The Book of Basketball (31 page)

Hmmmmmm. Paul and Roy as your backcourt for the next six to eight years?
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Could that have worked when both guys need the ball in their hands? (Possibly.) Would they have had enough size? (From the looks of it, no.) Would they have played a more wide-open style and would it have worked? (With the talent on hand, I say yes.) Anyway, if Portland takes Paul, that sets off a crazy chain reaction: New Orleans ending up with Deron Williams instead of Paul; Utah never getting a franchise point guard; Oden and Aldridge landing in other cities; maybe Roy not turning into a franchise guard playing second fiddle to Paul; and maybe Paul not being quite as driven because he’s not as ticked off
for the next few years after three teams passed on him.
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I like the way it worked out.

17. What if the Knicks bought Julius Erving’s contract from the Nets in 1976?

After the ABA merger happened, the Nets made an intriguing offer to the Knickerbockers:
He’s yours if you waive our territorial penalty ($480,000 per year for ten years).
Already saddled with the expensive Haywood contract, the Knicks turned them down and set their franchise back seven solid years.
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Philly bought Doc for $3 million and poor Doc coexisted with overhyped guys, ball hogs, head cases and underachievers for the next three years, too dignified and too unselfish to fight them for shots. So really, this couldn’t have turned out worse unless Doc also knocked up a white female sportswriter covering the Sixers and didn’t publicly acknowledge their daughter until she became a tennis star sixteen years later.

(Hey, wait a second…)

One more wrinkle: the Nets settled that territorial fee two years later by swapping the fourth pick in the ’78 draft (Micheal Ray Richardson)
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and their number one pick in 1979 (eventually Larry Demic at number nine) for the thirteenth pick in 1978 (Winford Boynes), Phil Jackson, all of Phil Jackson’s weed and a settlement for the remaining money. If you want to get technical, this had a double impact because, before the ’83 season, the Knicks signed Bernard King to a $4.5 million, five-year offer sheet that
Golden State matched, finally agreeing to send King to the Knicks for … (drumroll, please) … Micheal Ray Richardson!
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So maybe the Knicks screwed up by not getting Doc, but it led to two wildly entertaining Micheal Ray years, one “What the hell is wrong with Micheal Ray?” season, one extremely good Bernard season, then one and a half life-altering Bernard years. That’s not so bad, right?

16. What if Kobe was convicted of sexual assault
instead of settling with his accuser
out of court for big bucks?

Whoops, I forgot: four years ago, everyone in the Los Angeles area agreed to pretend this never happened. Now they act perturbed if anyone else brings it up (or broaches it). I live in L.A. right now, so unfortunately, I have to follow the code. When I move back East someday, we’ll update this section in the next printing. Stay tuned.

15. What if the Suns didn’t screw up a potential Nash dynasty with some of the cheapest and most perplexing moves ever made?

I wanted to avoid playing the “What if the front office did this instead of this?” game because it’s so subjective, but Phoenix’s bipolar game plan from 2004 to 2008 had to be commemorated in some way. Here’s a detailed look.

