Durant offended that Portland didn't pick him?

It was the common sentiment at the time, something I've seen from many people, including reports from the time. Everyone, probably including the Trail Blazers, saw Jordan as the better talent...but many, certainly including the Trail Blazers, felt Bowie would have more "impact" due to his size. Something I've also seen Blazers officials of the time say was that they were looking for the "next Bill Walton." Walton had set the blueprint within the organization for a great center: someone who could pass and shoot and run despite being a center, and Bowie fit that.

The problem, of course, is that Walton was dominant in college and Bowie wasn't. Jordan was, as evidenced by the awards he won (two-time consensus first-team All American and four Player of the Year awards in the season before he went pro).

 

Which would only be relevant if lack of intensity or desire was the reason for his current lack of success. He's been a complete success when he's been on the court.

 

I think he's had spurts of success while on the court, but I don't think he's been a "complete success" as you said, and definitely not numbers worthy of the #1 overall pick.

 

Well, he's been a game-changer on defense, one of the league leaders in Rebound Rate and able to both draw double teams and score at a very high percentage. The only on-court problem he's had so far has been foul issues, which has lowered his raw per-game stats. I'd say that's a complete success for his level of NBA experience. Injuries are the only thing that have kept him from fulfilling his draft status. He's not Kwame Brown who was just a terrible player.

 

Oden and Durant were thought of as being in the same league when it comes to talent leading up to the draft. The main difference between the two though is that Oden was a C and Durant was a perimeter player, thus making Oden the pick. There was little doubt Durant was going to end up being at least a top 10 player.

 

I was pro-Oden and looked at Oden as the better prospect UNTIL his combine physical came out. "His knees were that of a 30+ year old vet" said one exec after reviewing his MRI from their team doctors.

And then this article came out three months after that draft.

 

Bowie over Jordan was the common sentiment, just like Oden over Durant was. If you read that Jordan was the better player, I'll speculate on what the writer meant. Jordan had the best post-Wooden college coach, so he knew defense better than Bowie. It can always be written that the 6-7 guy is a better player than the 7-1 guy, because he usually has a bigger repertoire of abilities and moves. But obviously, premium big men are drafted before smaller players unless a difference is obvious, and it wasn't from what I read.

You say Jordan was the sure thing; it was the opposite. Jordan was the risk and Bowie was the sure thing. Jordan (2 years in college) had recently emerged on the scene while with Bowie (5 years in college due to injuries), I had seen articles since he was a high school junior. Jordan stuff had been in the media a couple of months since March Madness; Bowie stuff for 7 years.

I suppose a great genius could have selected better, but for scouts using the usual methods with their ordinary intellects, I don't fault the Blazers for choosing Bowie over Jordan or Oden over Durant.

As for a writer saying Jordan was better due to winning an NCAA championship, Jordan shared in the glory, but Dean Smith won it. Jordan was just one of several near-equals on that team, while Bowie clearly led his team. Bowie was more dominant that Jordan because Bowie led his team, while Jordan shared the spotlight with teammates like Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, and Joe Wolf. Perkins won more awards than Jordan.

"Four Player of the Year awards" in one season simply means he was Player of the Year for one year, suddenly gaining notice. Jordan was AP player of the year once, but Bowie had been AP All-American for two years. As for consensus, Bowie was All-American in 1981 and 1984; Jordan in 1983 and 1984.

http://www.hickoksports.com/history/mbaskallams.shtml

 

Where?

Yes, it means he was clearly recognized as dominant by that season, as pretty much clearly the best player in college basketball, and then he turned pro.

Jordan was the most talented, Bowie was believed to have more impact at the NBA level because he was "big." This was known even at the time. I am in no way arguing that common sentiment was that the Blazers should draft Jordan, but common wisdom was flawed. The same common wisdom (size over talent) would lead to players like Shawn Bradley being drafted high in the draft.

 

He can't stay on the court, when healthy, due to always being in foul trouble. This affects his success, and has hindered his impact even when he is healthy.

 

I mentioned fouls being his only real on-court issue. I don't think he has to have no flaw to his game, in his first exposures to the NBA, to be worth his draft spot.

The injuries are the thing keeping him from realizing #1 draft pick value. Not lack of talent or "killer instinct," IMO.

 

He's been awfully turnover prone in his brief stints as well ...

 

I'm sorry but if we had Durant right now instead of Oden, we would be right where OKC is today. I love Oden and hopefully he can prove why we picked him #1, but don't even down play him one minute. The dude is a stud and is the Best player in his draft class. Until Oden can actually play 80% of the season; we will never know. And Wow, we might not even have him. So sugar coat it all you like, I'm not buying it.

