3. Trail Blazers drafting Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan in 1984
Let’s just do a blind college resumé test here:
Option A: Averaged 18-5-2 over a three-year career. Hit the game-winning shot in the national championship game as a freshman, and was easily the most athletic and exciting player in college at the time.
Option B: Averaged 13-9 over a five-year career. Missed two full seasons in a row due to a stress fracture and his only post-injury season was his worst as a scorer, averaging 10.5 points on a career-worst field goal percentage.
Tough call, but I think most people go with option A.
BUT – what if I told you that option B was 7-feet tall?
That’s really all the Portland Trail Blazers needed to hear in 1984. There was a school of thought during the 80’s that you could only win championships with big guys, so the Trail Blazers went with the big guy and it went exactly like you’d expect it to.
Bowie was in the NBA for 11 years and battled injuries the entire time. From 1987-89 Bowie played in a total of 25 games and missed the entire 1988 season with a leg injury. Shocking, I know.
There were reports that Bowie lied to the Blazers and said he was healthy before the draft but I don’t see how that makes this any more justifiable for the team. I mean, the guy missed TWO full seasons in college and you’re going to pick him over Michael Jordan because he promised you he’d be fine? How much more evidence did they need that he was never going to stay healthy?
And any argument saying that no one knew that Jordan was special is just false – teams were lining up to trade up and get him, as Bill Simmons outlines in The Book of Basketball.