Hoops4theSoul

Jun

19

Michael Jordan’s Long, Strange Trip to Bulls

Filed Under On This Day . . ., NBA, Chicago Bulls, Loose Balls

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Houston’s Clyde Drexler North Carolina’s Michael Jordan Kentucky’s Sam Bowie With the second pick in the 1984 NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers had to go with a big man.

That’s what the thinking was 25 years ago today.

Build your team around a franchise center and branch on out from there.

It worked quite well for the Blazers in 1976 when the big red head Bill Walton led Portland to its first and to this date only championship.

So even though the prize of the 1984 NBA Draft — Houston center Akeem “The Dream” Olajuwon –  was going to get swooped up by the Houston Rockets with the first overall pick, it was well-known that the Blazers were going to go big at number-two.

For the most part, nearly everyone other team would have done the same thing at the time.

With the second pick in the 1984 NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers select Sam Bowie of the University of Kentucky.

Nowadays, that pick still causes people to shake their heads.

Sam “Baba” Bowie, he of the multiple knee injury.

Bowie’s career in the NBA would be forever limited by his bad knees, and the much-maligned but affable center would be traded out of Portland by 1989.

Little did Portland or anyone else know that by selecting Bowie, they were basically giving the Bulls the greatest player in NBA history.

With the third pick in the 1984 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls select Michael Jordan of the University of North Carolina. 

With second-year guard Clyde Drexler already playing shooting guard, the Blazers didn’t have a need for Jordan, even if they were inclined to pick him.

Now here’s the interesting question?

Would the Bulls had drafted Jordan if they had chosen differently in the 1983 NBA Draft?

Here’s the back story.

With the fifth pick of the 1983 NBA Draft, the Bulls picked power forward Sidney Green out of UNLV

Drexler, a future Hall-of-Famer and decorated collegian at Houston with Olajuwon, fell into the Blazers’ hands at the 14th pick of the first round.

But here’s the real kicker.

As part of a trade with the Kansas City Kings, the Bulls owned the rights to the 13th pick in the 1984 NBA Draft.

And whom did the Bulls have the Kings choose for them?

Not Drexler, but Ennis Whatley of Alabama.

Now what if the Bulls had the Kings take Drexler instead of Whatley and then gotten his rights as part of the trade with Kansas City?

They would have been in the same position as Portland would be in 1984, with no need for another shooting guard in Jordan.

What would the Bulls have done in the 1984 NBA Draft with Drexler already in Chicago?

Would they have explored a trade with the 76ers?

As detailed in Philip Bondy’s book on the 1984 NBA Draft, the 76ers were allegedly enamored with Jordan and thought of offering Julius Erving to Chicago for the third pick and the opportunity to select the slick guard from North Carolina.

That would have given the 76ers the third overall pick, Jordan, and the fifth overall pick, which turned out to be Charles Barkley.

How many championships would that duo have won?

Now what if Chicago had stayed in the three spot and simply followed the traditional route of drafting a big man?

Would the Bulls have simply taken Jordan’s North Carolina teammate Sam Perkins at three, giving the Dallas Mavericks the opportunity at Jordan?

If so, would we have ever heard of Mark Cuban years later?

Not likely, at least as the owner of the Mavericks.

Would Jordan and the way he changed the game have made the Mavericks not only the other America’s Team in Big D but the world’s basketball team as the Bulls became in the 1990s?

Thank God, none of this ever happened.

Sometime it pays to be dumb, which the city of Chicago has mastered (see our Mayor and the Cook County Commissioner).

Thankfully, a terrible decision by the Bulls in 1983 to go with Whatley instead of Drexler, and the conventional decision by the Blazers to select the big man Bowie in 1984 led to Jordan becoming a Chicago Bull, and forever changed the sports history of this city.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Michael Jordan’s Long, Strange Trip to Bulls”

  1. Gravatar Don on June 20th, 2009 1:28 am

    Yeah, well that was ancient history. Looking at the real world now, how’s Viktor Khyrapa and Tyrus Thomas workin’ out for ya? Up here in Portland, we’re lovin’ LaMarcus.

    You got the best player in the world in Jordan. We have the present. Thanks Chicago.

  2. Gravatar J.B. on December 4th, 2009 8:36 pm

    If the Mavs would have been able to get Jordan in 1984, and then take Karl Malone in 1985 when they could have had him, can you say dynasty?

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