Wiggins as a Cav? CP3 as a Laker? The biggest what-ifs from the NBA this past decade
More so than any of the other three major professional sports in North America, the trickle-down effect we have seen around the NBA world over the past decade has been real.
What would have happened if the NBA didn't nix the Chris Paul trade to the Los Angeles Lakers? Would the Golden State Warriors currently be the defending champions if the Minnesota Timberwolves had selected Stephen Curry in the top six of the 2009 NBA Draft?
These are among the biggest what-ifs from the NBA over the past decade.
You can bet Kobe Bryant (left) would rather have had Paul on his team.
CHRIS PAUL TRADED TO THE LAKERS?
The trade that was shot down by then-NBA Commissioner David Stern would have been among the biggest in the history of the Association. It's a deal that's fun to deconstruct five years after it was seemingly prepared to go down. The end result of the veto had impacts on nearly a half of dozen teams around the basketball world.
Here is how the parameters of the deal looked — a deal that was sent to the commissioner's office for league approval.
The Houston Rockets would have received Pau Gasol from the Los Angeles Lakers. In addition to a first-round pick from the Rockets, the then-New Orleans Hornets would have acquired Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Goran Dragic and a first-round pick from Houston, as well as Lamar Odom from the Lakers. Meanwhile, Paul would have been sent to the Lakers from New Orleans.
While we can go nine degrees of separation here and write a novella, that would require about 10,000 words and a lot more patience from this one scribe. Though, the direct impact of this non-trade is well-known.
First off, it's unknown whether the Hornets would have won the lottery following the 2011-12 season — the draft that saw them pick up franchise big man Anthony Davis. New Orleans finished with a 21-45 record and, with it, the fourth-best odds at winning the lottery.
If not, this would have drastically changed the landscapes for the other three teams vying for the first pick — Cleveland Cavaliers, Charlotte Bobcats and Sacramento Kings.
Heck, we can throw the Golden State Warriors, New Jersey Nets, Toronto Raptors and Washington Wizards into the mix.
The trade that actually went down — pretty much pushed by the NBA itself — ended up sending Eric Gordon, Al-Farouq Aminu, Chris Kaman and a first-round pick (from Minnesota) to New Orleans for Paul. That first-round pick (10th overall) ended up being Austin Rivers.
While the Hornets' scenario here is a major "what-if" based off how the lottery balls would have bounced, the Lakers were the ones that found themselves downright screwed by the NBA here.
A healthy Andrew Bynum to go with Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul would have made for a pretty decent core.
It also might have enabled the Lakers themselves to retain Dwight Howard over the long term after they acquired him from the Orlando Magic in a four-team deal the following August. Would Howard have been inclined to re-sign with the Lakers if they had a core that included both Kobe and Paul?
Oklahoma City's entrance into this "what-if" scenario likely makes no real sense. It was inclined to trade Harden for cap purposes in the first place — a trade that would have went down, even if it wasn't with the Rockets.
For Houston, the parameters of the Harden trade were very similar to what it would have given up to bring Gasol aboard and help facilitate a Paul trade to the Lakers. That deal sent Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb and two first-round picks to Oklahoma City — picks the Thunder ended up using on Steven Adams and Andre Roberson.
Instead of giving up Gordon, Kaman and Aminu as well as the 10th pick in the 2012 draft, the Clippers would have been left out in the cold if the original Paul trade went through. We don't need to tell you how this scenario would have played out for a squad that's coming off three consecutive 50-plus win seasons with Paul manning the point.
Imagine Paul on the Lakers with Dwight Howard and a Clippers team without the All-Star point guard. Imagine James Harden being sent somewhere other than Houston and Anthony Davis playing with either the Bobcats or Kings.
Of course, we can deconstruct this entire scenario a bit further. We can look at the potential of Davis teaming up with DeMarcus Cousins in Sacramento. We can also look at Howard, Paul and Kobe with the Lakers. Would that have been a championship-caliber team? It's fun to look at, but we are already crossing into the land of ridiculous here, so it's time to move on.
CLEVELAND CAVALIERS KEEP ANDREW WIGGINS?
What coulda been, Cleveland.
This one is a bit more clear-cut. An argument could be made right now that Wiggins is a better all-around basketball player than Kevin Love.
That's not something most people had envisioned when the Cavaliers dealt the No. 1-overall selection along with Anthony Bennett to Minnesota for the All-Star big man back in August 2014.
Cleveland was able to earn a trip to the NBA Finals last year with its current cast of characters. Though, that didn't have a whole heck of a lot to do with Love. He missed the final three series of the playoffs due to injury.
Just imagine how a backcourt of Kyrie Irving and Andrew Wiggins would have looked last year. Add in LeBron James at small forward, and you have the makings of a potential dynasty. It might not have come last season or this, but the upside would have been much higher than an Irving-James-Love trio.
For the Wolves, this trade worked out to perfection. While they did hold out hope that Bennett was going to pan out, Wiggins was the real prize in that deal. He's averaging over 20 points per game as a sophomore this year.
Not covered above, Minnesota also nabbed Thaddeus Young from the Philadelphia 76ers in this three-team deal. He was traded several months later for Kevin Garnett — setting the table for the future Hall of Famer to close out his career with the Wolves.
There are a lot of what-ifs for the Wolves if this trade had not worked out. They were reportedly discussing a trade with the Golden State Warriors before sending Love to Cleveland.
The name bandied about there was Klay Thompson. Though, there are no indications Golden State seriously considered moving Thompson.
The likely return would have included both Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green — two players who played major roles in Golden State's title run last June. The argument could be made that this would have been a better haul. That is an argument, however, that must be made with the biggest possible grains of salt.
