YouTube Gold: Clyde The Glyde Drexler

To an extent, in a sense, Clyde Austin’s career was unfortunate, a case of bad timing. At Houston, he was really good but the emergence of Hakeem Olajuwon meant he was second best. And in the NBA, he was overshadowed mostly by Michael Jordan but also by a lot of superb talent -Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and Olajuwon again.

But Drexler was legitimately great. He was one of the finest players in NBA history, particularly on the fast break.

A native of New Orleans, Drexler was recruited to Houston after Michael Young told coach Guy Lewis just how good he was. Lewis later said he got hate mail for recruiting him which is bizarre and hard to imagine.

Obviously Drexler did very well at Houston, with Phi Slama Jamma, although the team fell to NC State in the legendary 1983 title game.

He had a lot of success with the Trailblazers but was there in an era where the team philosophically took the best available player in the draft and typically had a very talented team but not one that was always balanced. His Trailblazers never won a title.

However, when he was traded to Houston and reunited with Olajuwon, they won a title in 1995.

A Ten-time All-Star, Drexler was also a member of the 1992 Dream Team.

If you never saw him play, well, there’s a reason why he was called Clyde the Glide.