Greg Oden and The All-Time "What If?" Team

[slower]

Oden is out, again, for the season, after yet another microfracture surgery. Considering that Oden was regarded as possibly the next Bill Russell coming out of college, it made me think about others whose careers were cut short before they ever really got going.

Here's an off-the-top-of-my-head all-time "What If?" team: Oden, Len Bias, Maurice Stokes, Jason Williams, Hank Gathers

I'm not talking about guys like Bill Walton, who had injury-plagued careers that lasted for years (although Walton certainly would have had an even more glorious career had he been injury-free).

And I know many of you will add Hurley to the list, although I don't know that he would have ever reached the level of accomplishment of my "first five". Gathers, maybe, is a question mark.

Bias, of course, is and always will be at the top of the list. The Oden that we saw at OSU might have been dominant defensively. So far, he has played 82 career games. In Stokes' 3-year career, he was Rookie of The Year and a 3-time all-star. Jason seemed destined for stardom. Gathers famously led the nation in scoring and rebounding in college.

[David Bunkley]

Reggie Lewis seemed destined for greatness. Not to mention that his death seemed to set the Celtics back at least a decade.

[superdave]

I don't know my NBA history as well as others, but there have been a lot of guys who made the league but ultimately did not last because of drugs. Roy Tarpley, Richard Dumas, Michael Ray Richardson are a few. Chris Washburn is another.

[MulletMan]

I think that you would have to put Drazen Petrovic on this list. I realize that a lot of the posters on the board are too young to remember him (wow... did I just write that?) but that guy was un-be-leivable! (Once he got away from Portland and got PT in Jersey.)

[Starter]

I think that you would have to put Drazen Petrovic on this list. I realize that a lot of the posters on the board are too young to remember him (wow... did I just write that?) but that guy was un-be-leivable! (Once he got away from Portland and got PT in Jersey.)

Cosign. Man, was Petrovic good.

I'll throw in Shaun Livingston. He's still playing, but who knows what he could have been had his knees cooperated?

[Cameron]

No, not Marty. Arvydas Sabonis. The greatest center to ever play in Europe, and by some estimations the most versatile big man to ever play the game of basketball period, Sabonis never recorded a single minute of action in the NBA during his prime. Beleaguered by physical deterioration and his home country's refusal to allow him to leave the U.S.S.R during the height of his playing career, the 7-foot-3 Lithuanian giant was merely a fossil of his former self by the time his game finally reached stateside in 1995. At the time of his first NBA game with the Portland Trail Blazers, he was already 31 years old. Compare that to Shaquille O'Neal, who debuted with the Orlando Magic at a still vibrant and youthful 21. In the demanding and often abbreviated life of an NBA center, Sabonis already had one pivot inside of his career grave before ever even beginning his rookie season.

Despite these limitations, Sabonis still managed career averages of 12 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists per game in seven NBA seasons, including scoring 23 a game during the 1996 playoffs. As impressive a scorer from underneath the basket as he was from beyond the arc, Sabonis was an even more brilliant passer, possessing a feel for the game that was highly unusual for a man of his size. A graceful giant. While still playing in Europe, before becoming the weary and rundown Hack-a-Shaq we saw in the 2000 NBA Playoffs, he was Larry Bird playing in Shaq’s body. And the most talented center the planet has never truly known.

Maybe only the words of an NBA legend could fully do justice the awesome nature of Sabonis’ game and offer an educated perspective into what might have been.

Once said Clyde Drexler, “Had Arvydas spent his entire prime in Portland, we would have had four, five or six titles. Guaranteed. He was that good. He could pass, shoot three-pointers, had a great post game, and dominated the paint.”

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Bobby Hurley - god I wanted to see him become an all star. I remember all the favorable comments he got from pros when he practiced/scrimmaged with I think the US national teams many, many moons ago. Some story I think about Hurley leading the B team to a win against the A team and then the guys sticking Jordan on Hurley to shut him down. Someone please correct me if I'm getting this all wrong. Really vague memories here.

[mrscarlett]

Bobby Hurley - god I wanted to see him become an all star. I remember all the favorable comments he got from pros when he practiced/scrimmaged with I think the US national teams many, many moons ago. Some story I think about Hurley leading the B team to a win against the A team and then the guys sticking Jordan on Hurley to shut him down. Someone please correct me if I'm getting this all wrong. Really vague memories here.

That is about the same way I heard the story, Hurley kept torching everyone until they put "the glove" (MJ) on him.

[Dukehky]

"The Glove" is gary payton

[camion]

I know he's had a good NBA career, but what if Grant Hill...

[Starter]

I'll throw in Penny Hardaway, the first jersey I ever owned. Many -- including his peers -- thought he was second-best behind Jordan in the Mid-90's before his knee gave out and he was never the same player. If anyone's interested, I wrote this about what could have been, and also did an interview with Penny.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

If Eric Meek hadn't had that accident before his freshman year...

[superdave]

I'll throw in Penny Hardaway, the first jersey I ever owned. Many -- including his peers -- thought he was second-best behind Jordan in the Mid-90's before his knee gave out and he was never the same player. If anyone's interested, I wrote this about what could have been, and also did an interview with Penny.