1. During the same summer they signed Nash, Phoenix traded the seventh pick in the ’04 Draft (and a chance to take either Luol Deng or Andre Iguodala) to Chicago for $3 million and a 2006 number one. One week later, they signed Quentin Richardson to a six-year, $42.6 million deal, even though they could have drafted Deng or Iguodala and paid either of them one-third what Richardson was getting. They kept Richardson for one year before swapping Q and their twenty-first pick (Nate Robinson) in the ’05 draft to the Knicks for Kurt Thomas. Two summers later, they dumped Thomas on Seattle along with two number ones just to shed him off their cap for tax purposes. As astounding as this sounds, Bryan Colangelo’s decision to sign Richardson instead of just drafting Deng or Iguodala—which was dumb at the time, by the way—ended up costing them four first-round picks! Would you rather have Richardson, or would you rather have the number seven pick in 2004, the number twenty-one pick in 2005, and first-rounders in 2008 and 2010? I thought so.
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2. Phoenix lowballed Joe Johnson so insultingly that he asked them not to match Atlanta’s $70 million free agent offer, leading to Phoenix accepting Boris Diaw and two future first-rounders for him. So the Suns had just come within two wins of the ’05 Finals and built a run-and-gun identity; suddenly they were dealing a twenty-four-year-old potential All-Star, the perfect swingman for their system and a deadly shooter who could even play backup point guard, and they were only getting back a bench player and two future picks? Also, how could they botch the Johnson situation so badly that he
   asked to leave?
   With Nash, Amar’e, Marion and Johnson, you’re set for the rest of the decade. That’s it. That’s your core. That’s your guarantee for 57-plus wins a year and a specific style that can work. Surround them with role players and veteran buyout guys and you’re contending until Nash breaks down, and even then, you can just shift the offense over to Johnson as the main creator.
   How can you give that guy up?
   So what if he’s insulted and doesn’t want to come back? He’ll get over it! You’re paying him $14 million a year and he gets to play with Steve Nash! Arrrrrrrrgh.
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3. Instead of picking Rajon Rondo with the twenty-first pick in ’06 (the pick acquired from Chicago), they shipped his rights to Boston for Cleveland’s 2007 number one and $1.9 million. A few weeks later, they gave Marcus Banks $24 million. Would you rather have a potential up-and-comer like Rondo for cheap money or a proven turd like Banks for five times as much? Tough call. If you just had a head injury.
   

4. They gave Diaw a five-year, $45 million extension that summer, which meant the Diaw/Banks combo now earned as much money every year as Joe Johnson. Awesome.
   

5. So the Iguodala/Deng/Rondo pick became number twenty-four in the ’07 draft … and naturally, the Suns sold it to Portland for $3 million. Why didn’t they just take Spanish star Rudy Fernandez (Portland’s pick)? You can’t play the luxury tax card because Fernandez wasn’t planning on joining the NBA for at least a year; it would have been savvy if Phoenix had stashed him in Europe as an asset down the road. Instead, owner Sarver announced to his fans, “Screw you, I’d rather have the $3 million, I’m taking the cash.” One year later, Fernandez would have been a top-ten pick after lighting it up in Spain; he even gave the Redeem Team everything it could handle in the 2008 Olympics. Can you quantify the damage there?
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I hate delving into the Marty McFly Zone when many of the aforementioned screwups were interrelated, but let’s figure out how the Suns could have turned out if cheapskate owner Robert Sarver didn’t sign off on the aforementioned bipolar game plan in 2004. We know for sure that they could have had a six-man nucleus of Nash, Marion, Stoudemire, Johnson, Leandro Barbosa and Deng/Iguodala from 2004 to the present that shouldn’t have been touched, and we know they dumped first-rounders in ’05, ’06 and ’08 for tax purposes. Even if they surrounded that nucleus with draft picks, minimum-wage veterans and February buyout guys and did nothing else, wouldn’t they have been positioned for the short term and long term better than any franchise in the latter half of this decade? The bigger question: why own an NBA team if you’re going to cut costs? What’s the point? Why would that be fun? So people could stare at you during dinner and whisper, “Hey, that’s the cheap-ass who owns the Suns”? This pisses me off. What a wasted chance, and what a waste of Nash’s prime.

(Note to the Phoenix fans: You can now light yourselves on fire.)

14. What if Orlando had kept Chris Webber’s draft rights instead of trading him?

Remember when the Magic defied 1-in-66 odds to win the ’93 lottery, giving them the number one pick for the second straight year in maybe the biggest stroke of luck in NBA history? Since Webber was the ideal complement to Shaq (a great passer who could play the high post, crash the boards, run the floor and defend the rim), we spent the next few weeks wondering how anyone could match up with Shaq, Webber, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott and Lord knows who else over the next ten to twelve years. Magic GM Pat Williams had other ideas: he was swayed by Penny Hardaway’s workout right before the draft, which Williams described afterward by saying, “I’ve never seen someone come in and do the things that Penny Hardaway did in that workout.”
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On draft day, Williams shocked everyone by swapping the first pick to Golden State for the third pick overall and first-rounders in ’96, ’98 and ’00, a move that was widely panned at the time and nearly caused a riot in Orlando. No NBA trade received more attention, went in more directions over a ten-year span and spawned more what-ifs. Webber battled with Warriors coach Don Nelson constantly as a rookie (Webber wanted to play forward, Nellie wanted him to play center) during a 50-win season in which Tim Hardaway was recovering from a torn ACL. The following year, Hardaway returned with C-Webb, Latrell Sprewell (first-team All-NBA in ’94), Chris Mullin (just past his prime), Rony Seikaly, Avery Johnson and Chris Gatling … I mean, that’s a pretty nice top seven, right? Webber didn’t care; he had an opt-out clause and wanted out. Stuck between a rock and Shawn Kemp’s boxers, the Warriors swapped him to Washington for Tom Gugliotta and three number ones and inadvertently damaged his career (see the grisly details). Meanwhile, Hardaway exceeded everyone’s expectations, led Orlando to the ’95 Finals and made an All-NBA first team—and then he clashed with Shaq (Shaq bolted for L.A.), devolved from an unselfish playmaker to a me-first scorer and blew out his knee in Phoenix. Bad times all around.

