The various logos of the Rockets franchise. (Logos fromwww.sportslogos.net)
The Houston Rockets have played 46 seasons in the NBA, the first four as the San Diego Rockets before moving to Texas for the 1971-72 season.
The Rockets were founded on Jan. 11, 1967, when an expansion franchise was awarded to San Diego. More than 10,000 entries were submitted as part of a fan vote to name the new team, but eventually “Rockets” was chosen because San Diego was a major player in space-age industries.
After four seasons playing at the San Diego Sports Arena, the team moved to Texas and landed in Houston, where the Rockets nickname still fits given that the NASA space program is headquartered in the city.
The team played at the Hofheinz Pavilion on the University of Houston campus for its first four seasons in Texas, although the first two seasons were sort of a traveling road show, with the team playing three home games in San Antonio, two in Waco and one in El Paso in 1971-72 and 13 of its 41 home games in San Antonio in 1972-73.
The Summit, later known as the Compaq Center, opened in 1975 and was the Rockets’ home until 2003, when it moved into the new Toyota Center. The franchise has won two championships, capturing back-to-back titles in 1994 and 1995, and has made the playoffs 27 times in 46 years.
So who are the best players by position in the history of the Rockets franchise?
Note: To qualify for this list, a player must have played a minimum of 250 games for the franchise.
Small forward: Robert Reid
Reid played 10 years for the Rockets, playing from 1977-78 through 1981-82 and then returning in 1983-84 after a one-year retirement.
He came to Houston as a second-round draft choice in 1977, the 40th overall pick that year, from Division II St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. Never a superstar, Reid was, however, very solid for a long time, averaging 11.6 points and 4.9 rebounds per game in 762 games for the Rockets, all but 202 of them coming off the bench as the team’s top reserve.
Reid played a big role for the Rockets in 1981, when Houston reached the NBA Finals as a No. 6 seed after a 40-42 regular season. The Rockets eventually lost to the Celtics after upsetting the Lakers in the first round, stunning the San Antonio Spurs—who had won 52 games in the regular season—in the conference semifinals and beating the Kansas City Kings, who had also gone 40-42 and were the No. 5 seed, in the Western Conference Finals.
Reid averaged 41.3 minutes a game in the playoffs, scoring 16.1 points and averaging 6.8 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 2.4 steals a game. He was also a starter for the Rockets’ 1986 Finals team, averaging 14.9 points and 6.9 assists in the postseason.
Reid is fourth in team history in games and minutes (762 and 21,718, respectively), as well as fourth in steals (881), seventh in rebounds (3,706), blocked shots (364) and points (8,823) and ninth in assists (2,253).
Here are some highlights from the 1981 playoff run:
Reid’s tenure in Houston ended in July 1988 when he was traded to the expansion Charlotte Hornets with a 1990 second-round draft pick (Steve Scheffler) in exchange for Bernard Thompson.
Apologies to: Rodney McCray, Shane Battier, Mario Elie, Buck Johnson.
Power forward: Rudy Tomjanovich
Long before Rudy T coached the Rockets to their only two championships, he was a five-time All-Star for the team. An All-American at Michigan, Tomjanovich was taken with the second overall pick by the San Diego Rockets in 1970.
Tomjanovich averaged 18.1 points and 8.7 rebounds per game over his first seven-plus seasons with the franchise, playing in 580 games and shooting 50.3 percent from the floor. But his career—and life—were never the same after a horrific incident on Dec. 9, 1977, during a game against the Lakers at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif. Lakers forward Kermit Washington got into an altercation with Rockets center Kevin Kunnert and when Tomjanovich ran toward the fray, Washington threw a punch that essentially shattered Tomjanovich’s face.
Tomjanovich missed the remainder of the 1977-78 season, but did return to score 19 points a game and make his final All-Star appearance the following year. Tomjanovich retired in October 1981 and is still third in franchise history with 768 games and 25,714 minutes. His 6,198 rebounds ranks fourth on the franchise’s all-time list and with 13,383 points, he ranks third in franchise history.
Apologies to: Otis Thorpe, Luis Scola, Chuck Hayes, Ralph Sampson.
