When Bulls guard Michael Jordan walked away from the NBA for the first time in 1993, a new elite team quickly stepped up to fill the void.
After producing several quality teams in the 1980s, the Rockets put it all together in 1994 and ’95. In ’94, with Jordan playing minor league baseball, Houston topped the Knicks in seven games to win its first championship. In ’95, with Jordan still working his way back to game shape, the Rockets repeated by sweeping the Magic.
It’s widely believed by NBA fans and observers that Jordan’s exit enabled Houston’s rise. But TNT analyst Kenny Smith, the starting point guard on those Rockets teams, sees it differently, as he told ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith on Wednesday evening.
“Is it true that you actually think that you and (center Hakeem) Olajuwon and the crew would’ve beaten the Chicago Bulls in the finals if Jordan was there and hadn’t retired?” Stephen A. Smith asked the two-time champ.
“Yes, we would’ve beat the Chicago Bulls, I feel,” Kenny Smith responded. “I’m glad we didn’t beat them because it would’ve hurt Michael’s legacy in the debate with LeBron,” he added with a smile. (Kenny Smith was a college teammate of Jordan’s for one season at North Carolina.)
When Stephen A. protested that Houston wouldn’t have beaten Chicago, Kenny asked Stephen A. whether he really believed the Bulls would’ve won eight consecutive championships.
Kenny elaborated, “The reason I thought we would’ve beat them is because they were too small for us. There was no Horace Grant. Dennis Rodman wasn’t there yet. So who’s going to guard Dream? No. Impossible. No way, no how. We would’ve beaten the Michael Jordan Bulls because they were too little.”
Boldly, he concluded, “We would’ve smacked them.”