 

You said Jordan was the sure thing by saying that Jordan over Bowie was nondebatable at the time they were drafted.

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Now that you've reversed your opinion from what you said (it was the common sentiment that Jordan was more talented, so why didn't we draft him), I can agree with you. Obviously, if you draft the most talented player without regard to size, the league would have no one over 6-3. If you want any big men on your team, you can't just draft the most talented runt available.

 

I said Jordan was seen as more talented. I didn't say Jordan was a "sure thing." Which you know and are pretending not to.

I didn't reverse myself. I said it was clear, even at the time, that Jordan was more talented. Back then, the prevailing sentiment was that you select size over talent, which is a mistake, because size doesn't win...talent does. I don't think anyone believes that you draft a bigger player over a more talented player anymore. At most, people will say that if talent is equal, take the bigger player.

Not true at all. There are tons of talented big men. They just have different strengths and weaknesses in basketball.

 

There are 100 times as many 6-0 guys who have the physical skills of 6-5 guys, 100 times as many 6-1 guys who have the physical skills of 6-6 guys, etc. Keep going. Just add about 5 inches each time.

That's because the population has about 100 times as many young men of that height as the other height. If you take a census and find the demographic ratio is 50 or 60 or X, feel free to substitute that number for 100.

Now that I've proven that a team will have no big men if it never drafts a bigger player over a more talented player (which according to you, no team does anymore but they did in the Bowie days), do you have any more questions?

 

You don't need an equal number of talented big men as talented perimeter players in the overall population, obviously. The NBA only has a small number of roster spots available relative to the population. You only need about 100 talented big men in the US and Europe to fill the NBA's need for power forwards and centers. Since there are hundreds of millions of people in both the US and Europe, it's not too surprising that there are enough talented big men.

 

Did I just hear you say that you have to turn down millions of qualified average size men, but only hundreds of extremely tall guys with equal talent, to fill NBA rosters? Yes, I think I did, a reworded direct quote as sure as a sure thing.

Now extend the logic. Of the millions of average-size men who have the same quickness, dexterity, and leaping ability (distance from foot to ground) that the hundreds of extremely tall guys have, don't you think that maybe 1% (maybe even more) of the millions of average-size men will have such extreme talent that you could say they are more talented than the extremely tall guys who made the league?

So while GMs routinely turn down 99.99% of average-size men, but only maybe 99.0% of extremely tall young men, in order to fill their rosters, you say that the GMs are not discriminating by height, even though you want to evaluate purely by talent and would not personally turn down all those young men. There is a mind-boggling number of men, but too little time. So it seems I have proven that some things in history do not change, and GMs do indeed discriminate by height and do not choose the absolutely most talented players in every draft selection.

 

I'd say that the number of players who are excessively talented, by NBA standards, are in the single digits. Whether those break down evenly between big men and perimeter players is pretty immaterial. Which each tier lower you drop, there are more and more similarly talented players, so GMs can quite easily "discriminate by height" when they need to without passing on a superior talent. There probably are many more perimeter players that are passed up than big men, in total volume, but there are plenty of both who don't make the league. The ones who do make the league are hugely talented (relative to the general population) and since there are a very limited number of NBA slots and those go to the cream of the crop, a huge disparity between total numbers of perimeter players and big men isn't important.

Even if we postulated an exaggeratedly silly disparity, like 200 talented big men and 200 million talented perimeter players (a million-to-one disparity), since there are only about 100-120 roster spots for big men and only about 360 roster spots total, GMs would still be able to fill all their "big men spots" without needing to draft less talented players. And there would still be talented big men to spare. There's no need to select less talented players to get the requisite number of big men into the league. If you pick #1 and the best player in the draft is a perimeter player, the rational choice is to take him, because you want the best chance to net a star, not to take the biggest player in the draft even if, by talent, he should go #10. Let another team take that guy at #10. And then, if you need a big man, make a trade later. The big men still enter the league, GMs rationally select by talent and rosters still get balanced.

 

Ah, but your false premise is that there is a ceiling on talent which is not exceeded no matter how many hundreds of millions of men you gather. But there is in fact no upper limit to what man can do. Remember, you are grading the elite from each group. If you skimmed the cream off a gathering of a billion average-sized men you would discover more talent than if you do so from a thousand extremely tall men. Yet you think the top hundred from each group who make the NBA will have the same talent per man. Wrong, wrong. There is no talent ceiling which will equalize the top hundred average ones with the top hundred tall ones. Despite the equal sample size, the talent per man of the average-sized men will greatly exceed the extremely tall ones because of the enormously greater population from which their samples are taken.