Center: Hakeem Olajuwon
Talk about tough choices! But based on sheer volume, Hakeem wins this battle with Moses Malone, who played only six seasons for the Rockets.
Olajuwon was the first overall pick of the Rockets in the 1984 draft out of the University of Houston, taken just ahead of some guy named “Michael Jordan” or something like that, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.
Hakeem played 17 of his 18 seasons for the Rockets and led them to their only two championships in 1994 and 1995, earning Finals MVP honors both years. Olajuwon was also the NBA MVP ion 1993-94 and was twice named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year, in 1992-93 and 1993-94. He was named to 12 All-NBA teams, including six first-team nods, and made the All-Defensive Team nine times and was a first-teamer on five occasions.
A 12-time All-Star, Olajuwon is the franchise’s all-time leader in games (1,177), minutes (42,844), rebounds (13,382), steals (2,088), blocked shots (3,740) and points (26,511). His 2,992 assists place him third in franchise history. His 23.9 player efficiency rating (PER) is also the best in Rockets’ annals, edging out Malone (23.8).
Here is a compilation of Olajuwon’s top 10 career plays:
Olajuwon left the Rockets in August 2001, when he was traded to the Toronto Raptors for first- and second-round picks in the 2002 draft who turned out to be Bostjan Nachbar and Tito Maddox.
Apologies to: Moses Malone, Yao Ming, Elvin Hayes, Kelvin Cato.
Shooting guard: Mike Newlin
Newlin was the Rockets’ second-round pick (24th overall) out of the University of Utah in 1971 and played eight years in Houston.
He averaged 14 points and 4.3 assists in 29.2 minutes per game, working primarily as a reserve as a rookie in 1971-72 and coming off the bench again in his final three years with the Rockets. His best year with Houston was 1975-76, when he averaged 18.6 points and 5.6 assists a game while shooting 50.7 percent from the floor (10th-best in the league) and 86.5 percent from the free-throw line.
Newlin is sixth in team history with 604 games and eighth with 17,646 minutes. His 2,581 assists are fourth on the franchise’s all-time list and he is tied for 10th place with 467 steals, even though it wasn’t an official statistic his first two years with the team. His 8,480 points rank eighth on the all-time list and his 86.4 career free-throw percentage is fifth best.
The trade of Newlin to the New Jersey Nets in October 1979 for a 1980 second-round draft pick, who turned into John Stroud, is not one of the best in the history of the franchise.
Apologies to: Cuttino Mobley, Tracy McGrady, Stu Lantz, Vernon Maxwell.
Point guard: Calvin Murphy
Murphy defied the odds as a 5’9” second-round pick (18th overall) out of Niagara in 1970. He played in one All-Star Game in 1979 and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993 after a 13-year career with the Rockets in both San Diego and Houston.
Murphy averaged more than 20 points per game four times in his career, with his career-high coming in 1977-78, when he tossed in 25.6 points a night. For his career, he averaged 17.9 points and 4.4 assists per game and was a deadly accurate shooter from the free-throw line, hitting 89.2 percent for his career (seventh-best in NBA history). His 95.8 percent mark in 1980-81 broke Rick Barry’s single-season record and stood for 28 years until it was bested by Jose Calderon of the Toronto Raptors in 2008-09.
Murphy was a reserve on the 1981 team that went to the NBA Finals, averaging 18.1 points a game in 28.4 minutes. His best all-around season was 1973-74, when he averaged 20.4 points and 7.4 assists a game, posting a career-high PER of 20.0 and picking up 9.2 win shares.
Here are some highlights from Murphy’s Hall of Fame career:
Murphy is second in games for the Rockets with 1,002 and minutes with 30,607. He is the franchise’s all-time leader in assists with 4,402 and is second in steals with 1,165 (it wasn’t a statistic for his first three seasons) and points with 17,949. His free-throw percentage is third on the franchise’s all-time list, trailing only Barry and Kevin Martin, and his 18.0 PER is 10th-best in club history.
He retired after the 1982-83 season.
Apologies to: Steve Francis, Kenny Smith, Allen Leavell, Sleepy Floyd.