Ron Artest on 2008-09 Rockets: "We had an amazing team."

That team was loaded


Aaron Brooks/Kyle Lowry
Tracy Mcgrady/ Von Wafer
Ron Artest/ Shane Battier
Luis Scola, Carl Landry/ Chuck Hayes
Yao Ming/ Dikeme Mutombo


Damn i would give anything, to see those guys in the Toyota Center again

 

I know, Im sure that team would of won the championship if not for the injuries

 

Wow, I even forgot Chuck Hayes!

 

He was seriously underutilized by RA that year. RA only started giving him more minutes when Yao went down in the playoffs, that was also when he realized Hayes was a better option at 5 than any other guys.

RA ran a 3 man big man rotation that year, Luis Scola/Yao/Landry.

 

Don't get it twisted people, no way would we have won a championship had Yao not gotten injured during the run. Ironically, one of the main reasons was our bench, but also Battier in the starting line-up due to no no good SG. Barry was rarely used and I still do not know why, Wafer was awful in the playoffs.
Tracy should've been traded as it was just a question of when rather than if he would get hurt.

 

Yep, DM did a helluva job puttin that squad together... and that was 3 years ago.... wish all the Morey haters and 'treadmill of mediocrity' complainers would get a clue...

 

if u have nba 2k9, you can relive this team again only mcgrady was still rated very high in the game and played like a superstar. A simulation would have had us going 67-15 and winning a title.

 

i remember at the deadline and all over espn, they were talking about the tmac for carter swap. thats when tracy announced his surgery to stephen a. smith.

 

There is no Dana, only Zeul ...

 

Yes, this was a great team
In the playoffs vs. the lakers yao, tmac and mutombo wasn't there
Brooks, ron, shane, luis and chuck was the starting team
They fight like beast. Glory for this team!!!!

 

What hurt the most is that we lost that last game to NO. I know most people go by the "beat who is front of you" philosophy in the playoffs, but I felt like match-ups would have been in our favor. When we lost to NO we dropped from the second seed to the 5th. As a second seed we would have faced NO again, and we were the better team. Now the Spurs (who were the 3rd seed) face the Blazers in the 4 v. 5 match-up. Both teams would go on to fight the Lakers. Both the Blazers and Spurs were good against the Lakers, and the BLazers were one of the few teams that had a winning record against the Lakers that season. We would have had to play NO and go on to play the winner of Nuggets v Dallas. A rematch with Dallas would have been sweet and we had the Nuggets number. Either way, we would also get home-court for a second round. We would have faced a worn down Laker or Blazer team in WCF. We could have seen a Yao v Dwight finals. A Rocket's fan's road is paved with coulda's and woulda's. Metta, that was an amazing team.

 

That was my favorite Rockets team from the '00s, hands down.

Thrashing LeBron and the Cavs at TC, Wafer hitting that cold-blooded trey to beat the defending champion Celtics at the Garden, Tru Warier hitting double figs in scoring in something like 30 straight games, Yao only missing 5 reg season games and averaging 20 and 10, Wafer's baseline dunk over Aldridge, AB0 going off in Game 4 against LA... that bench of Lowry, Wafer, Landry, Chuck, and Deke was all heart.

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Artest loved that team because he felt he was the number 1 option on that playoff team.

 

I'm going to cry

 

If only Tmac hadn't thrown us under the bus and we could have traded for Carter... Then maybe teams wouldn't have been able to gang bang Yao so much in the paint and he could have finished the year without an injury...

 

sigh, that was such a great year. Yao had so much heart, and Ron fed off that.

I still remember when the Big 3 exploded and took out Dallas in one of the first ten games. There was so much hype. Finally, MacYao had some help!

...alas, not meant to be.

 

That was a special team. Had everyone stayed healthy, definitely would have been a championship winner. No doubt in my mind.

 

That team had really good defensive and hustle players. Even with Yao down, we took the Lakers to gm 7.