[What If] The Dynasty that never happend...MJ,Dream,Clyde

Angkor Wat · Feb 9, 2008

Since we're on a nostalgia moment looking at past Rocket teams, how many titles do we win with those three? I say at a minimum, 16. If you never heard, we had a chance to pick up MJ and Dream in the same draft. Funny thing is, we supposedly had two chances to get MJ! It would have been the greatest dynasty in sports history.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune...,1150109,print.column?coll=cs-bulls-headlines

Draft deal stranger than '1984'
Olajuwon says he, Jordan, Drexler could have been Rockets teammates

June 26, 2007

It's one of the great urban legends in NBA draft annals, a scenario that would have changed league history and maybe the entire Michael Jordan legend -- possibly made it even greater. And subsequent NBA history might be defined more by Houston than Boston, Los Angeles or Chicago.

Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon playing together for their entire careers. How many championships would that have meant?

There are no precise parallels this year, though there are similarities with the franchise center, Greg Oden, the consensus No. 1 pick in Thursday's NBA draft. The best talent might be swingman Kevin Durant, the likely No. 2 pick.

In 1984, the consensus No. 1 pick was Olajuwon, the center on Houston's Phi Slamma Jammers. Jordan was the college player of the year at North Carolina, so he was hardly a secret. But no one imagined the heights to which he would rise.

Even then-Bulls general manager Rod Thorn warned on draft day that Jordan wasn't the kind of player you could rely upon to turn around a franchise. And it was no secret the Bulls were eager to get Olajuwon.

In fact, their manipulation was part of the reason the NBA went to a draft lottery the next year.

Back then, the teams with the poorest records in each conference flipped a coin for the No. 1 draft pick. The Bulls tried desperately to get into that flip, hoping they were due. They were in the coin flip in 1979 and lost: The Lakers got to take Magic Johnson and the Bulls got David Greenwood.

How would a reversal there have changed basketball history? The Bulls had Artis Gilmore, and Johnson had expressed an interest in playing with either Gilmore or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

In 1984, the Bulls traded their best player, Reggie Theus, for backup big man Steve Johnson and second-round picks and went on to lose 27 of their last 33 after the trade (they were seven below .500 at the time) to finish 27-55.

The Rockets were every bit as creative. They had Ralph Sampson, No. 1 from the previous draft, but played him sparingly down the stretch and lost nine of their last 10.

The Bulls missed getting the worst record in the East by one game, and Houston got it in the West. With the apparent dumping of games to get a franchise center too obvious, the NBA changed the draft rules.

But now it got interesting.

Houston had the No. 1 pick and Portland was No. 2. The Pacers had the second pick, but had traded the rights in 1981 for center Tom Owens because they'd lost James Edwards as a free agent and needed a center. Portland, meanwhile, was loaded at the shooting-guard position with future Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler and All-Star Jim Paxson.

The Blazers were looking to recreate their 1977 championship team with a Bill Walton-type center who could pass.

"Jack (Ramsay, the Trail Blazers' coach) took a lot of heat for that," recalled Bill Fitch, then Houston's coach. "But Sam Bowie ... if you asked (23) teams then, if anyone looked at his need, it was a Sam Bowie. Had Sam stayed healthy, he was a can't-miss. I had Sam later in New Jersey and he was as good a passing center as there was. Had Bowie stayed healthy, Jack had a chance to win championships with that team. He got hurt, Jordan came on.

"What Jack did was right," Fitch insisted. "All of us at the time would have done the same thing."

Thorn said then he wanted Olajuwon, and Jordan was his next choice. Some claimed it was Bowie, which Thorn denies.

But there was the other thing that has been long rumored. It has been something of an NBA fable, and Olajuwon even mentioned it in his autobiography, "Living the Dream."

Olajuwon claimed the Rockets had an offer from Portland -- which wanted the more talented high-post center (Bowie) -- to trade Sampson for the No. 2 draft pick and the chance to draft Jordan. It was the birth of the so-called "Twin Towers" era, and the Rockets did get to the NBA Finals in 1986, losing in six games to Boston. But it was clear Olajuwon was the superior low-post center and he was the sure keeper.

