Bill Fitch coach of the Rockets in the Mid 80's Passes Away at 89

The defenses in the 90's were propped up by a slower pace - mainly by forcing a half court game. Hand checking and physicality happened before the 90's and after. It's very overstated that somehow there was this magical defensive era in the 90's when it was really just slowing the game down and thus making offenses less efficient and artificially boasting defensive efficiency and dropping scoring output.

And I think you are looking at the past with nostalgia and rose colored glasses. There was tons of criticism of Fitch and he was fired for a reason. And I don't get what you are talking about that it wasn't obvious in 87 season - Sampson missed half that season. Even before his knee injury it was clear Olajuwon was the superior interior player. Fitch wasn't a big fan of Sampson either. I wonder if you really followed the team closely during that era?

 

Sampson's injuries pre-dated the 1986 season. He and management were jawing at each other long before that, and Fitch was old school as it gets - he was basically like "rub some spit onto your injury, wrap it up, and get out there -- you make a lotta money". Lol. Fitch was probably a complete 180 of the "part-time superstar" mentality today. They had arguments before that 1986 season about Ralph not wanting to get in games because of injuries and Fitch/management wanting him to play despite them. I think the other thing they wanted was Ralph playing in the post, but Ralph wanted to be a 7'4" guard. Ralph in the post was probably going to take a beating. Ralph in today's game would've been a nightmare, but at the same time, he probably still would've broke down.

 

Great post and discussion for us old timers. Sweet Lou I am going to both agree and disagree with you. I agree with you in that I don't think Rudy T gets enough recognition for what he did with Hakeem and the Rockets and for being one of the first to utilize the stretch 4. But I am not sure Rudy's approach would have worked in 86.

Hakeem, as you have noted, was a different player. Not as good at passing out of the post, and not as well rounded offensively - he didn't have the 16 foot jump shot at that point in his career. And there weren't as many good three point shooters in the league. But Fitch was definitely stubborn if nothing else and he would never have made the adjustments that Rudy did. And I am sure Ralph's habit of disappearing from time to time (and I was a big Ralph fan) drove Fitch up a wall.

And just for the record my favorite player from that era was Sweet Lou. I can hear Gene Peterson's radio call like it was yesterday .... "Sweet Lou dipsy doodle for two." Great times!