So what if Orlando just kept Webber? Does Shaq still leave after the ’96 season? (Impossible to say.) Would Webber have thrived as the Robin to Shaq’s Batman? (I say yes.) Who would the Magic have targeted with their ’94 cap space instead of Horace Grant?
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(My guesses: Detlef Schrempf and Steve Kerr.) Would they have made the ’95 Finals with Shaq, C-Webb, Scott, Anderson, Brian Shaw and my two free agent guesses? (I say yes.) Would they have had a better chance against the ’95 Rockets with that team? (Actually, yes.) As for Penny Hardaway, he takes Tim Hardaway’s minutes on that aforementioned 50-win Warriors team, thrives in Nellie’s offense with Spree, Mullin and Owens flanking him, and potentially becomes a Hall of Famer for all we know. Just remember, C-Webb and Penny were both top-forty talents who never reached their potential for reasons that aren’t entirely satisfying. Had the trade never happened, maybe one of them (or both of them) would have reached that potential. Let’s give them starting spots on the What-If All-Stars.

13. What if Anthony Carter’s agent never messed up?

A forgotten footnote in NBA history: when Anthony Carter’s agent (Bill Duffy) never faxed Miami a letter exercising Carter’s $4.1 million player option for the 2003–4 season.
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After the deadline passed, Carter became a free agent (whoops!) and Miami suddenly had enough cap space to throw a $60 million, six-year offer at Lamar Odom. One summer later, they packaged Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant’s cadaver and a 2006 first-rounder to L.A. for Shaq. Two obvious repercussions here: First, Miami never wins the 2006 title if Duffy doesn’t screw up. Second, since Miami couldn’t have gotten Shaq without Duffy, where else could Shaq
have landed when the Lakers
had
to trade him?
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Could Dallas have stolen him for something like Michael Finley, Devin Harris, Alan Henderson’s expiring contract and a number one pick? Would Denver have offered Marcus Camby, Nene Hilario and Voshon Lenard? Could the Bulls have hijacked him for Eddy Curry (a free agent after the season), Antonio Davis (expiring) and a first-round pick? I say Dallas had the best chance, which means they would have avoided that crippling Dampier move, gotten Shaq, and kept their best four guys (Nowitzki, Howard, Stackhouse and Terry). How many titles are we thinking there? Two? Three? When I emailed him about this last summer (subject line: “Insanely Random Question”), Cuban responded, “[I have] no idea if we would have gotten him, but I know Shaq wanted to come.”

You know what that means? If we’re making the list of Guys Who Prevented Us from Seeing a Pissed-Off Stern Hand a Sobbing Cuban the Lawrence O’Brien Trophy, here’s the top five in no particular order: Dwyane Wade, Bill Duffy, Bennett Salvatore, Don Nelson and Isiah Thomas (for stupidly taking Penny’s contract in the Marbury deal and giving Phoenix enough cap space to woo Nash the following summer).

Hey, speaking of Isiah …

12. What if the Knicks never hired Isiah Thomas?

This could have been its own bizarro “Where Amazing Happens” NBA commercial called “Where Isiah Happens.”

(Cue up the annoying piano music that haunted me every time I tried to fall asleep after hearing it for six straight months during the ’08 season.)
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Picture:
The ’05 Suns celebrating after a playoff win.

Caption:
Where Phoenix dumps the Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway contracts on some unsuspecting sucker and remakes its team into a contender happens.