1984 NBA Draft

Sam Smith

It didn't appear like 1984 would be a very good year for Chicago.

The Chicago Cubs seemed certain to go to their first World Series since 1945 before they lost three consecutive games in San Diego. The Chicago Bears were shut out in the NFC championship game. What looked like a Chicago White Sox dynasty after the brilliant pitching in 1983 led the White Sox to the postseason for the first time 24 years broke down with injuries and off-court issues to a below .500 record in 1984. George Orwell had called it: Trouble ahead! And then seemingly all the Bulls' creativity in trading away their leading scorer and losing 14 of their last 15 games wasn't enough to get into the then coin flip for who was expected to be the basketball star of the next generation, Hakeem (then Akeem) Olajuwon.

So the Bulls fell to the No. 3 pick. Houston won the flip when Portland, which had acquired the pick from a previous trade with Indiana for center Tom Owens, called tails and it came up heads. That enabled Houston to select Olajuwon. Portland, in need of a center, went for Sam Bowie. And North Carolina guard Michael Jordan fell to No. 3 and the Bulls.

We know the rest of the story. That draft, which many regard as the best in NBA history, produced with Jordan and Olajuwon four Hall of Fame players, including Charles Barkley and John Stockton; players in Jordan and Olajuwon who won eight consecutive league titles; three players who were league MVPs in Jordan, Barkley, and Olajuwon with a combined seven MVP awards and Jordan and Olajuwon Defensive Player of the Year winners.

And in Jordan, arguably the player most regard as the best in NBA history. But what is the best NBA draft ever?

Bill Walton, Moses Malone, Jamaal Wilkes and George Gervin Hall of Famers. Perhaps should be ranked higher because of star power and seven titles with Wilkes with four from Golden State and the Lakers. That was the heart of the NBA/ABA wars with Malone out of high school as a low round ABA pick and Gervin, also unheralded, and to the ABA before both starred in the NBA. It was a talented draft with Maurice Lucas, who also went to the ABA first, Truck Robinson, Bobby Jones, and John Drew.

Bill Walton playing for the Portland Trail Blazers.

Rick Barry, Gail Goodrich, Billy Cunningham and Bill Bradley Hall of Famers with some high-level role-playing stars like Bob Love, Jerry Sloan, and the Van Ardsdales. All four of the Hall of Famers played for title teams with only Bradley on multiple champions. Barry was the great talent with some considering him a top 10 all-time NBA talent whose career was marked by controversy with stints in the ABA and NBA.

Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, Karl Malone and Joe Dumars Hall of Famers. That was the year of the first lottery drawing after the late-season frenzy in 1984 to lose games to get a chance to draft Olajuwon. That draft also had Hall of Famer Arvydas Sabonis, but the pick was voided and he was selected the next season by Portland and didn't come to the NBA until 1995. That was a deep class with the likes also of Xavier McDaniel, Charles Oakley, Detlef Schrempf, Terry Porter and Bill Wennington (OK, he asked me to put that in). Only Dumars won titles, but the others all were Dream Team stars.

Patrick Ewing was the Number 1 pick out of Georgetown.

Bob Lanier, Pete Maravich, Dave Cowens, Calvin Murphy, Nate Archibald and Dan Issel Hall of Famers. Issel went to the ABA first, but with six Hall of Famers, that's the most of any class. The 1984 class technically claims five with Oscar Schmidt drafted, but he never played in the NBA.

LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and perhaps Chris Bosh in the Hall of Fame, though all are active now. If the Heat win this season's NBA title, that would be 10 titles for the threesome. James is the best player in this era with four MVP awards and they all still have years to go.

Chet Walker, John Havlicek, Dave DeBusschere and Jerry Lucas Hall of Famers and All-Star big men like Zelmo Beatty and Len Chappell. It's an often-overlooked class, but all four were on title teams and combined for 12 championship teams. "It's the nature of it that people forget about some of those guys, but that was a heck of a draft class," said Walker, who was wingman for Wilt's great 76ers' title team in 1967.

Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, and K.C. Jones Hall of Famers. They're by far the winningest group in league history with 27 combined titles, Russell with 11. Russell and Heinsohn also combined for four head coaching titles. Willie Naulls also was an All-Star in that draft and a high-level player in his era. But no draft has produced winning like that one even if it was mostly due to Russell.

Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash likely Hall of Famers. There also were a half dozen others in that draft selected to All-Star games. None, obviously, are in the Hall of Fame yet, but that draft set the stage for the post-Michael Jordan NBA era with Iverson, Bryant, and Nash all winning MVP awards and Bryant and Allen part of seven title teams.

Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, and Lenny Wilkens, Hall of Famers. That draft concluded the beginning of the modern NBA with Bill Russell in 1956, Elgin Baylor in 1958 and Wilt Chamberlain in 1959. That's arguably five of the top 10 of all time with Robertson, Baylor, and West. Tom Sanders in that draft is in the Hall of Fame for all-around contributions, including playing with the title Celtics. But the Big Three were all Top 50 players and a case could be made for Robertson and West among the top five. They were denied numerous titles because of Russell and the Celtics, but they represented the NBA as much as any.

It only has one top 10 player, but probably No. 1 in Jordan. Olajuwon generally comes in the 10-20 range with Barkley and Stockton more in the second 25 even as Stockton was the career assists leader. But that draft dominated a decade with the Bulls, Houston, Utah and when Barkley was in Phoenix the elite teams of the decade. The late 1950s would have been the top draft if Wilt and Russell were together or with West, Robertson or Baylor as those players created the modern NBA as we know it. Other top 10 players weren't mentioned, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird, because they didn't come in with strong classes. Bird and Magic started the same season, but Bird was drafted a year earlier. Abdul-Jabbar was the only Hall of Famer from his 1969 class that had JoJo White, Bobby Dandridge, and Norm Van Lier. Perhaps Shaq and Alonzo Mourning make a case for 1992, but it was weak after that. Baylor in 1958 had only Hal Greer as a Hall of Famer, though Wayne Embry was in that draft and in the Hall of Fame as a contributor, which included playing. Guy Rodgers was a top player in that draft, which put it on the edge of the top 10. Tim Duncan in 1997 was pretty much on his own just before Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, and Vince Carter in 1998 and none drafted in the top four. Julius Erving in 1972 was headed to the ABA in a draft headlined by Bob McAdoo with few other top players. There also are some other drafts that could emerge, like 2008 with Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Love and 2009 with Blake Griffin, James Harden, and Stephen Curry. It's not easy and is a close choice. You can make the case for others, but it's tough to make a compelling case to top the 1984 draft as the best ever. It turned out to be a pretty good year for Chicago after all.

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1984 NBA Draft ranks as best ever

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Sam Smith: 1984 NBA Draft ranks as best ever Also: Rod Thorn drafted Michael Jordan at No. 3 in 1984

Heads or tails? At some point, most of us have taken part in a coin flip for one reason or another.

The outcome is fifty-fifty. Completely arbitrary. Subject to chance. And as the Chicago Bulls know, franchise altering.

For with a different outcome of a few coin flips dating back 35 years ago, Michael Jordan may have never played for the Bulls.

The story of Jordan landing in Chicago would almost certainly not have been possible had Chicago won its coin toss with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979. With the top pick in the draft, Los Angeles selected Magic Johnson, while Chicago took David Greenwood at No. 2.

“Nothing against Greenwood, who was a good player and a good guy,” said Irwin Mandel, a senior vice president for the Bulls in his 42nd season with the team. “But with Magic, we never would have had a bad enough record to draft Jordan five seasons later.”

With “THE84DRAFT" set to premiere on Monday, June 9 at 8 p.m. CT on NBA TV and look back on that historic class that featured four Hall of Famers – top selection Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley and John Stockton in addition to Jordan – it brings to mind a few words once spoken by the Dalai Lama:

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”

The Bulls closed out the 1983-84 season with a mark of 27-55, third worst in the league and one game behind the Dallas Mavericks. But that almost wasn’t the case.

Mandel recalls a controversial finish to a game that year in which Caldwell Jones of the Houston Rockets connected on a desperation three-pointer with the game tied as time expired. The shot counted and the Rockets won. Mandel and the Bulls filed a formal protest with the league, arguing that there was not enough time for the sequence of plays to have been allowed and that there was a misinterpretation of the rules.

To this day, Mandel believes his case was a compelling one. The NBA disagreed and would not overturn the officials’ ruling. If Chicago had instead been granted another victory, it would have been tied with Dallas and a coin toss would have ensued for the third pick. Given then Dallas general manager Rick Sund, a friend of Mandel’s, attempted to trade up a spot to select Jordan, there is little doubt as to who the Mavericks would have taken at No. 3.

