Getting over boredom: Interesting SI article from 1993

No trade talk. Rockets losing. Have to dip into some history for something interesting.

I found this SI article from July of 1993 about Michael Jordan and the 1984 Draft to be incredibly interesting. The article was from before the Rockets won any titles, but still doesn't fault the Rockets for selecting Olajuwon. Basically it wails on Portland for taking Sam Bowie... but even given the situation at the time, that pick made sense. No one thought Jordan would become what he became...

Anyhow, keep in mind in 1984, Ralph Sampson was the future of the NBA, and surely carried more trade value than Olajuwon. NO ONE can tell me Michael Jordan couldn't have been had in a trade for Ralph -- even though Ray Patterson denies that.

This is just an excerpt... I have the whole article as well:
----------------------

Eighteen times a rare silver dollar had been flipped into the air, and 18 times the coin had flattened out with all eyes transfixed on
its top side. On May 23, 1984, executives from the Houston Rockets and the Portland Trail Blazers gathered at the league's headquarters, in New York City, for the final rendition of this NBA ritual before
the introduction of the lottery the next year. No one who was on hand that day had any idea that the last landing of the 100-year-old coin would produce a revolution in Chicago.

Houston, despite the presence of 7 ft. 4 in. rookie Ralph Sampson, had limped into this game of chance by taking no chances of its own. The Rockets had closed the season with five straight defeats to edge the San Diego (now Los Angeles) Clippers for last place in the Western Conference. Portland had arrived thanks to a 1981 trade with the Indiana Pacers that sent center Tom Owens to the Pacers for their first-round draft choice in 1984. To Portland's delight, Indiana had held off a hard charge by the Chicago Bulls, who finished 1-14, to guarantee that the Pacers wound up last in the EasternConference.

The coin came to rest. Portland owner Larry Weinberg had called tails. It came up heads, giving Houston the right to select Hakeem Olajuwon, the 7-foot center from the University of Houston and the player everyone most coveted. Back home in Wilmington, N.C., Michael Jordan, who was a junior at North Carolina, sighed.

The process that had enticed Jordan to leave North Carolina a year short of graduation had begun in Philadelphia. Billy Cunningham, a former Tar Heel who was the 76er coach, had been summoned to Chapel Hill by North Carolina coach Dean Smith. Smith wanted to know how high Jordan would be picked if he opted for the draft. Smith had followed the league standings, and as winter turned toward spring, he had begun calling NBA executives whose teams were positioned to have one of the top five picks. One of those teams happened to be the 76ers, who owned the first pick of the Clippers, one of the league's worst teams.

Though others had helped Smith paint the picture of Jordan's pro future, none provided more color than Cunningham. His Sixers had won the NBA title in 1983, and though they would win 52 games in 1983-84,
their brightest star, Julius Erving, was clearly on the back side of a brilliant career. In Jordan, Cunningham saw the future. He assured Smith that if the standings remained the same -- the Sixers were looking at the No. 3 pick at the time -- they would select Jordan if he was still available. For Smith and Jordan the discussion largely ended there.

But the jockeying for position was far from over. The Bulls' woeful finish enabled them to jump to the third spot in the draft, with a 27-55 record. What's more, the Clippers wound up 30-52, dropping the 76ers' pick to fifth. Philadelphia tried to make a deal with the Bulls, but Chicago wasn't interested. ''((Bull general
manager)) Rod Thorn wanted me,'' says Jordan. ''Somebody else in the organization wanted a big man. But I knew Rod wanted me at that spot.''

Chicago had gotten itself into a public-relations mess earlier in the season by trading All-Star guard Reggie Theus, the franchise's most popular player. That trade left the Bulls with lackluster guards
Ronnie Lester, Quintin Dailey, Ennis Whatley and Mitchell Wiggins, along with the legendary tandem of Wallace Bryant and Jawann Oldham at center. In other words, they needed help at every position.

''The only obvious thing about the draft was that Olajuwon would be picked by whatever team won the coin flip,'' says Thorn, now the
league's vice- president of operations. ''With Portland, I think once their doctor cleared ((Kentucky All-America center)) Sam Bowie ((who had suffered several leg injuries)), they didn't have any interest in
Jordan because they already had ((guards)) Clyde Drexler and Jim Paxson. But we were going to take Jordan Number 2 or Number 3. If I had had the first pick, though, I would've taken Olajuwon. Anyone other than Olajuwon, though, you had to use it on Jordan.''

Nonetheless, the Bulls talked to the Trail Blazers about obtaining the No. 2 pick. Some members of the Chicago organization felt that
the team should draft Bowie. Jonathan Kovler, the Bulls' managing partner at the time, remembers listening to coach Kevin Loughery, as well as assistants Bill Blair and Fred Carter, plead for a big man.

Kovler also recalls fielding calls from Philadelphia, where 76er owner Harold Katz had caught Cunningham's enthusiasm for Jordan.

''They were very high on Jordan, but the center spot was our biggest weakness,'' says Kovler. ''We had discussions about Bowie, ((Kentucky center)) Mel Turpin and ((Auburn forward)) Charles Barkley. We also talked to Houston about Hakeem, but nothing ever worked out. The bottom line is that, no matter what we almost did or didn't do, we
drafted and signed Michael Jordan.''

Get this, though: Virtually everything that has happened to the Bulls since June 19, 1984, the date of that year's collegiate draft, could just as easily have happened to the Rockets. After Philadelphia dropped into the No. 5 position and before the coin flip, Jordan set his sights on the Rockets -- particularly Sampson.

Ever since high school Jordan had wondered what it would be like to play on the same team with Sampson. ''I wanted to go to Virginia because I wanted to play with Ralph for his last two years of college,'' says Jordan. ''He would have been going into his junior year when I started college. So I wrote Virginia, but they just sent me an admission form. No one came and watched me, nothing like that. Then I visited North Carolina. I was happy with the atmosphere, so I committed early.''

Four years later the Rockets committed early too. Their coach, Bill Fitch, was more intrigued with the notion of starting Olajuwon alongside Sampson than he was with pairing Sampson and Jordan. Still, if the Rockets had lost that coin flip, Houston would have been home to another space program. Besides the thought of joining
Sampson, Jordan liked the idea of playing in a city with a more Carolina-like climate than most other NBA cities'.

''It all relied on the flip of a coin,'' ays Jordan. ''If Portland had won the flip, I knew I was going to the Rockets with the
second pick. I knew that. They had Ralph, and they didn't really have a two guard. Like I said, I had wanted to go to Virginia, and they never came after me. So I was looking forward to going to the Rockets.''

Jordan pauses for a moment and then says, ''Funny how things turnout.''.

------------------
Clutch
CLUTCHCITY.NET -- SPREAD THE WORD

"We have to admit how disappointed we are in Kelvin Cato, the Houston center expected to be a shotblocking, rebounding monster but looking more like Shawn Bradley every day. If that's not reason to start playing better, nothing is"
-- Eric Karabell, ESPN