Name the player who got you hooked on basketball

Hakeem no doubt about that. I started getting interested in basketbal when i was 15. I started watching some games (which was difficult at the time in the Netherlands) and Hakeem was just amazing. I became a Rocket fan.

 

Kobe
Ray Allen
Iverson

all had better careers than T-mac

Oh I agree T-mac was a fan favorite for Houston, Orlando, and Toronto. But then he stopped being a fan favorite. that's weird. I wonder why?

Funny that you mentioned Jordan as a Wizard. When he came back to Chicago as a Wizard, they gave him a standing ovation.

When your boy went back to Orlando as a Rocket, they booed him.

I don't think anybody ever booed Steve Francis when he came back to Houston as a member of another team.

say this with me one time, "Kobe is better than Tmac". if you believe in this statement, then you don't need to consult me.

 

Reggie Miller

More specifically, this play:

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Tim Hardaway. Patterned my game after his growing up. Killer crossover FTW!

 

Michael Jordan

 

I would have to say either Glen Rice or Mitch Richmond. Their shooting abilities instantly stuck out to me personally when I started watching basketball.

 

Championship Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon.

I was only 10.

 

Otis Thorpe

 

Dirk Nowitzki. Flame suit on

 

Steve Francis

 

Hakeem circa 1992. I'm almost certain I watched a couple of years earlier, because I started playing basketball when I was 5 and surely I caught some games on TV - but the '91-'92 season is my earliest memory of watching.

I remember watching the starting lineups on TV and thinking that Hakeem 'must be really good, because he's been on the team the longest'. I remember thinking how weird it was to have guys named Sleepy Floyd and Tree Rollins. And I remember Maxwell being my first favorite Rocket because he was such a good shooter.

 

Ryan Bowen.

 

The Dream got me hooked on basketball. I watched every game he played in from 90-95. I would get goosebumps when he shaked the Admiral, Shaq, Ewing.

 

Penny Hardaway
Dream
Reggie Miller
Gary Payton

 

I grew up in Indiana, so we were raised on high school basketball. I loved listening to the Purdue/Detroit games to hear Terry Dischinger and Dave DeBusschere try to out score each other(yea, I'm an old fart). On the pro level, I followed the Bulls (NBA) with Bob Love & Norm Van Leare and the Pacers (ABA) with Bob Netolicky and Mel Daniels.

 

the franchise! I was born in 1990 so i never really got to experience the championship years here in Houston and I really only remember the later stages of hakeems year but I still remember us trading with the "Vancouver" Grizzlies to get Stevie Franchise

 

I got hooked on "Akeem Olajuwon"...... Phi Slama Jama

 

t-mac in his last orlando year
saw my first all-star game and was like

 

Hakeem was the person I watched growing up. Mcgrady was the guy who got me hooked on basketball, I grew up playing soccer, got bigger and started playing football, but from the time Mcgrady joined our team I stopped playing pretty much everything but basketball.

Im not quick, have an awkward form, have a negative vertical, but despite all of this watching mcgrady made me want to go play everyday, i remember the first game of my freshmen year of college and after watching us play the heat, i ran to the gym and played basketball, everytime i watch his videos, i want to play, i just get an itch to play haha so weird, but anyways mcgrady got me hooked and i ended up playing so much basketball my freshmen year i lost 32 lbs.

 

Yes Kobe was better and smoother back then. But in his post he was talking about lesser players lighting up better players occasionally, like T-mac in Jordan. Never once did he mention T-mac being better than any of the players you mentioned. This topic is about who inspired you/got you hooked on basketball, for him it was T-mac, so what? Its just a player, I got hooked by Ray Allen