Agree - the 2nd Rockets title team is really underrated -

They won the title from a #6 seed in the Western Conference. They were the road team in every series - Utah, Phoenix, San Antonio, and then Orlando.

They threw tremendous amounts of shade, too, which was kind of out of character for Rudy T and Olajuwon. Who can forget pissing off the Suns so much that Danny Ainge bounced an inbounds off of Mario Elie's face? [ETA: that was actually the year before] Or the San Antonio series, where Olajuwon removed all doubt regarding his status in the big man pantheon by dominating (and that might be too gentle of a description) David Robinson? And my personal favorite, when the Rockets blared "It's a Small World, After All" as the theme music during Orlando's introduction at the Summit in game 3. The look on Shaq's face was priceless - It was clear that the series ended right there.

Like others have said, the Rockets were a terrible matchup for the Bulls during the first 3 titles. However, while the Rockets beat better teams on the way to the finals than the Bulls did (the West was really strong by then), a Jordan-led Bulls team on a mission was a very different finals matchup from either Ewing's choking Knicks or the really green Magic team led by Shaq and Penny.

I can't say that the Rockets would have won both titles going away, but the perception that Houston's titles are somehow tainted because Jordan was away is grossly unfair to a couple of really good Rockets teams.

* One of the funnier realizations from typing this is that while Kenny Smith gets a bunch of good natured ribbing from Chuck and Shaq on the Inside the NBA set, Smith's Rockets beat both Barkley's Suns and Shaq's Magic on the way to 2 titles.