What If Wednesday: Reimagining The Transformative 1984 NBA Draft

The NBA draft has always been a summer highlight for me. Maybe that’s a byproduct of growing up a San Antonio Spurs fan and remembering how transformational the 1997 draft lottery proved for the organization.

But even before Tim Duncan fell into the Spurs’ laps 27 years ago, and in the subsequent years when San Antonio was well removed from the lottery, I loved learning the draft order. It’s the closest the NBA comes to Selection Sunday — which I suppose is no coincidence, given the draft is the next step for many college players I enjoyed following.

The 2024 draft lottery provides for a moment of commemoration, as this marks the 40-year anniversary since the most influential class in history changed the NBA forever.

One could perhaps argue the 1996 and 2003 classes were better in terms of overall star power. There’s a debate to be had on that front. But each of those class of rookies came into an NBA that evolved into a true, top-tier league on the same plane as the NFL or Major League Baseball of the time.

The 1984 draft is singularly responsible for growing the NBA’s visibility to that point. On the foundation that Magic and Bird laid in 1980, a wave of all-time greats arrived in the ‘84 draft class with Michael Jordan as valedictorian.

Jordan’s place in that draft is part of the legendary guard’s lore: The greatest player of all-time* went No. 3! Behind Sam Bowie, who arguably wasn’t even the best big man coming out of Kentucky that year¹!

But Michael Jordan landing with the Chicago Bulls was part of what shaped his legacy. Chicago is sports-crazed, and one of the nation’s largest markets. Almost all of Jordan’s games aired nationally through WGN, and the voracious appetite Chicago has for sports media helped fuel Jordan’s rise globally.

Envision a landscape in which Jordan is drafted before Sam Bowie — and perhaps No. 1 overall.

Re-ordering the draft based on career achievements is a gimmick that already exists. It’s also unrealistic for the sake of this exercise, given certain caveats that made the draft shake out as it did.

For example, John Stockton would go in the top four based on his career with the Utah Jazz. However, even though Stockton impressed Bob Knight at the 1984 Olympic trials, an undersized guard from Gonzaga going much higher than No. 16 seems unlikely.

Stockton wasn’t the first mid-major guard off the board in that draft, however: Philadelphia took Leon Wood out of Cal State Fullerton at No. 10 overall.

Wood averaged 24 points and six assists per game for the Titans in 1983-84, however, and had four inches on Stockton. Though Wood lasted only about six years in the NBA as a role player, and Stockton became perhaps the greatest passer of all-time, I can’t quibble too much with the pick.

That said, the thought of John Stockton in Philadelphia instead of Utah fascinates me. If you were to build the ideal Utah Jazz player in a lab, you would not get a more perfect avatar for the organization than John Stockton.

Maybe Stockton as a 76er would have been a proto version of Bryce Harper with the Phillies; a seemingly odd cultural fit whose performance endears him to a tough crowd. What’s more, Philadelphia was not far removed from the Broad Street Bullies’ heyday in 1984, so Stockton’s reputation as one of the dirtiest defensive players of all-time probably would have ingratiated him to the City of Brotherly Love.

1. Michael Jordan, Houston Rockets

For a half-decade before Jordan’s arrival, the immediate success of both Magic Johnson and Larry Bird began to push a game long centered on the paint more toward the perimeter. Still, basketball remained a big man’s game in the 1980s.

Still, to deem Hakeem Olajuwon’s selection at No. 1 overall a no-brainer would be entirely correct. An October 1984 Kansas City Star column by Bob Nightengale — yes, that Bob Nightengale; he of the social media photos presumably snapped on a DynaTAC Cellular Phone — asks the question: “Did the Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers make proper decisions by drafting potential dominating centers and bypassing perhaps the most talented guards in basketball?”

Nightengale goes on to write that “calling Jordan a guard is like saying Picasso was a painter. He’s that good.”

Passing on the local star Olajuwon, who led the University of Houston to consecutive National Championship Games in 1983 and 1984, may have drawn ire among the Rockets fanbase. But given Jordan’s instant excellence in the NBA, the feelings probably wouldn’t have lasted long.

In taking Olajuwon No. 1, Houston paired the big man with another center in three-time National Player of the Year at Virginia, Ralph Sampson. Sampson’s more finesse-style of game meshed well with Olajuwon’s back-to-the-basket presence, and the two led the Rockets to the Finals by their second year.

That was also about as long as Sampson’s health cooperated. Ralph Sampson’s NBA career ranks among the biggest What-Ifs in basketball history, as he and The Dream were each posting 20-10 double-double averages together at the onset of their partnership, and Olajuwon was maturing at an exponential rate.

Had Sampson stayed healthy into the ‘90s, I can’t help but wonder if the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons repeat as champions, or if the Jordan-led Bulls go on their first three-peat run. Likewise, I’m curious how Jordan’s high-flying game would have worked with Sampson in Houston.

The idea of pairing Jordan with an All-NBA caliber center like Sampson is fascinating. As a pro, MJ only ever played with a standout center during the 1992 Olympics. Chicago’s 5s were Bill Cartwright, Bill Wennington, Luc Longley and Brian Williams.

But with Sampson preferring to play a face-up style further out from the rim, teaming him with Jordan would probably have been more comparable to MJ’s last year at North Carolina playing with Sam Perkins than it would have been like putting Jordan with say, Patrick Ewing.

The ceiling for a Jordan-Sampson tandem in Houston would have been remarkably high, but the window to win remarkably brief before the roster required some adjustment.

