Starting this thread to get some discussion centered around what could have been throughout the history of the Rockets. This could be anything from roster moves, coaching/front office hires, to outcome of games. I will explore this from a roster move perspective. While I expect popular ones to include the 83 and 84 Draft and the possibility of having some combination of Drexler, Olajuwon and Jordan and the trade that almost was between the Rockets and Heat that would have seen Olajuwon traded for some combination of Glen Rice, Steve Smith and Rony Seiklay mine starts with a trade the Rockets made that always bothered me. In the summer of 99 the Rockets traded Pippen to the Blazers for Cato and a bunch of veterans to match salary. A year later Portland would trade Jermaine O'Neal to the Pacers for for Dale Davis. What if the Rockets had the foresight to trade for O'Neal instead of Cato? That is where my scenario begins. The next step is the 2001 NBA draft. O'Neal began to improve as a player by the 00-01 season, but he didn't really come into his own until the following season so that leads me to believe the Rockets would have been in the same position heading into the 01 draft with the 13th, 18th and 23rd picks. Instead of trading them away to move up to 7 and draft Griffin, the Rockets could have held their picks and at 13 drafted Richard Jefferson who was picked their anyway, draft Zach Randolph at 18 (he was drafted at 19) and Tony Parker at 23 (he was drafted at 28). Heading into the 01-02 season the Rockets would have had a starting lineup of Francis/Mobley/Jefferson/Randolph/O'Neal with Parker developing off the bench. While Parker and Randolph were still growing during this time with O'Neal hitting his peak coupled with Francis and Mobley's ability, along with RJ, the Rockets would have been good enough to not get the top pick in 02 and land Yao. For the next two seasons (02-03 and 03-04) Zach Randolph and Tony Parker would have been ready to contribute along with O'Neal, Jefferson, Mobley and Francis the team could have gauged the effectiveness of the team and if as built they could have made a push for the title. If by the summer of 04 they felt it not a championship roster, they could have made the same trade for T-Mac and now instead of a team of just T-Mac and Yao which was one of the reasons why it didn't work back then, T-Mac would have been joined by Parker, Jefferson and O'Neal. Outside of the impact to the team between the years of 2000-2009 which I think with this squad could have better contended for a title or titles, when the team updated the uniform for 03-04 without Yao and the influence of the Chinese market we probably choose a different uni design that would have been more appealing to the fan base then the ones we got.
Biggest ever what if of recent seasons - basketball related: What if Chris Paul didn't go down with an injury in Game 5 of 2017/2018 season?
Biggest ever what if of recent seasons - non-basketball related: What would have @tinman talked about or what would he have done with his time for the past 7 years if Jerry Lin never made the NBA?
What if.... instead of taking Marcus Morris in 2011, we took Kawhi Leonard (who was drafted one pick later)? Would he still become the player he is today?
What if I won that scratch off in 2007, would I be typing this now? Would I be a minority owner of the Rockets? Would Tillman still be cheap?
I don’t think Tony Parker or Kawhi Leonard would have been nearly as complete if they had been drafted by a team other than the Spurs.
What I love about whatif scenarios on ClutchFans is that they all seem to revolve around us making perfect draft choices on guys many other teams whiffed on before they eventually became stars. Following that same line of thinking, in 2019 I'd be watching Rockets road games on my 192-inch TV with quantum dot LED/LCD screen, thanks to my wise investments in Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Amazon and Google stocks and my remarkable ability to know just when to buy and sell each of them. At home games, of course, I'd be in my usual center-court floor seats, the ones I took over from Les Alexander when I bought the team a couple of years ago.
What if Morey successfully got Pau Gasol in the basketball reasons trade? Would we still have Harden? What if Morey had drafted Kawhi over Morris? What if Morey didn't like Joey Dorsey? What if Morey successfully got Chris Bosh? What if Morey successfully got Carmelo for a max contract instead of vet minimum? What if Royce White actually had anxiety and not a cocktail of narcissism? What if Bob Sura stayed healthy after 2005? What if TMac never had microfracture in 2009? What if Yao hadn't gotten injured in the Lakers 2009 series? What if Kyle Lowry was a career backup to Aaron Brooks? What if Ginobili never broke Aaron Brooks?
What if Morey utilized his MIT connections to develop the first cyborg to enter the NBA while also utilizing DNA cloning technology to create a hybrid of Hakeem Olajuwon and Calvin Murphy? I feel like we'd have won several championships.
