Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Ralph Sampson was among former players who appeared at the 12th annual Jerry Colangelo Golf Classic Friday.
Sampson was a former Phoenix Suns assistant coach during the 2012-13 season, but is widely remembered by basketball historians for his other five career footnotes. He was the original 7-foot-4 phenom 40 years before the San Antonio Spurs’ Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama, also 7-4.
Sampson, who previously has been at the event, was a three-time NCAA Player of the Year at Virginia from 1981-83. The four-time All-Star Sampson then played with a young rising star Hakeem Olajuwon on the Houston Rockets, where he played four seasons and part of a fifth, and led them to the 1986 NBA Finals. Sampson later played for Golden State, Sacramento and Washington.
During an interview with The Arizona Republic, Sampson discussed the evolution of centers’ roles from his era through today, the high potential of Suns’ 7-foot-3 Bol Bol, and other issues surrounding the team.
On Wembanyama’s game compared to Sampson’s era:
“Wembanyama’s a different player at a different time of basketball. He’s got great skills. He’s got great work ethic with what you can tell, but he don’t have to play the post, and if he did it’d be a different ball game. But there’s not big guys who can play against him. He’s playing against little people, so the game is totally different. We had to play against guys here like Terry Cummings, A.C. Green, Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar), Artis Gilmore, you got real men that will beat your a– in the post. So you can run up and down the court and try to beat them, or you have had to play the post and you had to match their game in the post because they wouldn’t let you shoot at them, right? The game has totally changed because in a way it evolves, so it’s a different era, different way to play, different structure.”
Sampson on positionless basketball in today’s NBA:
“In today’s game there’s no positions. Before, you had a point guard who stripped the ball, you had a shooting guard that shut off the picks, you had a small forward doing (his) own job, and another forward in the game, and there were centers. From UCLA, John Wooden, you had positions. Now, you just have players, you don’t have positions in basketball whatsoever.”
Sampson on Suns’ ownership, how Bol Bol could impact the team:
“It’s totally changed. I would love to be in the Phoenix Suns’ system right now with the new facilities, and the new owners, and the new structure of basketball because they’re getting ready to get it right. I went (Thursday) to their facility and I think they’re getting ready to make a big impact on the game of basketball. But Bol Bol is an elite talent. I played with Bol Bol’s father, Manute, and he didn’t have the same talent that his son has. He can change the game if he wants to, but he’s gotta want to get it done, and you gotta have that grit. He can’t just settle for the 3, and Wembanyama can’t just settle for the 3 when the game’s on the line. You gotta find your niche and you gotta make it to the basket, you gotta score. And that’s what the learning development of the game should be. It’s gonna take some years to do that, but if they can do it and put the work in, they’ll be really good.”
On whether Suns should use two bigs like Sampson-Olajuwon with Rockets to improve their inside presence:
“It’s what system you can find in a system and what system you can figure out. But me and Hakeem were different animals. We worked well together. A low-post presence and high-post presence, so it worked for us. I don’t know if it would work again with two big guys in today’s system because there’s no room unless you shoot a 3, or you can drive to the basket, and the percentage of the games with the wins will drop because you’re gonna live by the 3 and you’re gonna die by the 3. And everybody thinks it’s the quantity of 3s, not quality of 3s. ‘If I shoot enough, I’ll get enough points to win.’ To me, any team in this era, if they play a team in our era, they wouldn’t survive because they couldn’t understand the game.”
Why Suns were swept in 2024 playoffs by Timberwolves with bigs Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns:
“They had Anthony Edwards, and he was a beast. Those two complimented what he did, and when they took one big out, the other one thrived. They had someone replacing them. Those bigs weren’t scoring a lot of points. Anthony Edwards did and Towns did. Gobert was a rim protector and didn’t score a lot of points, sit him on their bench, and when the game sped up, and the coach coached them the right way. … Defense wins championships. That shows on any given plan. If you can play a little defense and put the ball in the basket, which a lot of people can do, but you have to play defense no matter what.”