Olajuwon wrote that the deal would have been Sampson for the No. 2 pick and Drexler.

"From 1984 until today (1996), the Rockets could have had a lineup with me, Clyde Drexler and Michael Jordan, developing together, playing together, winning together. But the Rockets never made the move."

Ramsay said he never heard of such discussions and that general manager Stu Inman handled trade talks. Inman died recently. Fitch, who lives in Houston and New Mexico and remains one of the great coaches in league history, insists the Rockets were committed to keeping Olajuwon and Sampson.

"We had the makings of a good team, but the drug laws wiped us out," he said. "We lost Lewis Lloyd and Mitchell Wiggins (in 1986-87) and John Lucas (for the 1986 playoffs). Sampson became a one-legged horse (from injury) and we traded him away. If we could have kept that same group, we'd have had something."

Fitch acknowledges Houston had some thoughts about Jordan.

"I had played against Dean Smith in the service -- we were friends," Fitch said. "He called me and said, 'I'm telling you, Bill, this guy is going to be the greatest.' Dean was that high on him. But we did not have the hindsight to know."

It's an airy dream to contemplate, Jordan and Olajuwon.
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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/news/2001/08/02/sayitaintso_rockets/

Legend has it that Houston twice shied away from trading Ralph Sampson -- once to Portland for the No. 2 pick in '84 (which could have been Jordan) and again to the Bulls for Jordan after the '85-86 season.

The Rockets, however, stuck with Sampson until 1987. By then, all they could get for him was Joe Barry Carroll and Sleepy Floyd.

We're not making this up, just scratching our heads after finding this Sam Smith story from The Chicago Tribune in 1998:

Houston Just Missed Dynasty; Had The Rockets Been Willing To Trade Ralph Sampson, Jordan Could Have Ended Up in Houston
Chicago Tribune -- June 11, 1998
By Sam Smith

Forget the sixth championship.

Michael Jordan should be going for an eighth or ninth title by now. He should be challenging the records of Bill Russell's Boston Celtics.

He should be part of the greatest one-two punch in NBA history . . . with Hakeem Olajuwon.

That was the real mistake of the 1984 draft. It has long been hung on the Portland Trail Blazers for selecting Sam Bowie with the No. 2 pick instead of Jordan.

"[Jordan] was good," Jack Ramsay, the then-Portland coach recalled in a rather obvious description. "I saw him on that [1984] Olympic team. My Portland team, our rookies and free agents, scrimmaged against them. Everybody says now they knew, 'Oh, yeah,' but I'll tell you no one predicted this."

No one predicted Jordan would become arguably the greatest player in NBA history. A shooting guard carrying a team to the NBA title had never happened before and was never even imagined -- especially by the Bulls.

"Michael is a very good offensive player but not an overpowering one," Rod Thorn, then the Bulls' GM, said after drafting Jordan. "He's not the kind of guy who will single-handedly turn around a franchise, and I'd never ask him to do that."

Which may have been the best break the Bulls ever had. Because if the Rockets had an idea -- if anyone had -- some things would not have been the same. Kids would be wearing Rockets jerseys, and Al Capone would still be Chicago's most famous citizen.

The 1984 season was the last in which the NBA used a coin flip between the worst Eastern and Western Conference teams to determine the No. 1 draft pick. The lottery began in 1985 to eliminate the longstanding practice of teams tanking games down the stretch to improve their draft position or get a shot at the coin flip.

The Rockets, who had taken star center Ralph Sampson first in 1983, lost 17 of their last 20 to settle into the worst record in the West.

The Pacers, who had traded their 1984 No. 1 pick to Portland several years before for center Tom Owens, held off the Bulls, who lost 14 of their last 15. Had the Pacers not made the trade, they would have been in position to pick Jordan. And they would not have taken Bowie at No. 2. Portland did, for reasons that have been explained many times.

The Blazers had drafted guard Clyde Drexler the year before. He was nearly as highly regarded as Jordan in college, and veteran shooting guard Jim Paxson was All-NBA Second Team that season.