While that coin toss wasn’t necessary, one was required to determine who would select first in the 1984 NBA Draft. The consensus prize was Hakeem Olajuwon, known for his illustrious career at University of Houston.

Shortly after the flip took place, Mandel spoke to former Bulls general manager Rod Thorn.

“He told me, ‘Good news, Irwin. Houston won and they’ll take Olajuwon. Portland, I’m pretty darn sure is taking Sam Bowie,’” said Mandel. “I think that very few other teams would have taken Bowie over Jordan. But Portland did it given they already had Clyde Drexler and Jim Paxson on their team.

“We lucked out in that we lost the protest,” Mandel added. “At the same time, we were lucky that Houston won the coin toss with Portland. If Portland had won, they take Olajuwon and Houston takes Jordan. We absolutely lucked out on a few levels.

“Though it was believed Jordan could be a star, Olajuwon was considered to be a better pro prospect,” Mandel added. “Plus, people thought a player like Olajuwon could have a greater effect on winning.”

Though Thorn was cautiously optimistic Jordan would be there for the Bulls, it was no certainty. So he prepared for the draft with other players such as Sam Perkins and Mel Turpin under consideration, but Jordan was his clear cut favorite.

As for the draft itself, Thorn opted to stay in Chicago with his coaching staff and scout rather than being at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum for the proceedings. So he asked Keith Brown, a 23-year old sales representative in his second year with the Bulls, to go on behalf of the team.

“I was very excited for the opportunity and it was actually the very first time in my life I had been on an airplane,” recalled Brown, now vice president of ticketing and premium seating after 31 years.

After checking in and receiving an explanation from the league staff about what to expect, Brown phoned Thorn and managing partner Jonathan Kovler. It was a call that would not end until the 10-round draft concluded, as Brown would provide the group in Chicago with pick-by-pick updates throughout.

“When we got to the third pick, it was live on television,” said Brown. “I was on the phone with Jonathan who was with Rod. As I was waiting for him to advise me of our pick, the red light of the camera came on. He said, ‘Hey, you’re on TV. Give us a thumbs up.’”

Brown obliged as his 15 minutes of fame took full effect. Then, he made formal a selection that would mark the official beginnings of one of sport’s greatest dynasties: The Bulls were drafting Michael Jordan of North Carolina.

Brown completed the necessary paperwork and handed it to a league runner, who promptly delivered it to David Stern, overseeing his first draft as commissioner, for the announcement.

“Everyone was very excited about the pick,” recalled Brown. “But Mike Thibault, our scout at the time, said he felt Michael was the best player in the draft. While I don’t think Mike could have forecasted he’d be the greatest player ever, he was certain that within a season, Jordan would be a perennial All-Star. So I think Mike had a real sense of how good Jordan was going to be and I suspect that Rod shared that opinion.”

“Mike felt extremely strongly that the Bulls should draft Jordan,” Mandel concurred. “I think Thibault was an influence on Thorn, but either way, Rod was going to take Jordan. Thibault just reinforced that taking him was the right move to make.”

Jordan was on his way to Chicago. And while it’s easy to overlook the details which fell in place along the way to make that happen, none of it would have been possible had heads turned out to be tails instead, or vice versa.

“History would have been rewritten,” said Mandel. “Instead of thinking about the championships, we would look back with regret on how close we came to getting the great Michael Jordan. We’re unbelievably lucky that things turned out the way they did.”

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Flip of a coin helped Bulls land Jordan

In 1984, the prize of the NBA Draft was the University of Houston’s Hakeem Olajuwon, not North Carolina product Michael Jordan.

But when Jordan fell to the Bulls at No. 3, it was one heck of a consolation prize for then General Manager Rod Thorn.

The consensus was clear that Jordan would be a good NBA player, said Thorn, having been named the collegiate player of the year following his junior year. But it was the traditional center teams sought, and Olajuwon had the makings of a dominant one.

A coin flip between Houston and Portland determined the Rockets would pick first. The Trail Blazers had Clyde Drexler and Jim Paxson, and felt they didn’t need another wing player. Hence, Jordan was on the board when the Bulls were ready to select.

“I think most people today, given the choice of a quality big player or a quality 6-6 guy, usually you're going to take the quality big guy,” Thorn said in a phone interview from his New Jersey Nets office, where he is currently the team’s president. “But in those days, it was even more so, because virtually everybody who had ever won a championship had a big time center.

