The Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls formed one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history during the 1990s. The Bulls three-peated twice in that decade, winning three in a row from 1991 to 1993 and then from 1995 to 1998. The only time they failed to get their hands on that trophy between 1991 and 1998 was when Jordan retired for the first time, which resulted in the Rockets led by Hakeem Olajuwon winning back-to-back titles.
It has been a topic of intense debate on who exactly would have come out on top if those teams had got to face off in the Finals, and Vernon Maxwell, who was a part of the Rockets during that run, recently gave his take on it. Maxwell was on the “No Chill with Gilbert Arenas” podcast where he said they would have easily beaten the Bulls in 94 if Jordan had come back.
(starts at 15:59 mark):
“Hey, man we used to beat them all the time man. I know things are different during the playoffs. But I just feel like we had that big ass African (Olajuwon) back there and Bill Cartwright and Will Purdue they wasn’t gonna be able to do it.”
“We just look at the numbers man. I mean the numbers don’t lie, man, we was beating the s*** outta them boys. I mean we wasn’t beating them by 5, we were beating them up by 15, 17, 16, 13, we was beating them. I mean over like an 8-year span, 7-year span we was 9-1 (against them). I mean come on man”
Jordan did in fact have a losing record against Olajuwon for his career, as he was just 10-13 against him. It gets more interesting when we see how these teams fared against each other during the first Bulls three-peat, as the Rockets had a 5-1 edge over them.
We’ll never know what might have been, but Maxwell has the numbers to back up his argument. That is not to say that Maxwell didn’t respect Jordan though, as he also said during this podcast that he had sleepless nights before he had to face MJ.
