What if David Tyree Wasn't Helped by Divine Intervention?! HAH!

Ok so this is probably the most biased topic I have spoken about so far, but regardless its interesting to ponder. Snapshot time, the New England Patriots are squaring off against the New York Giants in the Superbowl. New England is 18-0 and having the greatest season ever put together by a team in sports history, New York on the other hand surprised everyone by even making it to the Superbowl. It was David vs Goliath, except this Goliath was on steroids! The Patriots looked unbeatable in every sense and seemed like the team of destiny, but not everything works out the way we want it to. David Tyree, an unknown reciever normally caught fighting for playing time, made quite possibly the greatest catch in superbowl history. It started with a great escape from the blitz by Eli Manning, then the flustered quarterback threw a high pass that Tyree reached for and pulled against his helmet, holding on to for dear life as he hit the ground. This extended the final scoring drive for the Giants when it seemed like the game was going to be all over and shattered all the New England confidence. The Giants went on to win 17-14 in one of the greatest upsets ever.

Now what if Tyree drops this pass? It was 3rd down and woul have brought up an extremely difficult 4th and 5 for the Giants to try to convert. Also the momentum was all on the Patriots side so another stop would have been highly likely. The 14-10 win would have made the Patriots 19-0, the greatest season in sports history would have been completed. No debates about the greatest team in team sports history should even taken place after this win. The total domination in a league chock-full of great talent at the time made the Patriots season look that much more unbelievable. Now though, with this one defeat, the one time they did not bring it all to the table, they go down as just another team. Not winning a championship ruined an otherwise extraordinary season and its very disappointing. Though it did make some 3rd world countries quite happy, with all the 19-0 t-shirts being sent to them. We'll always rememeber the greatest team ever to not win a title.

Picture Courtesy of Newsday

The Greatest Basketball Player of All-Time, a Blazer?

NBA teams can only win a championship if they have a great big-man. This notion used to be widely believed throughout the league without a doubt and teams would always do whatever they could to get a great big-man in order to compete for a title. For the most part this was true though, the great Celtics had Bill Russell, the Lakers had Kareem, the 76er's had Moses Malone, the Blazers had Bill Walton, championships seemed to have a direct correlation to All-star Center. This concept is usually the number one reason most people do not fault the Portland Trailblazers in 1984 for taking Sam Bowie, the big man from Kentucky, second overall in the draft over Michael Jordan. Obviously looking back upon it we can see that it was one of the most incredible missed opportunities in team sports history, but what can you do.

This brings up the question though, what if the Blazers did select Michael Jordan? Where would it have brought their franchise and would he have had as much success?

Well first of all drafting him wouldn't really have made the most sense, since in the 83'-84' season Portland was already grooming a rookie shooting guard/forward by the name of Clyde Drexler. If anything the drafting of Jordan could have very likely pushed back the development of Drexler more than anything. The starting shooting guard, Jim Paxson was a 20 point scorer and could play small forward. Also Michael Jordan was a much more capable and productive rookie than Drexler and would have pushed back his playing time. Though the common fan might drool over the thought of a Jordan, Drexler combination on the floor for the Blazers during the late 80's and early 90's, it was much more likely that Drexler would have been traded for a big man. Jordan would have basically been in the same type of situation he was in throughout his career in Chicago, though he would not have had Scottie Pippen.

So Jordan with the Blazers... 6 championships? 5 MVP awards? 10 Scoring titles? The championship total would have been likely to drop, though the MVP years and Scoring titles would have probably gone up since he would have been asked to do a lot more without the presence of another top 50 NBA player. I'm a statistics junkie as you may noticed through my other posts, so for Jordan could not resist playing some what could have been. I came up with a 33.2 ppg, 5.6 asts, 6.2 rbds, for his career. Number player of all-time still, oh yes...

Image Courtesy of NBA.com