What if the Portland Trail Blazers Drafted Michael Jordan?

     Arguably, the 1984 NBA Draft is one of the best ever, containing four Hall of Famers including the great Michael Jordan, whom many consider the best basketball player of all time. One of the biggest what-if questions that have come out of this draft that will live in NBA infamy is, What if the Portland Trail Blazers drafted Michael Jordan with the No. 2 overall pick in the 1984 NBA Draft instead of Sam Bowie?

     In the 1984 NBA Draft, if Michael Jordan was selected at No. 2 by the Blazers, he would have been on the same team as Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler, who was drafted the previous year. This would have created a dynasty and a grave combination for the opposition with Drexler at small forward and Jordan at shooting guard on both wings of the 3-point line. This could have also been a small problem for the Blazers for a little while because it would be hard having two star players on a team that were both Top 5 players in the league at that time until Drexler and Jordan formed strong chemistry and learned how to coexist with each other as two league-wide stars on the same team.

     Michael Jordan would have been teammates with the great Clyde Drexler, but who else would be on his team during his legendary championship runs? In Michael Jordan’s first championship season in 1991, the start of his first three-peat, the Blazers would have won the championship with him as they lost in the finals 4-2 to Jordan’s Bulls. Jordan was a big part of the 1991 Finals for the bulls as he averaged 31.2 points per game during the series on 56% shooting. The starting lineup for the Blazers at the time would be Terry Porter as the point guard, Jordan as the shooting guard, Drexler as small forward, Jerome Kersey as a power forward, and either Buck Willams or Kevin Duckworth at center. This would have created a dynasty as the Blazers were recording around 50 wins a season during Jordan and the Bull’s three-peat. Who knows how many wins Jordan would boost the team up to considering 50 (which is a pretty decent amount of wins in the NBA’s 82-game schedule)? The Trail Blazers might have even won more championships with Jordan than the Bulls because they had a lot of valuable players already, while the Bulls needed a few years to build up the strength to create the legendary dynasty that Jordan helped create. The Blazers only made it to the finals twice during Jordan’s tenure in the NBA and one of the greatest players of all time, Jordan, would have definitely rewritten the history books with many more championships for the Trail Blazers.

     Only one question remains now. Would people still consider Michael Jordan the GOAT (greatest of all time)? In my opinion, yes. If the Blazers drafted Jordan, he would undoubtedly be the GOAT and there would be no argument that LeBron would ever come close to Michael Jordan and his career feats. He would have many more championships because the Blazers already had many good pieces that had come close to the championship many times before without Michael Jordan. Jordan would then be the spark that the Blazers needed to fuel many championship runs, maybe even double-digit championship wins for Jordan in his career. That’s my opinion, but what are your thoughts on this theory and maybe the best NBA what-if questions of all time?

Works Cited

“Portland Trail Blazers Playoff History | 1971 – 2023.” Champs or Chumps, https://champsorchumps.us/team/nba/portland-trail-blazers. Accessed 28 March 2023.

“Portland Trail Blazers Roster.” Portland Trail Blazers Roster – RealGM, https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/teams/Portland-Trail-Blazers/24/Rosters/Regular/1992. Accessed 28 March 2023.