"You thought [Jordan] was going to be a good player," Ramsay said, "but we were good at 'two' guard. Our scouts thought highly of Bowie. We gave him a physical exam. The doctors said he was fine, but that turned out not to be the case."

Bowie's legs simply failed him. Although he went on to have a reasonably productive NBA career with several teams, he was never more than a solid role player.

If Hakeem Olajuwon was the certain No. 1 pick coming out of the University of Houston after three Final Four appearances, the other given was Portland's desire for a center. The Blazers were a playoff team, but hadn't been in serious contention since Bill Walton's injuries ended the run of Portland's 1977 championship team.

"Jack Ramsay did what he had to do for his team," said Bill Fitch, who was then coaching the Rockets. "Sam Bowie was a special player. I never saw a center pass the ball any better than Sam."

Another possibility, however, was Sampson, the 1984 Rookie of the Year who averaged more than 20 points his first two seasons. What if Houston had selected Olajuwon with the No. 1 pick and then traded Sampson for the No. 2 pick and used it to select Jordan? The Rockets would have had the best inside and outside players of their era.

"We had to have a center," Ramsay said. "We would have done that."

If only people had thought Jordan was better.

"There was a time when we felt there was a chance to make a trade with Chicago with Sampson for Jordan," Fitch said. "But nothing was ever done."

That was after the 1985-86 season. The thinking then was the deal might be too one-sided -- for the Rockets.

Sampson was 7-foot-4 and a star who'd help lead the Rockets to the Finals in 1986, where they lost in six games to one of the great Celtics teams. The belief was Houston would succeed Boston and the Lakers as the NBA's powerhouse.

"Ralph was a big commodity," Fitch recalled, "and Jordan really hadn't come into his own."
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TheBornLoser · Feb 9, 2008

We will be laughing at the Mavericks for not having 9 championships and Jordan will be schooling McGrady on the court.

AntiSonic · Feb 9, 2008

It's a real shame we didn't draft Clyde. He and Hakeem would have gone down as the greatest one-two punch in NBA, heck, basketball history had they played their entire careers together.

Not so sure if Jordan would have become as great as he did without a big media market and having to share the ball with a dominant post player.

StupidMoniker · Feb 9, 2008

Something else to consider:
If the Rockets had made the trade with Portland, but then decided to draft Barkley with the #2 pick (since they already had a star Center and SG), would anyone rate Jordan as highly as they do now? Chances are an Olajuwon, Barkley, Drexler team would have been dominant throughout the Jordan era (as they were when healthy by the time they all got together in '97), and those three would have a ton of rings while Jordan would have far fewer, maybe zero.

bjshot · Feb 9, 2008

Angkor Wat said:

Since we're on a nostalgia moment looking at past Rocket teams, how many titles do we win with those three? I say at a minimum, 16. If you never heard, we had a chance to pick up MJ and Dream in the same draft. Funny thing is, we supposedly had two chances to get MJ! It would have been the greatest dynasty in sports history.
Click to expand...

Dream and MJ both had big eggo when they are young. Maybe Dream and MJ would fight for who's the dominate male and part. Then first MJ would have gone to clippers for a no 1 pick in 1988 and then Dream for No 1 pick in 1990 to NJ. MJ would became the Kobe in LA before Kobe. Dream became the nightmare in a disaster Franchise with a bunch of self-claimed No 1. point guards in the league until his late years when a kid name kidd brought him to the finals. Aged Dream would then had been humilated by Shark on peak.

Keep dream alive. I'm so boring.

GuerillaBlack · Feb 9, 2008

AntiSonic said:

It's a real shame we didn't draft Clyde. He and Hakeem would have gone down as the greatest one-two punch in NBA, heck, basketball history had they played their entire careers together.

Not so sure if Jordan would have become as great as he did without a big media market and having to share the ball with a dominant post player.
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Houston is a big media market. Not as large as Chicago's, but it is growing faster than Chicago's.