Would you put Penny over Grant Hill's possible career?

Career highs for a season in some major categories -

Penny - 21.7 points, 5.8 rebounds, 7.2 assists, .513 FG%. All-NBA 1st team twice, 3rd team once.

Grant - 25.8 points, 9.8 rebounds, 7.3 assists, .523 FG%. All-NBA 1st team once, 2nd team 4X.

A pretty good argument...

[Starter]

Would you put Penny over Grant Hill's possible career?

Career highs for a season in some major categories -

Penny - 21.7 points, 5.8 rebounds, 7.2 assists, .513 FG%. All-NBA 1st team twice, 3rd team once.

Grant - 25.8 points, 9.8 rebounds, 7.3 assists, .523 FG%. All-NBA 1st team once, 2nd team 4X.

A pretty good argument...

Definitely. Very, very difficult to call. Grant was totally awesome, basically a point guard from the 3. (Detroit didn't even actually play a point guard with him -- no need.) You could look at Grant's 25.8 ppg season one of two ways -- it was an outlier, since all of his other years in Detroit he was right around 21. Or it was a sign of the player he was becoming, since it was basically the final season he played mostly on a good ankle. I'd probably assume it was the latter. The sad part with Grant is that one of his best attributes, his desire, led to his downfall in certain ways since he gutted it out on a terrible ankle and was never even close to the same. At the very least, he still plays, not to mention at a relatively high level of contribution.

With Penny, I sort of felt like he had only begun to scratch the surface of what he was capable of. You had a sense of where Grant's limits might have been, but we didn't yet know that about Penny. He was an amazing defender and a superb rebounder for a point guard, used his athleticism so well. One of my great regrets as a fan is that I never got to see what he would have done without Shaquille, how he would have put his stamp on that team and made it his own, and who they would have put around him. Again though, Penny left a great legacy and is still surprisingly relevant today. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Anyway, not sure who I'd pick. They were both incredible. But just like with Pippen, who had no other option but to be underrated based on playing with Jordan, Penny had Shaquille to steal the spotlight. Grant was a one-man band.

[Cameron]

I'll throw in Penny Hardaway, the first jersey I ever owned. Many -- including his peers -- thought he was second-best behind Jordan in the Mid-90's before his knee gave out and he was never the same player. If anyone's interested, I wrote this about what could have been, and also did an interview with Penny.

That was a great piece, Starter. Very well done. Penny and Shaq still make up the most exciting NBA duo I've ever seen. Had they stayed together in Orlando through their primes and both had remained relatively healthy, I don't think it's too far fetched to believe that the Magic combo might have gone down the as greatest of all-time, surpassing even Michael and Scottie. As the unpredictable book of basketball history came to unfold, however, that distinction would still include O'Neal, but only a different sidekick in Kobe Bryant. Funny how things work, and truly amazing that Shaq was lucky enough to be part of so many dominant one-two tandems (Penny, Kobe and D.Wade).

[weezie]

Can we include Mike Jordan as in 'what if he had actually been a competent GM?'

[hq2]

In terms of unrealized (injury related) talent, I think he's up there with Sam Bowie (the man known most famously as the player taken
ahead of Michael Jordan). Oden's not even 25, and he looks washed up. One wonders what would have happened in Boston had they
gotten the number one pick in '07 and taken him. No 17th banner, nothing. A total loss.

[mgtr]

Oden's not even 25, and he looks washed up. One wonders what would have happened in Boston had they
gotten the number one pick in '07 and taken him. No 17th banner, nothing. A total loss.

Is it clear that Boston would have taken Oden with the number 1 pick? I know that Portland did, but the number two pick was also pretty good that year. Boston might well have taken Durant instead of Oden. Who knows, hard to play the what if game. They might have even traded the pick for a couple decent players.

[throatybeard]

I think L'il Penny needs to be on this team.

Not basketball, but there was a great 30 for 30 on ESPN covering Marcus Dupree at Oklahoma. Given my exact age, I had never heard of this dude until I moved to Mississippi. He has got to be one of the most befuddling "what the heck happened there" cases of unfulfilled potential in American sport. I can tell ya where his house is in Neshoba, but I don't know what he's doing.

[Cameron]

There are countless stories of playground legends who have slipped through the cracks of our nation's concrete canyons without ever getting the opportunity to showcase their abilities to the world, but Oakland product Demetrius "Hook" Mitchell is one that might just be worth noting. ESPN a few years back aired an emotionally-driven documentary on Hook's painful tale of god-given talent gone wasted and there were a lot of NBA stars that backed the story up. Oakland natives such as Hall-of-Famers Gary Payton and Jason Kidd as well as guys like Brian Shaw and Antonio Davis all agreed that, of all of the NBA players who came from The City during their era, Hook was the best of them all. Said Kidd during the doc, "Hook was better than me, better than Gary, better than Brian, better than everybody. People, they just don't even know."

Mitchell played for two seasons at Contra Costa College in northern California and another year at Cal State before robbing a Blockbuster at gunpoint in the mid-90s and spending what might have been the prime of an NBA career behind bars. Released at the age of 32, Mitchell never got his chance to play in the League, becoming just another statistic of the streets and a broken childhood. Sad story.