Mario Elie talked about how his Houston Rockets would have fared against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
The member of the Houston team, which won back-to-back NBA titles in the 90s, spoke on a interview with Rockets broadcaster Craig Ackerman.
“I don’t really care if they didn’t mention us,” Elie said per USA Today. “We still got those championships, first of all. Second of all, we’d have matched up great against them.
“We had Vernon and myself. You’re not going to stop Michael Jordan, we all know that know that, but we’re two guys who can make him work. And Jordan really didn’t face a big man at the caliber of Hakeem Olajuwon. If Michael Jordan would have beat me and Vernon, he would’ve had to meet No. 34 at the rim.”
Elie said this Houston team was mentally tough, something that didn’t occur for many team in that era, as the former Rockets’ guard claimed.
“We had a group of guys who weren’t scared. A lot of these players were scared of Michael Jordan. It was like that Mike Tyson effect. When Mike Tyson was first on the scene and you walked in the ring, he’d have those guys beat by the staredown,” per USA Today.
Furthermore, Ellie talked on a hypothetical match-up between the Bulls and the Rockets, as the teams never played against each other.
“I would take us in seven . It would have been a great series. Jordan would have got his for sure, and Olajuwon would get his. … Both guys were on top of their games at the time.
I think it’d have been up to the role players, and I sort of like our role players a little better than theirs, you know. It’d have been interesting, but I would like our chances, especially with that ’94 team. We had size, we had athleticism, and we had toughness.”
