Rockets would have beaten Bulls even if Michael Jordan didn't retire, says champ

Rockets would have beaten Bulls even if Michael Jordan didn't retire, says champ originally appeared on The Sporting News

The Chicago Bulls would have fallen to the Houston Rockets in 1994 and '95 even if Michael Jordan hadn't retired, a former role player on the '95 champions has claimed.

Jordan initially hung up his Nikes after scoring his third straight championship with Chicago in 1993, aged 30. He attempted a transition to the MLB, suiting up for the minor league affiliate of Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf's Chicago White Sox, the Birmingham Barons. The five-time league MVP returned to basketball late into the 1994-95 season.

Even with Jordan back in tow, Chicago fell to the Orlando Magic in the second round of that spring's playoffs. The Bulls bounced back in a big way, adding future Hall of Fame power forward Dennis Rodman to shore up their frontcourt and notching three more consecutive championships.

During an interview with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson of Lakers Daily, former Rockets reserve small forward Tracy Murray (who was also, eventually, a Laker) posits that, even had the 6-foot-6 North Carolina product never taken his baseball break, Jordan's Bulls would have fallen to Murray's Rockets.

“Michael was tough. Period,” Murray said of Jordan following his 1995 return. “When he was making his comeback, we were playing pickup games at the Jordan Dome when he was filming ‘Space Jam’ [during the 1995 offseason] because a lot of us were in the film as extras and things like that, and he was tough then and that was off a couple years of playing baseball you know – he still hadn’t lost a step. He was just knocking the rust off, but he was STILL Michael Jordan.” 

To hear Murray tell it, 12-time All-NBA Houston center Hakeem Olajuwon would have dominated the Bulls in the paint.

“There was NO answer with Chicago for Hakeem Olajuwon. No answer," Murray said. "He was the most dominant big man that I’ve ever played with and that I have ever seen. That’s no shade to Shaq, no shade to him at all – I played with him and Shaq. No shade, but Hakeem Olajuwon was – what he did to David Robinson, what I witnessed in the front row – what he did to David Robinson and that was the MVP year? I’ve never seen a center like that to ANYBODY ever."

After Olajuwon captured MVP honors in 1994, Robinson was crowned with the same award the next season. To borrow a phrase from Jordan, Olajuwon "took that personally," obliterating Robinson as an underdog in the 1995 Western Conference Finals, en route to his second straight championship.

During his first title run, Olajuwon averaged 28.9 points on 51.9 percent shooting from the floor and 79.5 percent shooting from the foul line, 11.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 4.0 blocks, and 1.7 steals in 43.0 minutes per. The next year, Olajuwon was even more prolific as a scorer, averaging 33.0 points on 53.1 percent shooting from the field and 68.1 percent shooting from the charity stripe, 10.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.8 blocks and 1.2 steals a night.

In both of Jordan's three-peats, wing play was the focus, with Jordan and fellow future Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen leading the charge. Chicago did have All-Star-caliber power forward help in Horace Grant and later Rodman, but the team never had elite rim protection at the center position. A past-his-prime Bill Cartwright manned the middle during the club's initial three-peat, from 1991-93, while Luc Longley provided a physical interior presence during the second three-peat, from 1996-98.

"And I’ve seen Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] all through my childhood you know, kill people. But what Hakeem Olajuwon did?" Murray claimed. "He was THE DESTROYER! I’ve never seen a great center look like a college player against a pro. It was just a one-way butt kickin’ and I’ve never seen that before in my life.”

Jordan is unquestionably the greatest perimeter player in the history of the game. But he emerged as one of the league's great champions in a center-centric league, during the 1980s. Olajuwon, drafted first over No. 2 pick Sam Bowie and No. 3 pick Jordan in 1984 (Charles Barkley was the fifth pick while John Stockton went No. 16), was the best center to play during Jordan's '90s prime. They never met in the Finals, as Olajuwon's aging Rockets teams never returned to the mountaintop following those two back-to-back titles.

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