The pre-draft consensus

Heading into the 1984 draft, Olajuwon was the universally agreed-upon No. 1 pick after his junior year at Houston. The drama was at picks 2 and 3, between Sam Bowie (a 7’1″ Kentucky center recovering from two stress-fracture seasons) and Jordan (a 6’6″ North Carolina junior who’d just won an NCAA title and Olympic gold).

Portland already had Clyde Drexler at the two-guard, and badly needed a center to pair with Mychal Thompson. Bulls GM Rod Thorn admitted at the time he wished he’d been able to draft Olajuwon, telling reporters Jordan “isn’t going to turn this franchise around.”

The Sam Bowie counterfactual

Bowie’s career was undone by the same lower-leg issues that had limited him at Kentucky. He played only 139 games over his first five Portland seasons before being traded to the Nets in 1989. The Trail Blazers’ decision is regularly cited in lists of the worst NBA draft picks ever.

But the choice wasn’t crazy at the time: Portland medical staff cleared Bowie, and centers were the era’s premium position. The harsher critique is reserved for what happened next — Houston winning the lottery and the No. 1 pick again the following year (Patrick Ewing was 1985’s prize), giving them, briefly, the league’s best frontcourt without ever needing to pick at #3.

The rest of the 1984 first round

1984 produced four future Hall of Famers in the first round (Olajuwon, Jordan, Charles Barkley at #5 to Philadelphia, and John Stockton at #16 to Utah). It is widely considered one of the three best drafts in NBA history alongside 1996 and 2003.

Other notable first-rounders: Sam Perkins (#4 to Dallas), Alvin Robertson (#7 to San Antonio), Otis Thorpe (#9 to Kansas City). Pick 24 was Jay Humphries to Phoenix; pick 25, Jerome Kersey to Portland — both useful pros.

Background facts cross-referenced with the Wikipedia article on Michael Jordan and Pro-Football-Reference / Basketball-Reference public records. Lead image via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).