Most Interesting NBA Trades That Never Happened

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom-scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling, just another way to save with the Personal Price Plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective Podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we are doing at a time that will not be disclosed. Actually, it's just a couple days before you're hearing this. It's not really that far in the past. Joining us from Naples, Florida, is a guy who's been around the NBA for longer than he wants to admit, Bobby Marks. Gentlemen, how we doing? I'll tell you what, as you get up there in age, I got a shingle. Has anyone gotten a shingle shot? No, but I heard that they let the layover, or the aftershock, Jesus, did that kick my butt. I'll tell you what, I'd rather get the shingle shot than have shingles. Yeah, well, you heard Tyrese Halliburton describe how miserable it was that he got it this year. Joining us from Points Unknown, he's somewhere out west. I don't even know where he is. Somewhere in the mountains, lakes, rivers, I don't know. It's Ben McMahon. Howdy, partners, all of the above. Very good. So, this season, this offseason, the bulk of it's wrapped up, and I kind of think that when we look. When we look back at this summer, one of the big sliding doors moments, in addition to LeBron picking Philly, and only LeBron knows how close he was to picking elsewhere, that's a big sliding doors moment. But another big sliding doors moment, I think, is going to be the Bucs making the decision to go with the package that Miami was offering, the younger players, as opposed to going with Jalen Brown coming out of Boston. You know, basically sending Giannis to Miami instead of Boston. Thereby launching. Thereby launching. Thereby launching. Thereby launching. Thereby launching a thousand discussions about Jalen Brown and basically guaranteeing he was going to get traded, which he did. And which got me thinking about trades that never happened. You know, one of the all-time ones in terms of offseason, in terms of sliding doors, was in 2011 with Chris Paul, which I was later told by. You know, the story was protected or whatever for a while, but, you know, at the time, the difficult thing about that was that the New Orleans. New Orleans Hornets at that time, the Hornets were under league ownership and the functioning governor of the team was David Stern. And I was talking to somebody who was a longtime employee of the league office and he was with Stern when he heard the trade that the Hornets agreed to to send Chris Paul to the Lakers. And when he heard the details, which I don't even fully remember, Bobby, it was Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, right? Mm-hmm. I think Trevor. Wasn't Trevor Ariza in it too, I thought? Maybe. I'll look it up. Anyway, that Stern, in the moment, like, there was some. And I'm sure he did later, you know, talk to the owners because, in theory, he was the acting governor, but, you know, in theory, he, you know, it was the other owners, the other 29 owners that technically were making the decisions. But I was talking to somebody who was standing right next to him and I was like, well, we're not letting that deal go. He said it that fast. He didn't. I mean, maybe the other owners agreed with him, maybe he already knew. I don't know what he knew, but I just heard that he said no in the moment, the first time he heard it. I pulled it up. Lakers were receiving Chris Paul, Hornets were receiving Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, and Goran Dragic, plus a 2012 first-round pick, and the Rockets would receive Pau Gasol. Veto. Let me see who the Lakers ended up. Dan Gilbert. And Dan Gilbert was not the only owner who was basically on the war path to make sure this trade didn't happen, but Dan Gilbert sent an email to Stern where he referred to the trade as, quote, a travesty and urged Stern to put the deal to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets. That's another quote. Well, from what I understand, it ended up trying to see who the Lakers bought the pick would have been. It probably would have. been somebody like Tony Roten or something like that when that draft. Fab Mello. Yeah. So, it didn't go through in an all-time moment. That was like the Lakers' move to make Kobe's, you know, what had been Kobe's last act, and it didn't work out. But, Bobby, you were involved in an all-time great near-miss trade. Carmelo. 