Former Bulls GM Rod Thorn revealed how several teams, especially Dallas Mavericks and Philadelphia 76ers, had made strong offers to trade up for Michael Jordan right before Chicago’s #3 pick in the 1984 NBA Draft.
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Over the course of the history of NBA Drafts, there have been several notable Draft classes – 2003 (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony), 1996 (Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash), 1985 (Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin). However, no Draft class can be as accomplished and historic as the 1984 Draft class.
The star power at the top of this class is second to none. Several big names like Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton headlined this class. In NBA history, only 20 superstars have been able to accumulate at least 160 win shares, and 20% of those players were drafted out of this class. That’s just how dominant this draft class was. Each of the players mentioned above, had an incredible career, helping the team drafting them to reach high successes.
One can easily argue that Michael Jordan, despite being the #3 pick, was the best pick of the draft. And, for obvious reasons, that person would be correct. Drafted by the Chicago Bulls, MJ ended up creating an amazing dynasty at Chicago, helping them win all their six championships within an eight-year span from 1990-1998. However, there was a slight possibility that His Airness could’ve been involved in a trade, resulting in him being drafted by another team.
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Former Bulls GM Rod Thorn disclosed how several teams had great offers to trade up for Michael Jordan before the 1984 Draft
Yes, you did read that correctly. According to then-Chicago Bulls General Manager Rod Thorn, several teams, especially Philadelphia 76ers and Dallas Mavericks had “strong offers” to trade up for the prestigious third pick of the draft, ending up with Michael Jordan. Thorn revealed:
“Philadelphia had made a strong offer for Michael. Dallas had made a strong offer for Michael.
“There were a couple of other teams that had inquired about the pick, their offers weren’t as good as those two but yeah, there were people who were certainly interested in Michael.”
Sadly, we don’t know the exact details of what Dallas and Philly had to offer for that much-wanted third pick. However, we do know for a fact that had the Bulls accepted that offer and Philly selected Mike, the Sixers would’ve been a superteam.
That 1984 76ers team consisted of some of the game’s greatest players – Moses Malone, Julius Erving and Maurice Cheeks. We can just imagine how dominant that team would be if Jordan was added to that deadly roster.
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Fortunately, GM Rod Thorn followed his intuition and ended up keeping his pick and thus, drafting the greatest player of all time. This 1984 draft offers revolving Michael Jordan and the 3rd pick is just one of the several mind-blowing “what ifs” moments in NBA history.
