Drafts 1984-1989

1984

This is the draft that really changes the landscape of the league in the 90s. The Rockets obviously takes MJ with the first pick, the Blazers ignore Sam Bowie and wisely take Hakeem and the Bulls ended up with Charles Barkley. We can’t forget about Mr. John Stockton being headed to Dallas instead of being ignored by 15 teams until Utah grabbed him.

Championship Builders: Rockets, Blazers, Bulls, Mavs
Biggest Jump: Jerome Kersey from 46 to 9

Pick Order. Picking Team --Player Selected ( Original position drafted)

1. Rockets -- Michael Jordan (3)
2. Blazers-- Hakeem Olajuwon (1)
3. Bulls-- Charles Barkley (5)
4. Mavs-- John Stockton (16)
5. Sixers-- Sam Perkins (4)
6. Bullets-- Alvin Robertson (7)
7. Spurs-- Kevin Willis (11)
8. Clippers-- Michael Cage (14)
9. Kings-- Jerome Kersey (46)





1985


The first ever lottery draft was fixed for the Knicks (according to some conspiracy theorists) and they walk away with one of the greatest power forwards ever , taking the Jazz from contention for the next 12 years, hence Ewing falls in the lap of the Indiana Pacers. This is a tough draft class featuring enforcers like Oakley, A.C. Green, Mario Elie. Terry Porter, Ty Corbin and the X Man.



Championship Builders: Knicks, Pacers
Biggest Jump: Mario Elie from 160 to 12th.

Pick Order. Picking Team --Player Selected ( Original position drafted)

1. Knicks-- Karl Malone (13)
2. Pacers -- Patrick Ewing (1)
3. Clippers-- Chris Mullin (7)
4. Sonics-- Joe Dumars (18)
5. Hawks-- Detlef Schrempf (8)
6. Kings-- Terry Porter (24)
7. Warriors-- Charles Oakley (9)
8. Mavs-- Xavier McDaniel (4)
9. Cavs-- A.C. Green (23)
10. Suns-- Wayman Tisdale (2)
11. Bulls-- John Williams (45)
12. Bullets-- Mario Elie (160)


1986

I like to call this class the “What If?” class. Just putting out there the idea if Len Bias actually plays in the NBA is he named in the same class that Dr J. , Drexler and Kobe ? Maybe a notch lower with Vinsanity, Pistol Pete and Joe D? Is he the guy that was supposed to really challenge MJ as Bill Simmons once said? Another “What If?” for u: Sabonis is in this class but he didn’t go to the States until 1995. If this guy had played in the NBA a decade earlier would he had been remembered as a top 5 center of all time?
What if Drazen Petrovic doesn’t die? What if Dennis Rodman is kept away from Rick Mahorn and Bill Laimbeer? Does he learn to rebound like he did? Does he go psycho on us?....

Championship Builders: Cavs, Celtics
Biggest Jump: Drazen Petrovic from 60 to 7th.

Pick Order. Picking Team --Player Selected ( Original position drafted)

1. Cavs-- Len Bias (2)
2. Celtics-- Brad Daugherty (1)
3. Warriors-- Chuck Person (4)
4. Pacers-- Arvydas Sabonis (24)
5. Knicks-- Mark Price (25)
6. Suns-- Ron Harper (8)
7. Mavs-- Drazen Petrovic (60)
8. Cavs-- Dennis Rodman (27)
9. Bulls-- Jeff Hornacek (46)
10. Spurs-- Scott Skiles (22)

1987


Perhaps the biggest effect in the remaking of this draft is on the Bulls. They are not getting Scottie Pippen nor Horace Grant. Instead of that they are getting Derrick McKey and Sarunas Marciulionis to team up with Michael Jordan.


Championship Builders: Spurs
Biggest Jump: Sarunas Marciulionis from 127 to 8th.

Pick Order. Picking Team --Player Selected ( Original position drafted)

1. Spurs-- David Robinson (1)
2. Suns-- Reggie Miller (11)
3. Nets-- Scottie Pippen (5)
4. Clippers-- Reggie Lewis (22)
5. Sonics-- Mark Jackson (18)
6. Kings-- Horace Grant (10)
7. Cavs-- Kevin Johnson (7)
8. Bulls-- Derrick McKey (9)
9. Sonics-- Kenny Smith (6)
10. Bulls-- Sarunas Marciulionis (127)
11. Pacers-- Reggie Williams (4)




1988

A whole lof of role players in this year, no major effects redoing this one!

Championship Builders: None
Biggest Jump: Anthony Mason from 53 to 9th.

Pick Order. Picking Team --Player Selected ( Original position drafted)


1. Clippers-- Mitch Richmond (5)
2. Pacers-- Rik Smits (2)
3. Sixers-- Danny Manning (1)
4. Nets-- Hersey Hawkins (6)
5. Warriors-- Dan Majerle (14)
6. Clippers-- Rod Strickland (19)
7. Suns-- Rony Seikaly (9)
8. Hornets-- Charles Smith (3)
9. Heat-- Anthony Mason (53)
10. Spurs-- Rex Champman (8)





1989


This is a class hard to read, there is no clear cut number one guy - or even number 2 – but there are very good solid role players. Some of them had their moments. I’m just putting Tim Hardaway up at number one because he is a clutch point guard. You can’t find too many of those

Championship Builders: None
Biggest Jump: Shawn Kemp from 17th to 2nd.

