Bob Knight told Blazers to draft Jordan

[DoctorP]

https://youtu.be/26u6-02zrcs

Knight tried to convince the Blazers...even saying to put Jordan at C if they didnt have a center :lol

[DoctorP]

The Blazers M.O. was to not reduce Drexler. Solid thinking. No excuse for the Pacers though.

[AlternativeAcc.]

I still think Bowie was the right choice, Jordan fell into an amazing situation

[JBSptfn]

Picking Bowie was a mistake. They already went through the Bill Walton era. They didn't need another center that had the potential to become injury prone (which is what happened).

[GimmeThat]

Bob Knight probably also never understood how high school basketball coaches never playing in the professional league ended up coaching in the pro.

what was in the water? can you make a president out of that?

[Soundwave]

Blazers would've been the greatest modern dynasty in pro sports, probably flushed a good 8 championships down the toilet with that decision.

Unlike the Bulls, Jordan wouldn't have had to wait 4-5 years for the team around him to be decent, he would have been competing for championships much more quickly there.

This is why you always, always, always draft the best player available, not draft based on position.

[iamgine]

Not drafting MJ was absolutely the right decision by Blazers. They were trying to contend and they already had all star Jim Paxson and Clyde Drexler at MJ's position. Imagine this, Clyde Drexler would become the GOAT SG at the time if not for MJ. They made a bet for Drexler and clearly that was a smart bet, it would be stupid to expect MJ to become even close to the GOAT SG let alone the GOAT at the time of the draft.

It would be like, you already have Kyrie Irving and rookie Jason Kidd and your team is trying to contend. Do you then draft...Ja Morant? No, you'll draft RJ Barret or something.

[Horatio33]

Not drafting MJ was absolutely the right decision by Blazers. They were trying to contend and they already had all star Jim Paxson and Clyde Drexler at MJ's position. Imagine this, Clyde Drexler would become the GOAT SG at the time if not for MJ. They made a bet for Drexler and clearly that was a smart bet, it would be stupid to expect MJ to become even close to the GOAT SG let alone the GOAT at the time of the draft.

It would be like, you already have Kyrie Irving and rookie Jason Kidd and your team is trying to contend. Do you then draft...Ja Morant? No, you'll draft RJ Barret or something.

That was just a bunch of words.

[Haymaker]

The Blazers M.O. was to not reduce Drexler. Solid thinking. No excuse for the Pacers though.

Clyde could've easily moved to SF.

[AirFederer]

Good one

[Lebron23]

Blazers would've been the greatest modern dynasty in pro sports, probably flushed a good 8 championships down the toilet with that decision.

Unlike the Bulls, Jordan wouldn't have had to wait 4-5 years for the team around him to be decent, he would have been competing for championships much more quickly there.

This is why you always, always, always draft the best player available, not draft based on position.
This guy doesn't know anything about basketball. Blazers drafted Petrovic who was one of the best scorers/players
in europe. And he played limited minutes for the blazers because they already had Cylde Drexler. Jordan being drafted by the Bulls was the best thing that ever happened in his nba career. He became a number one scoring option since his rookie season.. If Jordan was drafted by the Blazers he would be coming off the bench. He would be Pippen before Pippen. Jordan only averaged 17.7 ppg in College. He won't be the number one scoring option for the blazers.

[LostCause]

This guy doesn't know anything about basketball. Blazers drafted Petrovic who was one of the best scorers/players
in europe. And he played limited minutes for the blazers because they already had Cylde Drexler. Jordan being drafted by the Bulls was the best thing that ever happened in his nba career. He became a number one scoring option since his rookie season.. If Jordan was drafted by the Blazers he would be coming off the bench. He would be Pippen before Pippen. Jordan only averaged 17.7 ppg in College. He won't be the number one scoring option for the blazers.

Most folks were well aware Jordans scoring average in college belied what he was actually capable of. Everyone knew he'd be a beast on that end. That said he was also the consensus player of the year his last year in college so its not like he was coming in without great acclaim

It would make no sense to NOT draft a player like that based on need. You draft the best player available and work from there. If you need to play Jordan/Clyde together so be it. The Rockets did it drafting Hakeem while already having Sampson

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/17/sports/nba-draft-is-a-peek-into-future.html

There's a pre-draft report. Can already see the consensus was that Jordan would be a superstar

[RoseCity07]

I remember reading about this. He even told the GM to play Jordan at center then lol. He definitely knew how good Jordan was.

[JBSptfn]

People think that Drexler could have taken the Pippen role, and that Portland should have taken Jordan. Well, in 1984, there was no precedent for the Pippen Role. Portland should have drafted Barkley (Bill Simmons said that they needed a rebounder in his book).