Had the Ping Pong balls bounced differently

[ATL Boy]

In light of Kevin Durant's incredible, MVP like, play I thought we'd play a game of "what if."

In 2007 the Atlanta Hawks had a top 3 pick in the draft along with Portland and Seattle (Now OKC). As we all know, Portland took a massive bust in Greg Oden with the number 1 overall pick (not their fault and not his fault, you just never know when injuries are gonna occur), Seattle got the great Kevin Durant at number 2, and we got an All-Star in Al Horford with our number 3 pick. Hindsight being 20/20, The Hawks made the best possible pick at the time at number 3 (Although taking Acie Law later in the lotto didn't really pan out, but that's a story for another time), but just imagine had we had the number 2 pick and had Rick Sund been smart enough to take the Durantula. Imagine how different this franchise would be had we had the chance to take Kevin Durant: would we have given Joe that massive contract? Would we have upset the Celtics in 2008? Would we be title contenders right now? (I'll go with yes for this one). What do you guys think the roster would look like right now?

It's these little things, such as how the lottery ping pong balls bounce, which alter the course of NBA History and the history of a city.

[MaceCase]

It was a stroke of luck that the Hawks even got to keep that pick in the first place so I won't ever entertain what ifs of whether it would have been higher. That pick was slated to go to Phoenix as part of the Joe trade if it was outside the top 3 and going into the lottery the team was already slotted at 4th with a greater chance to move farther back than forward. Just be grateful we got Horf and move on.

[parson]

Actually, we can be glad the balls bounced the way they did. I'm 100% sure we'd have drafted Greg Oden if we had won, so the result could have been catastrophic.

Of course, we probably wouldn't have made him put on the weight that the Blazers did, so maybe he'd have been the great Center we've wanted.

Billy Knight would have been seen as a genius ... Oden and Smith would have dominated inside ... the 2 would have become best friends ... Josh Smith would have been the face of the Atlanta Hawks, teaching Oden to shoot 3s ...

... resulting in Jamaaliver having no choice but to commit hara-kari.

See? This is the best of all possible worlds.

[Jamaaliver]

Josh Smith would have been the face of the Atlanta Hawks, teaching Oden to shoot 3s ...

... resulting in Jamaaliver having no choice but to commit hara-kari.

See? This is the best of all possible worlds.

[diesel50]

Let's ride the picks all the way out. Let's say we did get the second pick overall. We did pick Durant.
Here's my guess of what would have happened...

We would have traded Marvin and/or Childress for a Big.
I can see us going Marvin for Chris Kaman... back then.

At one point, we would have:

Bibby, Anthony Johnson, Mario West
Joe Johnson, Chillz,
KD,
Smoove
Kaman, Zaza, Jones

What it means is that we would have been kinda thin in the front court. Our dependence on Smoove would have been greater. However, we would have never had the problem of logjam at the 4.

The other thing is this... Would having KD mean that Smoove Never fell in love with the 3 point shot???

[SBM]

I would have went into that night hellbent on Horford and Noah