2010. Well, that thing carried over. That thing started in September of 2010, and it went to February. February of 11. And the funniest part of. There's a lot of funny parts. This was in Prokhorov and the Russians bought the team. This was like their first soiree into this world was that I was at Disney World. My kids were younger, and I was like on one of these rides, and Billy King, who was our GM, called me, and he goes, Hey, I can't find this number, but there's this new guy in Denver, this Ujiri guy, you know, like. And I was like, Yeah, he's a scout, you know. He goes, Can we see if we can find his number? I want to talk to him about Carmelo. And literally, that thing started around training camp, and it lingered throughout the year, and it got so contentious that basically, like, Billy and Masai, like, excused themselves from negotiations, and Pete D'Alessandro, who became Sacramento's GM and now is in Orlando, the two of us were, like, the lead negotiators in the Carmelo. I negotiated that deal. Tim, you negotiated that deal at AT&T Stadium, going, tailgating, getting ready to go to the Cotton Bowl, right, in the parking lot, maybe a couple beers in me. I negotiated that deal in Austin, going to see University of Texas the next day. Like, I negotiated that deal, like, all over different parts. Sounds like a great week. I've got questions. How many beers did you have in you when you negotiated the. Oh, my goodness. Don't do that, McMahon. Oh, that's vicious. Oh, boy. Don't even finish that. I thought we were. Listen, I thought we were close. That was late December, early January, I guess. I thought we were close. I actually came home from that trip because I thought we were ready to get a deal done. And then, you know, the. It didn't get done. New York winds up getting the. does the trade and everything like that. And it was funny. When we were in. When I was in Vegas a couple weeks ago, we had Mike D'Antoni who did a lot for our. with the program with the kids. And he was the next coach at the time. And we talked about it. Like, you know, like, their philosophy. And Mike was just like, man, why didn't you get that deal done? I know. And Mike and Donnie Walsh were like, you know, Dolan kept on adding and adding and adding. And then, basically, they got to a point and New York wound up doing a deal with Denver. But the funniest part of the whole thing, though, Brian, you remember that was when Progrove did the press conference and basically said, we're out, right? Like, he does this. Yeah. I would love to. I would love to do the. what I remember him saying in his accent, but I have been advised not to do impressions and accents. So I won't do it, but. Who advised you on that? That's. I don't like that advice. Well, I. I'm not going to do it. But. Well, he does the press conference. Basically, what happened was. And back then, Twitter. I don't even know if Twitter existed, but there was so much stuff out. And we just got. And the Nuggets basically gave us a, like, a 48-hour window to go down and meet with Carmelo. Like, that doesn't happen nowadays. So we went down. Well, we were going to go down and to. I think he was in Baltimore and they were. They might have been playing the Wizards. And something happened and Progrove does the press conference and basically. He said. I'm not going to do his accent, but he said, the meeting with Carmelo is hereby canceled. And so the football. So the meeting ends and I'm walking down the hallway with Billy King and I said, are we out? He goes, heck no, we're not out. So we wound up doing Darren Williams' trade and Nuggets get him. But the. So when we were doing. When we were pitching Carmelo and we did that with LeBron in 2000, in that prior summer, the only way I've said this before, we were pitching them and they could be, like, the first million-dollar, billion-dollar athlete. Like, and, like, you could be the next Federer or, like, these race cars, like, all these things. These billion dollars. I like it. So what happened was when we signed Karolinko in 2013, we got investigated. Like, they came in, like, they took our phones, took our computer. Like, they took everything, right? Just took. We had to give them everything. And in there was that pamphlet, like, how we're going to make you the next billion-dollar athlete. And the league was like, whoa, wait a minute there. How's that going to happen? Like, billion dollars from. Can you imagine if Bitcoin was around when Prokerov was the. Hey, that's like. That's like when Rich Paul was laying out all the options for LeBron on the Mavericks he put. What was it? Golf, oil, like, how. I forgot what the other one was, but it was like, nothing was basketball. It was all about, like, you can play golf and get really, really rich because you'll have all these connections. I think maybe it said, like, I don't remember what the other one was, but none of them were basketball. They were all golf and business. The kicker was that so we don't do the deal. We get. They next do the deal and we get Darren Williams and then. So, you know, like, that took, like, five years off my life just to call him. to Carmelo stuff. And then so. I know I'm in a big time, everyone, when I say this. So six months later, I got invited. We got invited to the Chris Humphries, Kim Kardashian wedding. Oh, right. And out in Santa Barbara, like the house was like next to Oprah's. I don't know who might have been ahead of Google. I don't know whose house it was. It