 7. All the teams dumped assets and punted on their seasons after Durant joined the Warriors. Except the Rockets and Cavs. No one gave us a chance of challenging the Warriors. We dominated the regular season in a way I've never seen. By the time game 1 arrived people started believing. Pretty much everyone was rooting for us to take down the unfair super team. To have had 3 more good minutes and taken down the most talented team in NBA history would have been historic for the NBA. Definitely my favorite season and era. Harden brought me so many incredible moments. It's really too bad we didn't get the banner we clearly deserved.
Crazy how much more likeable all those roleplayers were compared to what we have now I want to say harden era too but kd and the coward loser warriors ruined any parity in the league
Nope. I guess it was cool at the time. In retrospect that was awful basketball. Just like the end of TMac and that season where we relied on the refs calling fouls in the 4th quarter so Kevin Martin could seem good/relevant. Just awful hoops.
How did Sura get his era when it was right in the middle of the Yao/T-Mac era and Scolandry/Lowry/Dragic/KMart era didn't get mentioned? I know the latter was a series of .500 teams and probably not everyone's favorite time, but it was at least its own time in Rockets history.
For me there's 4 distinct eras where I loved watching: Dream championship era - little kid, dreamshaking god, favourite sport for life. Yao and Tmac - for me it should always be that way because Yao was my guy, Tmac was a bit of a disappointment overall looking back but the big feller really just was such a great talent. Such a shame, because I think if he plays in this era and China chill out a little he's giving Wemby nightmares. Harden - I loved this era. Beard is my #2 player of all time after Dream, and even though I fell out with him a bit after the breakup, his game is just so ****ing great man. Even now he's low-key a top tier player and quietly being amazing and efficient always. Adelman era perennial 8th seed, "Morey makes **** into sugar" - I don't know what it is, but something about the scrappy teams with Scola, Battier, Ariza, Artest, Martin (who I now believe may be the reason we never had a run if that's true about him holding back to not be made an all-star - cunt,) Air Budinger, Landry, Brooks, Lowry etc etc it actually weirdly felt like a fun time to be a Rockets fan for me. Rooting for an underdog is easy when they're (outside of Martin's skinny lil b**** ass) giving it their all and often overachieving against the odds.
I actually didn't read any of the other posts until I'd posted mine to not get someone else's nostalgia. I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed those years. Even though I'm not really a big Morey fanatic any more, I still flinch every time someone not named KD or Reed shoots a middie haha. He really does deserve his credit for putting a real stamp on the game.
Hakeem is #1 of course. Too young for anything predating that. I enjoyed the Harden era because it was relatively successful, but I don't know if I'd put it #2. A lot of bitter defeats, and Harden gradually got less and less fun to watch as it went on and his athleticism declined and he relied more and more on threes and foul calls to get his points. This is kind of weird, but I think my #2 would actually be one you didn't list, the interim era when T-Mac and Yao were functionally done (but technically still on the team for some of it) and right before we acquired Harden. Those were some scrappy teams full of good players that just didn't have a #1 option like they were supposed to. I particularly enjoyed the couple of years we had Kyle Lowry, Goran Dragic, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, and Chase Budinger. Especially 2010-11 when we had Shane Battier and Chuckwagon as well instead of Parsons and Courtney Lee. I also think this team was really fun the last two seasons before this one, by the way. Not as much fun now that we acquired KD and got rid of Dillon Brooks, but I guess Reed is making up for a little bit of it.