1. Kings-- Tim Hardaway (14)
2. Clippers-- Shawn Kemp (17)
3. Spurs-- Glen Rice (4)
4. Heat-- Vlade Divac (26)
5. Hornets-- Sean Elliot (3)
6. Bulls-- Nick Anderson (11)
7. Pacers-- Mookie Blaylock (12)
8. Mavs-- George McCloud (7)
9. Bullets-- Danny Ferry (2)
10. Twolves-- B.J. Armstrong (18)
11. Magic-- Pervis Ellison (1)
12. Nets-- Dana Barros (16)

Linkin Friday XI

Let's go down memory lane

Scottie over Ewing

Shawn Kemp stops MJ

Kevin Johnson vrs Hakeem. This one reminds of this one: Baron Davis vrs Kirilenko

Kenny Smith vrs Shaq ??? WTF!

Starks raising over the Bulls

Welcome to Zo's blocking partyyyy

Poor Shawn "Is that me on your poster?" Bradley...

The Knicks and the Bulls

They woke up this morning with a combined 7 -20 record with a 1-14 away record. They are both big disappointments in this young NBA season, specially Chicago they we're called to be a contender for the East title and the Knicks were expected to make at least a decent push to get into the playoffs. I never thought I would be writing a blog where I compare the Knicks to the Bulls, last year the Bulls were a perfect example of a team with great chemistry, a team with heart, a team fight each possession and that could defeat any team any given night. The Knicks in the other hand were the opposite: a team with bad chemistry, bad locker room influences and without a true identity as a team. This year they are awfully similar and their histories are linked together far before this season.


In 1984 Jerry Krause drafted a high scoring, electric shooting guard from North Carolina. We know what happened to this kid, he ended up reigning the league for an entire decade. In this reign he became the mayor obstacle for a lot of players and franchises in their way to the promised land, one of this franchises were the New York Knicks. In 1985 they got the prize of the year: a 3 time All-American 7'0 feet Jamaican center from Georgetown. Ewing was called the guy who was going to take one of the most important franchises in the league back to their hey days. The Bulls and the Knicks battled for the better part of the early 90's producing one of the best rivalries of that decade and some of the most physical games (Part II) in recent history. True be told, there was lots of hate between those two (Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C , just head to YouTube and look for all the videos from the 92 and 93 playoffs series between Knicks and Bulls)





Rivalry aside, they also have helped each other. In June, 1988 the Bulls traded one of their most popular players, Charles Oakley, to the Knicks for 31 year old Bill Cartwright to have someone who can score in the middle but the main objective was to have a big body to defend the likes of Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon and Moses Malone. The Knicks got a though defender, a mean guy if you want and helped the Knicks build that defensive and physical identity that took them to the upper scheledon in the Pat Riley era. As the nineties finished so did the rivalry, MJ retired for a second time, Scottie was shipped to Houston and the Knicks retooled to fight with the new breed of Eastern powerhouses: Indiana, Miami and Orlando.



New York went to finals in 1999 and to the Conference Finals the next year. After that they faded while Scott Layden started to economically dismantle the franchise highlighted by the trade of Patrick Ewing, their franchise player, to the Sonics. While Chicago was playing guys like Marco Fizer, Dalibor Bagaric and John Starks (couldn't find a picture if somebody have one of Starks in a Bulls uniform please, please send it to me).

Both teams went to a dark era at the start of this decade but the Bulls were the first team to see the light with a management crew lead by GM John Paxson and Coach Scott Skiles. They built a team filled with character players coming from either winning college programs or European teams, they built a team identity of defense, hustle and team work and in a matter of 4 years they were called contenders. Meanwhile the Knicks seems to like the dark era, they went from Scott Layden to the Isiah Thomas (how came from declaring CBA's bankruptcy) darker era. Deals like the aforementioned Ewing Trade, the Jerome James deal, tons of buyouts (Larry Johnson, Jalen Rose) and bad acquisitions (Marbury, Steve Francis, Glen Rice) had defined Thomas tenure in New York.



Among those senseless moves the Knicks found Chicago as a trade partner twice. First in the Jamaal Crawford trade and later with the Eddy Curry trade which, eventually, almost landed KG in the Windy City. These trades may seem ok and even fair on paper but the Bulls got rid of two defensive liabilities that didn't match with the team culture, let's not mention Curry's heart, while the Knicks haven´t been able to mesh as a team.




A year ago the Bulls went to win 49 games, defeat an half-powered Miami Heat team and lost to the Detroit Pistons. The Knicks have won 56 games the last two years combined and had mixed their on court failures with off court embarrassments. This year things seems to even out for these teams as the Bulls have "regressed in their progress" for whatever reason you might wanna think - Kobe's trade, contract extensions or they are just tired of Skiles - the true is they are not winning and they're not even close to do it. The Knicks had a nice offseason adquiring Zach Randolph from the Trail Blazers creating a more than decent frontcourt for Eastern Conference standards of Curry and Randolph. This is a team with a lot of talent and offensive firepower but as their record( 4 - 10) and their last game shows they haven't found a winning formula... in over 7 years.



In the NBA there's always somebody to blame and this franchises need something drastic to change their fortunes if they want to live up to their offseason expectations, expect some firing or trading coming from this teams, probably the earliest. In the other, they both look like they're going to have a great chance to get OJ Mayo. Go Knicks! Go Bulls!