Before I start this, I realize it's been 16 years since the Rockets won the championship. A strong sense of 'what have you done lately' has drifted in. I understand that, but still, allow me to recall a personal observation of how those championships changed a player's career, at least from my limited perspective. In 1990 I got a job distributing mail for a government agency. I mention this because the hours were from 4:00 a.m. until 12 noon. The job was in the Mid Town area. To kill time after work I would often go by the Fonde Recreation center and watch the summer league games. On one particular day I went by there and the place was empty. There were maybe four people in the building, not counting staff. Just about every time I went to the Fonde Center I saw a player from the NBA and that day was no exception. Two young guys were on the court playing one on one basketball, or maybe a game of twenty one. In drifts Rockets's pg Kenny Smith. He was carrying a couple of boxes of new basketball shoes. At the time I remember thinking 'oh, there goes Rockets player Kenny Smith, ho hum', or something along those lines. The Rockets had just lost another close opening round series against the Seattle Supersonics. The collective feeling the city of Houston had about the Rockets, and Houston sports teams in general, was at best apathetic. Anyway, Kenny offered some shoes to the guys playing ball. A guess it was a way of promoting the NBA in Houston, community service, etc., something like that. The two guys proceeded to diss Kenny. They talked about how sorry he was, he couldn't shoot, things like that. Kenny Smith took all the verbal abuse in stride and sort of drifted out of the gym. Fast forward a few years. The next year you could see things start turning around. The Rockets set a record by winning 21 or so games in a row, while Hakeem was out injured. The next year, (or was it the year after that, it's been awhile) they won the championship. The year after that they won it again. After that second championship I'm thinking 'no more handing out shoes at Fonde for Kenny Smith'. If you happened to see him then he probably had a body guard, maybe two. He goes on to fame and notoriety as a respected commentator for TNT. What a difference those two championships made in his career. Perhaps someone else has a Rockets 'before and after the championship years' observation.
Cool story bro! Not joking it was cool. I remember not being cool in school for being a Rockets fan before. After they won I was cool. Chicks would flock to me when I had my jersey on. I also had the Hakeem Spalding shoes from K-mart.