MJ, Dream, and Clyde on the same team would have been 10 straight championships. Not sure if we would have Yao and T-Mac now though. We'd probably be like what the current Bulls are.

weslinder · Feb 9, 2008

I don't think it would be as great as you think. Part of what made Jordan and Hakeem so great is that they had to carry a team for several years. If the two rookies hit the league with one of the most developed young guards, they wouldn't have to carry anyone. Clyde would have run the show, and Hakeem and Jordan would have played off of him. Jordan wouldn't have become Jordan, and Hakeem might not have become the greatest of all time. It would have been a great team, but looking at Jordan's and Hakeem's careers, and assuming it would have been the same thing is totally misleading.

DudeWah · Feb 9, 2008

GuerillaBlack said:

Houston is a big media market. Not as large as Chicago's, but it is growing faster than Chicago's.

MJ, Dream, and Clyde on the same team would have been 10 straight championships. Not sure if we would have Yao and T-Mac now though. We'd probably be like what the current Bulls are.
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<br>
...Who Cares???

AntiSonic · Feb 9, 2008

StupidMoniker said:

Something else to consider:
If the Rockets had made the trade with Portland, but then decided to draft Barkley with the #2 pick (since they already had a star Center and SG), would anyone rate Jordan as highly as they do now? Chances are an Olajuwon, Barkley, Drexler team would have been dominant throughout the Jordan era (as they were when healthy by the time they all got together in '97), and those three would have a ton of rings while Jordan would have far fewer, maybe zero.
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Oh man awesome fantasy there. Enroll Barkley in Moses' Fonde rec camp with Akeem.

ubigred · Feb 9, 2008

if it happened that way we would be the equivalent to the Cowboys , prolly better.

Troy= MJ
Emmit = Dream
Michael Irvin= Clyde

Sherlock · Feb 9, 2008

... just to make it more fun ...

I'm sure PHI would have been happy to trade their two '84 picks to HOU in '83, since it was a #3 pick. We then could have taken Barkley at #5 and Stockton at #10.

When I was playing GM, I wanted to either take Drexler or make the trade, since I didn't see anyone else worthwhile.

Imagine

Dream/Barkley/Drexler/Jordan/Stockton

lol

oh well ... woulda/coulda/shoulda ...

Rowdie Brandon · Feb 9, 2008

I don't think it would be as great as you think. Part of what made Jordan and Hakeem so great is that they had to carry a team for several years. If the two rookies hit the league with one of the most developed young guards, they wouldn't have to carry anyone. Clyde would have run the show, and Hakeem and Jordan would have played off of him. Jordan wouldn't have become Jordan, and Hakeem might not have become the greatest of all time. It would have been a great team, but looking at Jordan's and Hakeem's careers, and assuming it would have been the same thing is totally misleading.
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one has to think that somehow someway their individual talents would've still been able to peak even if they played together..........

BoomShakalaka · Feb 9, 2008

would of never happened, If Clyde was a rockets the Rox might of never have gotten the 1st pick. And if all 3 were to b on the same team, each would demand huge contracts, they would b able to afford all of them at the same time

Alvin Choo · Feb 9, 2008

Sherlock said:

... just to make it more fun ...

I'm sure PHI would have been happy to trade their two '84 picks to HOU in '83, since it was a #3 pick. We then could have taken Barkley at #5 and Stockton at #10.

When I was playing GM, I wanted to either take Drexler or make the trade, since I didn't see anyone else worthwhile.

Imagine

Dream/Barkley/Drexler/Jordan/Stockton

lol

oh well ... woulda/coulda/shoulda ...
Click to expand...

hehe, with that starting 5, rox be getting a high pick again the next year. Chris Mullin, Joe Dumars,charles oakly, karl malone or Spudd Webb for 6th man.

StupidMoniker · Feb 10, 2008

BoomShakalaka said:

would of never happened, If Clyde was a rockets the Rox might of never have gotten the 1st pick. And if all 3 were to b on the same team, each would demand huge contracts, they would b able to afford all of them at the same time
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They wouldn't have gotten Clyde until after they already secured the first pick. It was a proposed draft trade of Clyde and the #2 for Ralph Sampson. As for being able to afford them, a team like that pays for itself.

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[What If] The Dynasty that never happend...MJ,Dream,Clyde

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[What If] The Dynasty that never happend...MJ,Dream,Clyde

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