<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>1. What if Memphis landed LeBron instead of Cleveland? Take a trip back to the 2003 lottery with me. LeBron James We're down to the final two teams. If Memphis draws the No. 2 pick, it goes to Detroit because of the stupid Otis Thorpe trade the Grizzlies made five years before. If the Griz draw No. 1, they get LeBron. Arguably, it's the greatest hit-or-miss moment in the history of professional sports -- like going on "Deal of No Deal," getting down to two suitcases and having a 50/50 chance of winning $500 million. For a few seconds, the cameras show Jerry West, who has the same look on his face Forrest Gump had when he was hooking up with Jenny for the first time. If he had dropped dead right then, nobody would have been surprised. Well, we know how it turned out: Cleveland got the pick, Memphis got nothing, and eventually, a heartbroken West retired and disappeared off the face of the earth, presumably to spend the next few years playing Russian roulette in Southeast Asia like Chris Walken in "The Deer Hunter." (Sorry to throw consecutive movie references at you, but the situation demanded two of them and that's that.) Now look at this domino effect over the next five years if Memphis gets that pick: A. Bron-Bron joins a deep Grizzlies team good enough to win 50 games that season without him. Better than starting out on a lottery team with Ricky Davis and Darius Miles, right? B. Picking second, Cleveland takes Carmelo and builds around him and Boozer. Since Denver's Kiki Vandweghe took Nikoloz Tskitishvili over Amare Stoudemire in 2002, it goes without saying Kiki would have been dumb enough to take Darko at No. 3 over Chris Bosh. The rest of the draft probably unfolds the same way, although Chad Ford still has Macij Lampe going No. 9 to the Knicks. C. What are the odds LeBron stays in Memphis after his rookie contract ends? I'm going with between 0.000001 and 0.009 percent. And that might be high. That means he would have become a free agent following the 2007 season, leading to the following sub-headings: C-1. At least eight to 10 teams would have spent the '06 and '07 seasons carving out enough cap space to make a serious run at LeBron. C-2. You would have read roughly 200 billion words and heard nearly 200 billion words uttered about the previous paragraph. And that's a conservative estimate. C-3. There's a good chance Marc Stein's head would have exploded at some point from following 35 hot LeBron rumors at once. If it happened on the "Coast To Coast" show on ESPN2 in HD, even better. C-4. There's no way Isiah would have planned ahead to LeBron being available in '07, inadvertently knocking New York out of the LeBron Sweepstakes and leading to a summer of rioting in the streets of Manhattan the likes of which we haven't seen since the '77 blackout and the Son of Sam murders. C-5. Jersey would have cut ties with Vince Carter, dealt J-Kidd for cap space and carved out enough room to reunite Bron-Bron with his buddy Jay-Z as the star of the Soon-to-Be Brooklyn Nets. Meanwhile, Orlando would have been throwing Rashard Lewis's money at him and offering him the chance to play with Dwight Howard for the next 10 seasons. Soon-to-Be-Brooklyn and Jay-Z ... or Orlando and D-Ho? Hmmmmm. C-6. LeBron's departure swiftly kills basketball in Memphis, leading to the Grizzlies eventually moving to England and becoming the London Hooligans. Actually, that could happen anyway. Final note: In two years, the Soon-To-Be Brooklyn piece of Scenario C-5 could end up being realized. (Sorry, Cleveland. You know it might be coming.) As for everything else in the LeBron/Memphis scenario, it remains the greatest NBA "What If?" of the decade. The good news? We still have 20 months to top it.</div> http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...mp;lid=tab1pos1
Everything after the draft in that article is kind of boring. But I think the biggest "what if?" of the '03 draft is what if Detroit hadn't gambled so heavily and taken Darko at number 2? It would've changed the draft order significantly and would've affected the fortunes of a lot of teams. I know the Raptors were ecstatic that Bosh had fallen into their laps at the 4th spot (somewhat of a consolation after being screwed by the ping pong balls). If they couldn't have had him, I remember Grunwald debating between Kaman and TJ Ford (ironically).
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Mar 10 2008, 01:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Everything after the draft in that article is kind of boring. But I think the biggest "what if?" of the '03 draft is what if Detroit hadn't gambled so heavily and taken Darko at number 2? It would've changed the draft order significantly and would've affected the fortunes of a lot of teams.</div> I don't think it would have changed things all that much. Detroit would have Melo and would still be dominant. I don't remember if they traded for Rasheed beore or after that pick so maybe they wouldn't have got him. Either way, they would still be dominant. Darko would have gone to Denver. I don't think the Tskita pick matters, they would have taken him because he was supposed to be that good. Some people were even saying he should go #1. They probably wouldn't have got Iverson and would still be irrevelant. The rest would have been the same.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ryan @ Mar 10 2008, 03:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney @ Mar 10 2008, 01:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Everything after the draft in that article is kind of boring. But I think the biggest "what if?" of the '03 draft is what if Detroit hadn't gambled so heavily and taken Darko at number 2? It would've changed the draft order significantly and would've affected the fortunes of a lot of teams.</div> I don't think it would have changed things all that much. Detroit would have Melo and would still be dominant. I don't remember if they traded for Rasheed beore or after that pick so maybe they wouldn't have got him. Either way, they would still be dominant. Darko would have gone to Denver. I don't think the Tskita pick matters, they would have taken him because he was supposed to be that good. Some people were even saying he should go #1. They probably wouldn't have got Iverson and would still be irrevelant. The rest would have been the same. </div> They got Rasheed after, and if they could have stolen Sheed like that again, I think they definitely would have. Although, I really doubt Detroit would pick up Melo if they could go back in the draft...I'd think they'd want to pick up Bosh. Also, quite funny seeing Maceij Lampe in there
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>They got Rasheed after, and if they could have stolen Sheed like that again, I think they definitely would have. Although, I really doubt Detroit would pick up Melo if they could go back in the draft...I'd think they'd want to pick up Bosh. Also, quite funny seeing Maceij Lampe in there </div> I think they would've stayed with Milicic quite frankly. With the drafting of Bosh, the Pistons wouldn't have pulled the trigger on 'Sheed in my opinion, because they had a good 4. But Bosh wasn't (and isn't) nowhere near Sheed's defensive abilities, which was one of the main reasons the Pistons won the championship. Also, if they had drafted Melo, Tayshaun Prince would've never blocked Reggie Miller's layup in the closing minutes of game 2 in the ECF, because Melo would probably be in the game at that point. That would've given the Pacers a 2-0 series lead which the Pistons wouldn't overcome.
What if the Hornets didnt trade Kobe for Vlade Divac? Definitely happen: Hornets would have stayed in Charlotte instead of moving to New Orleans. Probably: Charlotte would have its first championship with Muggsey Bogues dishing it to Kobe, Larry Johnson, Dell Curry, Glen Rice David Wesley, Bobby Phils(assuming he doesnt decide to race his car in 2000 and die). With the winning Baron Davis wouldnt have been drafted by the hornets and probably wouldnt have been traded to Golden State later on. Also Micheal Jordan was trying to buy part of the team, so maybe instead of playing for the Wizards, he plays for the hornets.