“Michael helped change some of that over the course of his career by winning as many championships as he and the Bulls did,” he added. “It kind of changed some of that thinking that you could have a great player who was not a center and still have a dominating team.”

So what was the scouting report on Jordan at the time?

“He was a tremendous athlete with a strong body that looked like it was going to get better,” said Thorn. “He was competitive, and a fair shooter. Good ball handler, though not a great one at that time, but a good one, and a good defensive player. His shooting was what we were concerned with. We didn’t know what kind of shooter he was going to turn out to be.”

As Thorn and the Bulls prepared for the draft, he relied on his relationship with North Carolina coaching legend Dean Smith for assistance in watching tape and acquiring scouting reports on not only his own players, but others in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Thorn made several trips to Smith’s Chapel Hill office as he narrowed his field of draft candidates.

“His feeling was that Michael was as good of an athlete as he had,” Thorn said of his conversations with Smith. “He was an extraordinary competitor, and his feeling was that he would get even better, and be a better pro than he even was a college player. He was very high on him, and felt he would turn out to be a really good pro.”

Smith was a coach who would urge his players to enter the draft if he felt strongly they would be a top-five selection. When it became clear Jordan would be taken off the board quickly, Coach Smith was all for him coming out, said Thorn.

But what if Portland had taken Jordan at No. 2? Or, what if Houston had made a trade with Portland to take Jordan? Portland’s desire for a big man was well-known, and Houston could have sent Ralph Sampson to the Blazers for the second pick. Think a tandem of Jordan and Olajuwon would have fared well?

For the Bulls, Plan B was Sam Perkins, Jordan’s North Carolina teammate. Thorn said they were concerned about Kentucky’s Sam Bowie’s leg, and felt Auburn’s Charles Barkley may have been undersized.

But Jordan, who never came in for a pre-draft workout with the Bulls, was there after Portland selected Bowie, and the rest is history.

That fall, on the first day of training camp, Thorn received a phone call from Bill Blair, one of the team’s assistant coaches at the time.

Thorn recalled the conversation, “He said to the effect, and I'm cleaning this up a little, 'Boy, you didn't make a mistake this year!'”

The next day, it was then Head Coach Kevin Loughery on the line.

“Coaches generally are leery of rookies and jumping to any kind of conclusion about what a guy is going to be, but he felt we had a good one in Michael,” Thorn recalled.

By the first exhibition game, Jordan was clearly the best player the Bulls had, and soon enough, he was drawing crowds. Besides his collegiate career, Jordan’s play with the Olympic team in Los Angeles under Bobby Knight that summer had garnered a lot of publicity, so he had a following.

“When he lived up to that following as he did in that exhibition season, he got even bigger,” Thorn said. “When the season started, in the first two or three weeks, he was phenomenal. Everybody saw that he was a player who had a chance to be special.”

Thorn remembers being particularly blown away when the Bulls and Bucks met in the third game of the 1984-85 season. In a game attended by 9,356 at the Chicago Stadium, Jordan single-handedly dismantled a solid Milwaukee defense. Sidney Moncrief spent the majority of the night on Jordan, and he had been named NBA Defensive Player of the Year the previous two seasons.

“They were double-teaming Michael every time he got the ball,” Thorn said. “In the fourth quarter, Michael had 15 or 16 points and I don’t care if they double or triple-teamed him or whatever they did, he still scored. We ended up beating them and it was like, 'Goodness gracious, I can't believe what I just saw out there.'”

Jordan saw countless double-teams throughout his career. But for an NBA rookie to regularly and consistently beat them, drive to the basket, and score while making it look easy was remarkable.

“He wasn't nearly as accomplished of a jump shooter at that time as he became,” Thorn recalled. “He would just recklessly go to the bucket. What people forget about Michael, I think, is how great of an athlete he was. He had the body control, the ability to take hits in the air and finish, and then obviously go to the foul line. Teams knew he was going to drive, and they couldn't stop him.”

Thorn is among those who believe Jordan is the best player that ever played, and feels his induction into basketball’s Hall of Fame is fitting.

“It is the ultimate honor for any player in any sport because it's the highest honor you can get,” he said. “I think it's very appropriate the first year he became eligible he’s in and obviously I'm sure it was unanimous. I'm looking forward to the evening and to be part of the gathering that welcomes Michael.”

Michael Jordan | Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame | Class of 2009

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Rod Thorn drafted Michael Jordan at No. 3 in 1984

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