In the 80s - Houston Rockets were one of those teams you loved to watch.
Well, let’s be clear, at the end of the 80s.
But even then, you mostly remember the Rockets of the 80s because of Hakeem Olajuwon.
He was the star, he was the man, he was the legend and deservedly so.
But there is one man we tend to forget about, one man that was a part of the famous Twin
Tower duo, just IMO didn’t get the recognition that he deserved.
Hello everyone.
I’m PRPLPRNCH and this time I want to talk about Ralph Sampson.
The forgotten Twin Tower.
Ralph Sampson was a star before he entered the NBA.
In fact, Sampson was one of the most covered and highly regarded athletes of his generation.
Sampson was blessed with great height.
At high school he was already 7.1 and eventually Sampson grew three more inches to make him
a 7 foot 4, 230 pound nightmare for opposing centers.
Sampson played center for the University of Virginia 4 years and actually was considering
to enter the 1982 NBA draft, but he didn’t want to be drafted by the San Diego Clippers
so he stayed 1 extra year in school.
Sampson finished his college career with three Naismith awards as the National Player of
the year and his number 50 was retired.
I’d say he was pretty good in college.
In the 1983 NBA draft Ralph Sampson was drafted number 1 by the Houston Rockets and although
Houston did win only 29 games in Sampson’s rookie year, it was still a noticeable improvement
over the 14 wins they got just a year ago.
Sampson did his thing.
As a rookie Ralph Sampson averaged 21 points, 11.1 rebounds and 2.4 blocks.
Houston got more media attention when second year in a row they got the 1st pick and chose
to draft another center - Hakeem Olajuwon and many were surprised because two unbelievably
talented 7-footers on one team.
That wouldn’t work.
Right?
And boy was everyone wrong.
From there on, the Houston Rockets drastically improved.
In Sampsons second season, and first with Hakeem Olajuwon - the Rockets won 48 games,
and got to the playoffs, where they were eliminated by Utah Jazz.
Sampson and Olajuwon were beasts with Olajuwon averaging 20.6 points and 11.9 rebounds and
Sampson adding a cool 22.1 points and 10.4 rebounds.
Seemed like the future was so bright, yet it turned out so bleak because of Sampson’s
injuries.
The 1985-86 season was great.
Twin towers were on full force.
Sampson averaged 18.9 points, 11.1 rebounds while Olajuwon averaged 23.5 points and 11.5
rebounds.
Houston won 51 games and made the playoffs.
In the first round Houston did an easy work of Sacramento Kings - 3 and 0.
In the Second round Houston managed to beat the Denver Nuggets - 4 to 2 and now they were
in the conference finals
facing the Showtime Lakers - their biggest fear.
Turned out, that they didn’t have to fear anything.
a quick, 5-game series with Houston going on to NBA finals, where the biggest challenge
awaited them.
The Boston Celtics.
A team that won 40 out of 41 games on their home court.
Sampson had some great moments in this series.
Unfortunately, this series also kinda marked the downfall of Ralph Sampson’s career.
The first 2 Rockets homegames went to the Celtics and everyone thought it’s the end
- the champion can be named.
Ralph Sampson had different plans.
Houston Rockets managed to win Game 3 thanks to some great play from Ralph Sampson who
had 22 rebounds.
In game 4 Sampson scored 25 points, but that wasn’t enough and Boston went up 3-1 in
the series.
Game 5 turned out to be a nightmare.
Rockets were playing good and ended up winning the game, but during the game - A Celtics
fan threw a mysterious inflatable doll over the edge of the railing.
It was supposed to just "taunt" Ralph Sampson, but additionally whenever Sampson grabbed
a board, he was booed.
Whenever he missed OR made a shot, he was booed.
The situation escalated and Ralph Sampson ran over to Jerry Sichting, who was taunting
him, and elbowed him.
The bench brawl was started with Boston fans cheering yet booing at the same time.
Rockets won that game, but Sampson really lost it.
To this day Sampson has said in various interviews that day was “traumatizing”.
Sampson shot only 33% in Game 6, and the Rockets lost the Finals.
This would be the last healthy season of Ralph Sampson.
In the 1986-87 season he would hurt his back and it was pretty serious.
Sampson ended up playing in just 43 games, starting 32 of them.
Sampson had the worst year of his career averaging 15.6 points and 8.7 rebounds.
Injured again in 1987-88 season Rockets knew they had to trade Sampson and that’s what
they did.
Ralph Sampson was traded to the Golden State Warriors 19 games into the season.
The health just got worse.
Sampson played just 29 games for the Warriors and 48 games total that season, but still
averaged 15.6 points and 9.6 rebounds for the season.
Next season, by Ralph Sampson’s standards, he was pretty healthy, but appearing in 61
games isn’t enough.
He started to play more of a bench role for the Warriors.
Playing just 17.8 minutes per game Sampson had his worst year averaging 6.4 points and
5 rebounds.
After the season, Sampson once again got traded - this time to the Sacramento Kings where
he was a deep bench player.
His health was getting worse and he ended up playing just 51 games for the Kings with
stats of 13.9 minutes per game - 3 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
Sampson did try to extend his career and played 10 games for the Washington Bullets in 1991-92
season, but it was so clear Sampson was done.
Unfortunately the lack of health really got to him.
And these 10 games were the last he played in the NBA.
Sampson had some games overseas as he played 8 games for Unicaja Ronda in the Spanish Basketball
league.
2 years later Sampson played some games for the Continental Basketball Association but
soon enough he understood it’s the end, and retired for good.
Ralph Sampson’s NBA career ended very prematurely at just 32 years old, and you could say that
it ended already in 1987 when the Rockets traded him.
The basketball world did acknowledge Sampson’s great influence and talent and in 2012 Ralph
Sampson was introduced into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Ralph Sampson played in just 456 games and for his career he averaged 29.8 minutes, 15.4
points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.6 blocks.
But it was his 305 games for the Rockets where he established himself as one of the greats,
one part of the first Twin Towers - a great part, yet unfairly forgotten because of his
own injuries and the superiority of the other twin tower - Hakeem Olajuwon.
Thank you very much for watching guys.
Do you think the incident in Boston really impacted Ralph Sampson’s career so much?
Or was it just the injuries?
Do you think Ralph Sampson is a great player and deserves to be in the hall of fame?
Whatever your thought is, leave a comment below, like this video and SUBSCRIBE for future
NBA content.
This was PRPLPRNCH, and I’m out!