Everyone may know this already and it may have been talked about to death, but I just found this out and since we are in the dead of the summer and nothing to talk about but the Mavs and Heat series I thought I would bring up some fantasy nostalgia. Here's what I found on another site: Local sports radio host Matt Jackson was talking about past drafts and brought up something that then Rockets coach Bill Fitch said in a book (didn't get the name of the book). He said that in 1984 the Blazers offered Drexler AND the #2 pick in the draft for Ralph Sampson (only). Sampson had just come off a ROY campaign and Drexler struggled his rookie year, plus the Blazers needed a big man. The Rockets said no, and everyone ended up with who they got. The Rockets would have had hometown favorites Olajuwon and Drexler, and since they had a big man, wouldn't have drafted injured Sam Bowie, thus picking Jordan at #2. I have always looked at that draft and thought if the Rockets could have only had drafted Jordan as well that year we could have been the best team in the league for a good 10 - 12 years. To find this out now just makes me sick!! I always thought that it would be a fair trade of Sampson for the #2 or #3 but figured that either everyone knew Jordan was going to be the man and were unwilling to trade the pick or Houston had no desire to make a trade. To find out we could have had Drexler too just adds to the disappointment. I am totally in shock!!
I've heard that before. Ah well ... Also, the Blazers would have gotten Ralph Sampson instead of Sam Bowie. Even in this hypothetical scenario, they still get stuck with an injury-prone big.
But then maybe they would have learned and drafted Durant instead of Oden. And the whole landscape of the NBA would be different today.
While this is all true. The Blazers actually offered all this for Hakeem OR Sampson, the Rockets drafted Hakeem to trade him, but then thought twice about it and backed out, instead being in favor of the twin towers approach. It would've been Sampson, Drexler, and Jordan. Sampson was seen as a future superstar, while Hakeem was a solid big man just coming out of college, with no idea how he was going to perform @ the NBA Level. So really no matter how you look at it, the Rockets were never going to actually going to have Hakeem, Drexler, and Jordan.
I don't think the NBA would have been fun to watch had that happened. It would be like me in the 8th grade playing against 6th graders in gym class.
I respectfully disagree, if you read any stories about MJ in college, he would've been just as driven as he was in Chicago. The 3 players would still be first ballot Hall of Fame, maybe weaker numbers, but I can't see them dropping off that much. Especially if they won like 9 titles, Olajuwon; MJ; and Drexler would've destroyed both the Lakers and Celtics.
If they had Drexler, why would they have drafted Jordan? More likely they would have replaced the PF they were trading away. Conveniently there was another PF available in the draft, a young man out of Auburn by the name of Charles Barkley. The real question is, if Hakeem, Drexler, and Barkley are together for their whole careers winning lord knows how many titles, does Jordan get any talk as the best?
I think there's a good chance we would've taken Bowie and played him at center with Hakeem at power forward. Certainly would have been more practical than two players who were clearly shooting guards.
Drexler had an almost identical physique to Dr J (more reach, more size than Michael), playing him as a SF wouldn't have been a stretch too far.
The whole title thing is actually a product of Jordan (and then the Kobe/Shaq rivalry), back in those days, there was never any doubt Wilt was better than Russell for example.
If Sampson didn't have that injury in Boston and the NBA didn't crack down on cocaine. The story of the Twin Towers would a story of many championships.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_NBA_Draft Attached is the 1984 draft order. You could get a complete team out of the following picks: #1 - C - Hakeem Olajuwon #5 - PF - Charles Barkley #3 - SF - Michael Jordan #7 - SG - Alvin Robertson #16 - PG - John Stockton That is one crazy deep draft!!!!
correct. Jordan spent his career dominating other ppl and if there's one dude no one would have been able to mentally dominate it would be Dream. Jordan would have forever lived in the Hakeem's shadow and I cant see them coexisting. he probably would have demanded a trade or developed an extremely defensive contrary persona a la Iverson or some other disgrunteld player just drexler and Dream on one team from the mid 80s on however... there's no way that wouldn't have yielded a couple championships when Clyde by himself was worth a couple Finals runs