was somebody's house. So we go to the wedding and I decided to wear a white tuxedo with jacket, white jacket. All right. White jacket, black pants. I want to, you know, stand out. And we walk in there and God damn it, Carmel had a white jacket on. And I said it to him, God, I said, you made my life miserable for the last five months and you got to wear the same damn thing I have on right now. He wore it better, Bobby. I'm sure he wore it better. You mugged him, Bobby, as the kids. But the wedding was one of the great events I've been to in my lifetime. I'll bet. How was the marriage? Sure. Well, the funny thing is that I basically lived by like the unwritten rules where like I didn't decide. So I didn't get him a wedding gift because I knew they'd probably get divorced in like three months, you know. Oh, my God. It's not like the kind of like if you don't give them that, you don't have to give them anything. I think it's a year. Yeah. Oh, Chris Humphries. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. As you know, managing maintenance, repair and operations is never easy. 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And one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks. Now made with no artificial dyes. So, I don't know if it was quite that era, but certainly one of the other big ones was Kobe Bryant. You know, he asked for the trade in 2007. I think he came on the Stephen A. Smith radio show. At the time and said, played my last game as a Laker or something like that. And, you know, Woj told parts of this story. But if I'm not mistaken, there was actually the framework of a deal worked out. Which would have, you know, remember the Pistons at the time, they won the title over the Lakers in 0-4. Then they went to game seven and lost to the Spurs in 0-5. And then they had been, you know, kind of eliminated by, not kind of, legitimately eliminated by the Cavs in 2007 when they'd had a really good season. So they were looking at, you know, what else they could do. And so they made an offer. And the story goes. The offer was Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, and Picks. Yeah. Two firsts, I believe. There might have been, like, Jason Maxil might have been in the offer or whatever. But, yeah, it was basically Hamilton, Prince, and two firsts for Bryant. And it was in the preseason, I think. Like, it was like in October, September, October. And the story goes. And, you know, I don't know if Joe Dumars would want to talk about it. But Kobe's not around to tell us, unfortunately. I mean, Kobe did talk about this. But did he? This is back in the Grantland days, on the Grantland Basketball Hour. Okay. He said that he vetoed a deal that would have sent him. Yeah, but the question. I know he said he vetoed it. But the question was, did he initially approve it? Because there's a whole bunch of people involved, like Mitch Kovchak. And they were like, the deal was done. We said we're good to go, whatever. And then the story was that after Kobe approved it, then when it came time to actually do it, Jerry Buss, you know, came over to talk to Kobe. And he's like, I just can't do it. Well, Kobe's quote was, I gave you a list of teams I'd be comfortable being traded to, not Detroit. Sad. I think he had a no-trade clause, right, in there? Yes, he did. And by the way, you know, you have to take Mark Cuban claims, especially when they're nine or ten years later, which is what this one was. You have to take them with a grain of salt or a boulder of salt. But Cuban did say, I could have sworn that we had a deal done for Josh Howard and Jet, talking about Jason Terry. In other words, Josh Howard and Jason Terry going to the Lakers, Kobe coming to Dallas, and it's classic Cuban. I was telling all the stagehands to dance with the stars. It was done. I'm not sure Jerry Buss or whoever talked about it. That's amazing. That's amazing. You know, again, Cuban said it. He said it. I'm pretty sure I was holding my little tape recorder up while he was sweating on his Stairmaster when he said it. Yeah. I'll use a favorite, one of my favorite often used quotes from Jerry Jones, just because I say it doesn't make it so. I'll go through the accidents. All right. You can do it. Josh Howard was a hot name back then. You know, like in that, you know, that 2007, 2010 range. I mean, think about it. That was when the Mavericks were, they were coming off of the finals in 06, and then their 67 win season when they got beat by the We Believe Warriors, upset by the We Believe Warriors in the first round. But yeah, Josh Howard was a hell of a two-way player at the time. Um, I mean, no, just like Jason, Jerry had a hell of a career. Josh Howard was a quality player to get Kobe in his prime for that. Come on now. You know, like speaking of like, you know, with trades that happened that didn't, or didn't happen, like we'll trade that happened when we traded kid to Dallas, you know, cause Josh Howard was one of the guys we were trying to get. But