Revising History

[kdawg32086]

My long held belief is that if not for 2 bad trades after the 1999-2000 season where the Blazers were robbed by the refs of what would have been the team's 2nd NBA championship, the team would have won titles in 2001 and 2002.

The obviously bad trades were sending Brian Grant (to MIA) and Gary Grant (to CLE) for Shawn Kemp, and then sending Jermaine O'Neal and Joe Kleine to Indiana for Dale Davis.

If those trades hadn't happened and in the next few drafts the Blazers take the following players, does the team win it all in 2001 and 2002, and stay good for well through the 2000s?:

2000: Michael Redd (I wanted either him, Khalid El Amin, AJ Guyton, or Jake Voskuhl here when we took Barkley here).
2001: Zach Randolph (I will fully admit that I wanted Haywood with this pick).
2002: Tayshaun Prince (I wanted Dan Dickau).
2003: Steve Blake (I actually really liked the Outlaw pick after the fact, but wanted Kapono when it was time to make our pick, to give us a 3 point shooter).

In that scenario, I feel like a case could be made for the Blazers having been a dynasty, with championships potentially in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004.

If not for Bob Whitsett's TradeDHD, a potential core of Redd, Prince, Randolph, and O'Neal would have been legit for awhile.

What do you all think?

[JasonStern]

Far too revisionist and unrealistic.

In 2001?, Jason Kidd was moved and the Blazers were rumored to be a suitor. But the Blazers wouldn't beat the Nets offer or take on his salary or whatever excuse we have for never making a big push. A Kidd/Sheed/Sabonis/Pippen team was possible, but passed on. Fault Kidd for domestic abuse - I still trash on Oden for doing so. But the Blazers went on to use that money on a convicted sex offender in Ruben Patterson. Kidd was probably the one realistic consolidation move in the 2001 off-season that might have pushed them past the Lakers. Especially in the Phoenix selling anything they have for money era.

Trading Jermaine O'Neal was an obvious blunder. Nothing else to say on that.

Brian Grant was overpaid by Miami and dealing with Parkinsons. Sucks, but retaining him wouldn't have done anything. Great guy. Support his foundation.

Kemp was an obvious Seattle driven mistake. But for all we know, Paul Allen was doing coke with Kemp. It really only cost him his money.

When the Jail Blazers blew up, the assistant GM that I wanted to replace Trader Bob over the Nash regime whose name probably only Wizenheimer remembers wanted to draft Al Jefferson. This was pre-keep your cards close Blazers, where they would just tell the media everything. The Blazers picked Sebastian Telfair. That assistant quit. Drafting Telfair ended up eventually in Roy, so can't complain too bad. Until you remember that Al Jefferson became a key piece in the Kevin Garnett trade...

Picking perfectly in the draft is fun in retrospect, but the draft is a crap shoot. "If we drafted all-stars in the mid to late lottery, we would have won more games!" - Yeah. But we didn't. Nor did several other teams.

Any of this would have likely invalidated the Roy/Aldridge/Oden era. That gets overlooked by fans. If Roy doesn't get injured, the Blazers don't land Lillard - invalidating that era.

The main takeaway from the Jail Blazers era was not even the character issues. Nobody cared when they were winning. It's that you need to consolidate talent and assets in order to win in basketball. This isn't football where you need 11 talented players on offense and 11 talented players on defense. You need 5 really good players and solid bench replacements.