May this basketball championship bring this scattered metropolis whatever the first one didn’t, and to hear the locals whine, winning one was worth nothing but scorn and suspicion.
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It was never enough to just share an NBA title with one another, with the guy down the bayou, what Houston demanded was national applause.
Nothing less than universal congratulations will do this time, as if having the first words spoken on the moon be “Houston” is not an honor for the ages.
“I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how I feel about this team,” said coach Rudy Tomjanovich, “about its character and guts. No one in history has done what this team has done, being a sixth seed, winning those road games. No one has had as great a playoff as Hakeem Olajuwon did.
“We beat the No. 1 team, the No. 2 team, the No. 3 team and the No. 4 team. All that stuff about lack of respect, if that’s not over, something’s wrong. I’m the proudest guy in the world.”
Silly, but these are the Houston Rockets and not the Houston rocket scientists. And now that they have routed Orlando four straight in the NBA Finals, let the tributes begin.
Not only must Olajuwon be declared the best center of all time, Olajuwon must be made richer, be given all those commercial endorsements he has lacked, be like Mike, be like Shaq, be like Jason Kidd, even. You know, a cartoon.
Olajuwon’s Game 4 performance alone is worth that, shaming O’Neal, finishing the finest playoff run of any player not named Jordan, punctuating it all with a final, superfluous three-pointer from the corner.
Was this the best he has ever played in his life?
“Yes, I agree,” Olajuwon said.
Olajuwon just signed a deal to front Uncle Ben’s rice, because he said, in a sworn statement, he ate it all the time growing up in Nigeria. Maybe they didn’t get Wheaties there.
Commerce has little to do with real worth. We don’t need to look much further than Mike Ditka to see that. Reality is that no matter how good a fellow or great a player Olajuwon is, the American marketplace has never really embraced foreign-born athletes with thick accents, save your odd female figure skater every now and then.
Houston expects the world to share the civic redemption of Clyde Drexler, the once and prodigal failure who could not win a college championship with Hakeem and his Phi Slama Jama hometown buddies in two tries nor twice as a pro for Portland.
“I’ve been holding this in all playoffs long,” Drexler said. “How sweet it is! It’s fantastic to be part of something this special, in your hometown where you grew up, on the same team as Hakeem. This is incredible, like a dream come true.”
This is all very nice, but if coming home is reason for strangers to stand around and cheer, none of us would ever get out of the airport.
“This is history,” said Olajuwon.
History was made at the Alamo. And at the Texas Medical Center up the street by Drs. Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey. And by whichever wizard flavored the first fajita.
“The way it is today,” said forward Robert Horry, “if you don’t win it twice, you’re nobody.”
Houston should always remember that Detroit won this thing twice in succession without improving anyone’s opinion of the place.
And what of poor Orlando?
Orlando kept getting younger and younger until by Game 4 you expected them to be sucking their thumbs.
The team that didn’t need to suffer, that would take its place at the top because everyone agreed it should, found itself playing just not to be humiliated. It did not work.
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Said coach Brian Hill before the playoffs started, “We’re going to be judged–and we know we’re going to be judged–solely on what we do in the postseason. That’s the attitude that the media has created and unfortunately that’s what we have to live with.”
While no one in the media was missing free throws and open jumpers, nor writing as listlessly as Orlando played, Hill got it right.
And what the media will do with Orlando is no worse than it ever did to the Buffalo Bills. Or to Bill Buckner.