'Ain't Nobody Had Wives Back Then': Ex-Rockets Player Reveals They Were Allowed To Bring Women They Just Met, On The Team Plane

The Rockets found themselves in a tough spot after back-to-back championships in 1994 and 1995, and they were looking for ways to build a roster around Hakeem Olajuwon to beat Michael Jordan, who had just come out of retirement. 

Once Jordan retired in 1998, they drafted Yao Ming and signed players like Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley, Cuttino Mobley, Tracy McGrady, and Steve Francis to experiment while competing for championships once again with various rosters in that post-1995 to 2005 era. But as hard as they worked, they apparently partied harder and never won a championship again. 

According to Cuttino Mobley (played in Houston from 1998 to 2004), who appeared on the "All the Smoke" podcast with Matt Barnes, the Rockets allowed players to bring women they had just met in different cities onto their team airplanes. He was talking about the era with Yao Ming on the Rockets and revealed a wild fact about their team rules. 

Mobley: “Listen, our team was so crazy at that time, dog. If you meet a girl in the city, you can bring her on the plane.”

Barnes: “No holds barred?”

Mobley: “No.”

Barnes: “Listen, there's no wives then on the plane, bro.”

Mobley: “We ain't nobody had wives back then. There were no old dudes.”

Barnes: “You can never bring work on the plane ever.”

Mobley: “Listen. Brought the work on the plane.”

Barnes: “God damn it. I needed to be on that plane.”

Mobley: “Brought the work on the plane, bro.”

Barnes: “Bro, that's crazy. That’s unheard of.”

Mobley: “I'm just staring at her like, 'You don't even know what you're doing. What are you getting yourself into? This is crazy, sweetheart. Who’s your father?"

Barnes: “I've never heard of work coming on the team plane, that’s elite.”

Mobley: “That's crazy, bro.”

Barnes: “They don't even want work in the family rooms, bro. F*** the family rooms.”

Mobley: “I think we messed it up. That's what it probably was.”

Barnes: “We f***ed it up.”

Mobley: “They stopped it all--You seen the older women looking at you that had husbands. You'd better stay away from my husband. I'm telling you right now, Mama, I don’t want no problems.”

Barnes: “Causing so many fights at the crib.”

Mobley: “Yeah, y'all boring over there.”

Barnes: “That's crazy.”