Among the moves Houston made to reload for the ‘90s in the wake of Sampson’s injuries was acquiring another top 10 draft pick from the 1984 class, power forward Otis Thorpe.

Thorpe is an unheralded yet vital glue guy on Houston’s Finals-winning teams of 1994, and filled a role for the Rockets not unlike Horace Grant on the championship Bulls teams of the early ‘90s.

Houston teams built around Jordan with the workhorse Thorpe on the interior, a young Robert Horry, a dangerous 3-point shooter in Mario Elie would have had some intense battles for Western Conference supremacy opposite a certain Houston Cougars product.

2. Hakeem Olajuwon, Portland Trail Blazers

Hakeem Olajuwon reinvented post offense in ways players still today try to emulate. Any scorer, whether a big man or guard looking to add baseline and back-to-the-basket moves to his repertoire seeks out The Dream like he’s a guru in the Himalayas.

There’s a reason Sam Bowie’s name comes up in 1984 draft misfires but Houston’s never taken to task for passing on Jordan: Hakeem was a worthy top pick and a top 10 all-time player.

Had the Rockets passed on him to pursue Jordan, Hakeem would have been every bit as successful in Portland — perhaps even more so.

As Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reached the end of his career and the Rockets retooled with Sampson’s untimely exit, Portland became the Western Conference’s premier team for a stretch into the ‘90s; that, despite its No. 2 overall pick in the 1984 draft contributing very little over five injury-plagued years.

However, the Trail Blazers couldn’t get past the Bad Boy Pistons or the Jordan-led Bulls to claim the Larry O’Brien Trophy. A Portland roster reuniting Phi Slamma Jama teammates Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon, on the other hand, may well have been a dynasty.

Blazers brass long defended the Bowie selection noting that a year prior, Portland drafted Drexler out of the University of Houston. The team already had its high-flying, stat sheet-stuffing wing accounted for — and by 1985, Drexler reached his first All-Star Game.

By 1992, Drexler was one of the best players in the NBA. He was runner-up to Jordan for that season’s Most Valuable Player Award, averaging 25 points, 6.7 assists and almost two steals per game.

A star from the beginning of his NBA career, Hakeem was beginning to reach transcendent levels by 1992.

The Olajuwon-Drexler duo combined to win one Finals in Houston in 1995. Had they reunited earlier in Portland, NBA history may well have changed forever.

3. Charles Barkley, Chicago Bulls

I’m not typically a fan of autobiographies. I find them to often be little more than propaganda, either glossing over or outright misrepresenting controversial parts of the writer’s life.

Charles Barkley’s “Outrageous!” is a noteworthy exception. The honesty and self-deprecation that made Barkley a fan favorite on TV are evident in this autobiography, written near the peak of Chuck’s basketball stardom.

Among the revelations from the book is that ahead of the 1984 draft, a Philadelphia 76ers executive approached Barkley and said the organization wanted to take the Auburn forward — contingent on Barkley losing weight.

In his book, Barkley writes he had zero interest in becoming a Sixer and thus “ate anything that wasn’t nailed down or poisoned.” He ballooned, reflecting his early nickname “The Round Mound of Rebound,” and went to Philadelphia anyway.

Along with the weight gain, another subplot of Barkley’s 1984 summer was his being cut from the Olympic team for what has commonly been reported as personality clashes with coach Bob Knight.

Barkley was, from all accounts, dominant during Olympic trials; as good as Michael Jordan. He combined the same fiery tenacity that produced just about a career double-double at Auburn with athleticism belying his size.

Seriously, if you’ve never watched highlights of a young Charles Barkley, you’ll probably be stunned seeing how agile and explosive he was.

With Michael Jordan off the board by the No. 3 pick, Charles Barkley would have been perfect for the Bulls. Jordan is among the most individually dominant players, so it’s a stretch to say Barkley would have been as impactful on the court.

However, the 1993 MVP is no worse than a top 15 all-time player, having averaged a double-double for all but one season of his career and scoring 20-plus points in 11 straight campaigns.

Barkley also would have been a cultural hit in Chicago. Coming into the Windy City just as the Punky QB Jim McMahon and the only NFL star ever to team with G.I. Joe, William “Refrigerator Perry,” were Super Bowl Shuffling to the Lombardi Trophy, Barkley would have had similar star presence for the Bulls.

I also imagine that at his height of being Not A Role Model, Charles Barkley may have laid out Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti.

Hypothetical scuffles with obnoxious hot-takesmen notwithstanding, a Bulls frontcourt with Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen going to war with the Bad Boys and the Patrick Ewing/Charles Oakley/Anthony Mason New York Knicks sounds awfully tasty.

***

There’s plenty more possibilities to mine from the 1984 draft. The class was so outstanding that its role in transforming the league would have been the same; how the NBA was reshaped with these minor changes makes for a much different landscape to this day, however, and that’s just from the top three picks.

I’ll leave this What If Wednesday there, but if you’re interested in more from the 1984 NBA draft, check out my column from a few years ago on Brazilian scoring machine Oscar Schmidt.

1. That distinction may have gone to Melvin Turpin, a two-time All-SEC selection at Kentucky who averaged 15.2 points on 59.3 percent shooting from the floor in 1983-84, and who averaged about two blocked shots per game in four seasons as a Wildcat. Turpin went sixth overall in the 1984 draft to Washington before being traded to Cleveland.

Turpin had two decent seasons with the Cavaliers before Brad Daughtery supplanted him as the starting center in 1986.