Clutch City: A look back at the NBA’s most under-appreciated champion

If there is one commonality in sports, it is that every team competes to be the best. In many cases, that means winning a championship. Winning a championship not only makes your team the best in the game, but it also earns your team the opportunity to be recognized alongside some of the greatest teams of all time. Long story short, winning a championship means your team will never be overlooked in such a discussion.

However, that’s not always the case. If there is one thing I’ve learned from watching sports for over 25 years, it’s that there’s a difference between knowing that a team has become a champion and actually recognizing them as such.

It’s one thing to reach the pinnacle of your sport; it’s entirely different to earn special recognition years after the fact for doing something special to get there. What constitutes being a special team? It could be anything from a record-setting season to overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds to reach your sport’s peak.

Take the Houston Rockets for example. After the Chicago Bulls’ great Michael Jordan’s retirement prior to the 1993-94 NBA season, the Rockets stepped up and assumed the NBA throne behind their great center, Hakeem Olajuwon. They would repeat as champions in 1994-95 after trading for Houston native Clyde Drexler.

It’s been 23 years since that second title victory, and yet, it seems the Rockets don’t get the deserved recognition as champions. In fact, it has actually been suggested that those championships only occurred because Jordan was gone for much of that time.

As a Houston sports fan, I am offended by these blatant attempts to invalidate such a tremendous accomplishment. Let the record show that the Rockets and the Bulls never played each other in the NBA Finals, nor did they even play in the same conference. It’s not easy to win a title, and it’s even harder to repeat.

In fact, I could make the argument that the Rockets had to work harder than most teams to get to the top. In the ’94 playoffs, they had to overcome a 0-2 deficit to defeat the Phoenix Suns in the second round. They were one game away from losing the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks, and they would’ve lost if Olajuwon had not gotten his fingertips on a potential three-point game winner.

The ’95 season was even tougher. Midway through the year, the struggling Rockets traded for Drexler and entered the playoffs as the sixth seed in the Western Conference Playoffs. They survived a tough first-round matchup with the Utah Jazz where they were a half away from losing that series. They then overcame a 1-3 deficit in a rematch with the Suns in the next round.

Only three teams had ever done that before the Rockets. The Rockets went on to eliminate the San Antonio Spurs, who had the best record in the league that year and sweep the Orlando Magic to win their second championship. In doing so, the Rockets became the first, and only, team to win a championship seeded lower than fourth. They also became the first team to defeat four teams with at least 50 regular-season victories to win the NBA Championship.

This is why I feel that the Rockets of the mid-‘90s are perhaps the most under-appreciated champions in any sport. They deserve more recognition over two decades later because they did something truly special. They put themselves in a class all by themselves. Isn’t that what the truly great teams do?