For Cleveland, the ability to acquire Love set the tone for the team being able to re-sign King James. After being irrelevant for so long following James' departure to South Beach a few years earlier, this was a move the Cavaliers obviously had to make. It's unknown whether Cleveland would have been able to re-sign James without first agreeing to the parameters of a deal for Love — parameters that eventually included Wiggins.
GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS ACQUIRE DWIGHT HOWARD?
Could Dwight Howard have flourished in Golen State?
Heading into the summer of 2013, Golden State was one of the hottest potential landing spots for Howard. The issue here was that it couldn't sign the big man outright, meaning that the Warriors would have had to work out a sign-and-trade with the Los Angeles Lakers.
While discussions did take place, it was always unlikely that the Lakers would have traded their big man to a division rival.
If it had worked out this way, the entire landscape of the NBA would have changed for good.
In lieu of acquiring Howard, Golden State picked up Andre Iguodala from the Denver Nuggets in a sign-and-trade for a bunch of spare parts. Not seen on the same level as Howard in terms of star status, all Iggy did last June was win the NBA Finals MVP while being tasked with guarding King James.
It's also important to note that the signing of Howard would still have wide-ranging ramifications for the Warriors. Could they have inked Green to the near-max deal he received this past summer? What about the extension Klay Thompson signed in October 2014?
Heck, both Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli are slated to become restricted free agents this summer with Stephen Curry set to hit free agency in the summer of 2017.
Yeah, we can pretty much guarantee that the Warriors are happy their big free-agent prize from the summer of 2013 was Iguodala, not Howard.
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS SELECT KEVIN DURANT
If Durant got picked by Portland? Perhaps no LaMarcus to team up with Tim Duncan in San Antonio.
What if the Blazers had selected Michael Jordan over Sam Bowie? That's a backstory that has haunted the franchise ever since the mid-1980s. Here we are over three decades later, and there's another decision that could haunt Portland for the next quarter century.
Though, the first thing to look at here is how this might have impacted the then-Seattle Supersonics. If Portland had selected Durant instead of Greg Oden No. 1 overall, the two likely options with the second pick would have been Oden and current Memphis Grizzlies guard Mike Conley Jr.
That's where it gets interesting. With Earl Watson starting at the point and Chris Wilcox manning the power forward/center slot, both were definitely areas of need. The selection of Conley Jr. over Oden in this scenario would have meant a strong likelihood that Russell Westbrook might not have been selected by Seattle in the 2008 draft a year later.
We can go through all the scenarios here, but that makes little sense. Instead, it's safe to say that the alternative universe Oklahoma City Thunder could have included both Conley Jr. and Kevin Love, the latter of whom was selected one pick after Westbrook in 2008.
For the Blazers, the scenarios are vast. They are also all pretty much better than what ended up unfolding. Oden played just 82 games in five seasons with Portland. In fact, he didn't suit up in each of his final three years with the team.
Durant in the mix, it's safe to say Portland would have been a viable potential location for free agents. It's also safe to say that the team might have been able to retain LaMarcus Aldridge (selected No. 2 overall in 2006) last summer.
Just imagine a Blazers team led by Aldridge and Durant. That would have been all sorts of sexy.
Though, it's highly likely that on-court success over the next several years would have disabled Portland's ability to draft Damian Lillard in the top six of the 2012 NBA Draft — the actual face of the franchise right now.
MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES SELECT STEPHEN CURRY
Yo, T-wolves: This guy coulda been your guy.
As good as the Love-for-Wiggins trade might end up working out for Minnesota, there's nothing good about the team deciding to select both Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn over Curry in the top 10 of the 2009 NBA Draft.
Let's just assume here for a second that the Warriors wouldn't have won the NBA title this past June. Let's also assume the lure for Steve Kerr wouldn't have been there without Curry manning the point in Golden State.
Despite some lean years during his first three seasons with the Warriors, Curry's performance enabled the team to finish outside of the top five of the lottery each draft.
While this might have meant a better selection than Ekpe Udoh in 2010, Golden State still nabbed Klay Thompson in the lottery in 2011 and Harrison Barnes in the top 10 in 2012. A worse performance on the court, meaning a higher draft pick, probably wouldn't have yielded better players.
It's crazy to think about how just one decision by another team (in this case Minnesota) can change the entire dynamic of one franchise. In this, the Wolves deserve a major assist for the Warriors' recent run of success.
For the Wolves, the selections of both Flynn and Rubio were probably the worst-case scenarios. Along with Hasheem Thabeet (No. 2 overall to Memphis), Flynn was the worst pick of the 2009 draft. Picking him at No. 6 ahead of the likes of Curry and Brandon Jennings is still hard to explain. Also hard to explain is the fact that Minnesota had picked another point guard (Rubio) directly ahead of Flynn.
Here's a team that could have easily walked away from the 2009 draft with Curry and DeMar DeRozan. Just think about that backcourt. My gosh.
In fact, we can look at the 2009 and 2010 drafts as two of the primary reasons the Wolves had to tear it down in order to engage in a lengthy rebuild. The team also selected Wesley Johnson No. 4 overall in 2010. It did so with DeMarcus Cousins, Greg Monroe and Paul George on the board at the time.
In an alternate universe where the Wolves were a model organization, they could have ended up with a core of Curry, DeRozan and Cousins. Sorry, fans in Minnesota, I know this is a sore subject.
Check out Vincent’s other work on eDraft.com and follow him on Twitter. His work can also be seen on MSN, FOX Sports and Forbes.
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