Century Regrets in Draft History: Why did the Trail Blazers miss Jordan in 1984?

In the fog of decision-making at the 1984 NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers used the second pick to choose Sam Bowie and missed Michael Jordan's past, which has long become the most dramatic turning point in basketball history. When future generations examined this decision with the "God's Perspective" they often overlooked a key fact - in the basketball world at that time, the dominance of the center was still an unshakable iron rule.

The picture comes from the NCAA Championships in the first three months of the draft. The Houston Rockets, who hold the No. 1 pick, are paying close attention to Georgetown University's Patrick Ewing. The destructive power of the 2.13-meter center in the college league has coveted the entire league. But the dramatic twist happened on the eve of the draft deadline, and Ewing suddenly announced that he would withdraw from the draft and return to school. This decision directly changed the entire draft pattern: the Rockets had no choice but to turn to Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon, while the Trail Blazers had to find the center's answer among the remaining players.

The then general manager of the Trail Blazers clearly recorded the scout notes of the times: "Players over seven feet tall can create twice the chance of shooting. " This thinking originated from the success template of the first thirty years of the NBA - from George McCann to Bill Russell, from Chamberlain to Kareem, every dynasty is built on the iron wall of the center. Even though the league had already started to show forward superstars like Dr. J. Irving, the center still occupied half of the NBA's 35th Anniversary All-American Selection.

pictures are from the Internet

The actual needs of team lineup construction also influence the decision-making balance. The Trail Blazers already have second-year shooting guard Clyde Drexler. Although the player who was later selected as the top 50 superstar was not fully developed at the time, his athletic talent had already allowed management to see the future. The mark of "Jordan and glider overlap" in the scout report becomes a direct reason to abandon historic talent. Then-head coach Jack Ramsey even proposed in an internal meeting: "Do we have to spend two years proving whether the two shooting guards can coexist? "

Sam Bowie's college performance does provide enough reasons to choose. Behind the Kentucky center, who averaged 17 points and 9 rebounds per game, is a terrifying 70.5% shooting percentage. His ability to respond is particularly impressive, with 113 assists in a single season being rare among seven-foot-long men. In the scout video leaked before the draft, Bo Wei's skillful high-hand hand-hand cooperation and solid back-to-body singles perfectly match the Trail Blazers' tactical concept of creating "internal and external dual cores". The accidentality in the historical process of the Internet eventually led to a tragedy. The five major thigh surgeries that Bove encountered in his career have never realized the potential he had shown in college. Jordan's take-off trajectory in Chicago happened to be in a dramatic contrast with the last glory of the center era - when Olajuwon won two championships in the mid-1990s, the basketball world had quietly turned to an outside-door-dominated offense and defense system. The decision of the Trail Blazers, which is jointly played by the thinking of the times and short-term needs, eventually became the most important negative textbook in the history of basketball evolution.