what didn't happen was Jerry Stackhouse and Devin George coming our way because Stack, Stack goes on TV and says, well, I'm going to the Associated Press writer, a guy named Jamie Aaron. And he says, I'll be back. He goes, I'll be back. And then Devin George wouldn't wave his one year. What is the, you know, the non, the one year. We had a guy sit out with paperwork outside of his house and have him sign it. And he wouldn't sign it. Bartlestein tried to talk him into it and he wouldn't do it. So hold on, wait, stop, stop. So the trade was agreed to essentially. Yeah, Stackhouse and Devin George were part of it. And so, so you sent somebody to Los Angeles. And Stack was going to boomerang back to Dallas. We sent it to Dallas. I think it was during the season. It was all-star break. We sent him to Dallas. Oh, you sent him to Dallas. Sorry. Yeah. You sent him to Dallas at like, and like with the paperwork. Yeah. The sign. To wave it. And he wouldn't do it. And then the thing got reworked and Keith Van Horn ended up in the deal. Even though Van Horn hadn't played in, I don't forget, I forgot. Well, that they ended up, well, that was where we're going right down the rabbit hole. But Keith Van Horn was like fishing in Utah and they still had his bird rights. You know, if a player never officially retires, which why would they? Um, like, like, uh, just the other, you know, just a few weeks ago, the Lakers had to renounce, um, the right, you know, the Lakers were going to have salary cap space for the first time. Um, try to think, um, I mean, let me see that. Let's see who was on that list. But your, your players, like they, they still have. I had like Dwight Howard's rights. They were announced the rights of George Mikan. Exactly. So they still, they still had Keith Van Horn's rights and they, um, called him and said, which I could force it like 2 million. Bobby. It was like 5 million. He didn't even want to do it. The crazy thing was that he didn't like we, David Falk was his agent and, um, we, we, they was like, I don't know if I'm like David. All he has to do is just come here. And he came, he got, he was part of the deal. Didn't the league say he had to show up? And like he did, he sat in, he sat in our media room and read a book. He never even put on his tube socks. The league fat league got mad. And then they sent a lawyer over and he got on the treadmill for an hour. And that was the last thing they changed the rule. The rule wanted to get changed because of him. But it was, it was, uh, we want to, it was supposed to be Stackhouse and, and, uh, Devin George. We want to get in Deesa got a job, Trenton has some Moe Ager, Van Horn, Devin Harris, some picks and not even now. Yeah. A couple of picks by the way. And then you guys paid gone a big money. Yeah. You guys gave, Hey, got a job, by the way, NBA champion. He is the head coach of the, uh, Westchester Knicks and was with the Knicks throughout the playoffs. Well, he gave me a big hug when I saw him in, in, in summer. I know why him, him, Van Horn, Keith Bogans, another guy that were part of that Boston trade. Well, you know, if you want to feel old, Keith Van Horn just turned 50. It was 4.3 million, Bobby. Can you imagine you're just sitting at your house in Utah and the phone rings? It was the second year that he'd been unofficially retired. His last season was 05-06, so 07-08 had gone by. Do you ever see that movie Major League, and they call up the guy who's working at the tire store and offer him the Indian's manager job, and he's like, I don't know, I got a guy on the other line trying to buy some white walls. Keith Van Horn, hello. Would you like $4.3 million? What do I got to do? You got to fly to New Jersey. I don't know. Ah, man. Yeah. So back in 2007, to bring it back to that, when Kobe asked for the trade, naturally the Lakers freaked out and were trying to make their own trade to – Keep them back, yeah. And so there was another what if in there, which was Garnett, which I don't know how they possibly would have done a deal with the Lakers and Celtics. I question whether this actually could have possibly ever happened, but that was the story. It was Lamar Odom. Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum, and some draft picks with Garnett coming to the Lakers. Oh, no, Garnett hadn't been – that's right, 2007. He hasn't been traded yet. So before Kevin McHale sends him to Boston, that was the deal. And he took the – Bobby, let me think about this now. So they got Al Jefferson. Who was in that Garnett deal? I think Gerald Green was in that one. I think Jeff Green. Was Jeff Green in that? Mark Stein story from July 30th. We had to wait. We had to wait the whole summer for that, too. Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair, Ryan Gomes, and a single first-round pick. Jeez. So you're saying that Al Jefferson and a bunch of prospects was a better offer than Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom. I don't know. But allegedly there was a handshake deal on that, and then it fell apart. But Garnett wanted to go to Boston. Remember, like, Garnett, he was, like, wishy-washy on it. He didn't really want to go. And then they traded for Ray Allen. And then they're like, oh, wait a minute. Now I do want to go to Boston. It's kind of like what happened with Jalen Brown and LeBron. Like, you know, first Ray Allen trade, and then, you know, Garnett was like, wait a minute. So that was also in 2007. One of the all-time what-ifs. I don't know how much of this is legend. You know? Oh, 30 years on. But do you remember that when Jordan retired the first time in 1994 or 95, that there was discussion to trade Scottie Pippen for Sean Kemp? And there's, you know, everybody's have their different version. I don't know. And Jordan later gave an interview where he was asked, would he have come back to the Bulls if Pippen had been traded for Kemp? And he said, probably not. Because I had such a great, you know, chemistry and relationship with Scottie. Who knows? Well, and I don't know if that relationship has aged that great. I don't think the last dance helped matters. No, this was a pre-last dance. By the way, another great what-if is the team that just won the NBA championship, the Knicks. You remember the Donovan Mitchell trade saga? Like, it was like, okay. What are the Knicks going to end up giving up to get this done? The Cavaliers came in seemingly out of nowhere. But the Knicks weren't willing to go all in. And it's just, you know, it's just one of those slide-and-door moments. Like, they had Jalen Brunson. Donovan Mitchell would have been the bigger name. I don't know if Brunson becomes the player that he is, if he's paired with Donovan Mitchell from day one of his tenure. With the Knicks. Certainly, I don't think the roster's built out anywhere close to the same way. So, you know, it's one of those, sometimes the best deals you make are the ones that you don't. Despite the fact that Donovan Mitchell's an all-NBA caliber player. You know, Donovan Mitchell, what Donovan Mitchell wanted, what his dream was, is what Jalen Brunson has now. Absolutely. He saw an opportunity to go there, hometown, become a superstar, build a team around. And win a championship, become an all-time hero. The pathway was there. You know, it's just, Brunson got there first. Mike Brunson, you know, local kid. Yeah. That's what he wanted. It's not the way that it worked out. You know, things have worked out okay for Donovan. What's his salary in the last year of the extension that he just signed, Bobby? Like $75.5 million? Four for $272 million. He's signed two maxes in two years apart. When he talked to Mark Spears at the end of the season, he said something like, I may not have won this series, but I'm a winner in life. By the way, congratulations to Donovan. Yeah, he just got married. We're talking about celebrity marriages, just married Coco Jones. It looked like, you know, from the little bit that I saw, just a wonderful wedding. Was anybody wearing a white tuxedo jacket? I don't know if my invitation got lost in the mail. I would have. I'll tell you what, I did sit next to Steve Garvey on that bus, though. That was a highlight for me. Is that right? Steve Garvey got invited to that wedding? He sure did. Wendy, how many times have you worn a tux, period? A number of times. Last time I wore one, I was with you, though. I know. That's the only time I've ever worn one. That was the only time in your life? Only time in my life. It's also the last time I wore dress shoes. Hopefully, maybe the last time ever. Yeah, you've got your Jordans that you always, or your whatever, your Air Force Ones that you always match with your suits. Bobby, Malika Andrews and Dave McMiniman's wedding was black-tied. Of course it was. Did you rent it out there, or did you bring it with you? No, I bought it. I bought one. I bought one, and if I ever wear it again, then it will pay it for itself, but we'll see if that happens. Also, I've got to stay at the same measurements. Our next live show, we should wear those tuxedos, man. What do you think? Sounds good. I've got a pair of J's that'll go great with it. It was very clearly said, I think, in the invitation that it was black. Black tuxedo. Malika doesn't mess around. Oh, no, she's specific. She was like, when I say black tie, it's not one of these things where we mean just dress up. It's like black tuxedo. However, our current teammate at that time, he was with Yahoo, Vinny, Vince Goodwill, showed up, Bobby, in a blue jacket. Oh, no. Do you remember that, McMahon? I don't recall this. Did they let him in? It was at a very nice little resort in San Francisco area. Yeah. And he said he had gotten pre-wedding approval by the bride. Oh, wow. Yeah. He did not have his Hennessy colored specs on that day. That's a more recent one. By the way, the best part of the wedding, I should say that because I don't want the queen to get mad at me. One of the great parts of the wedding. Classic Mac 10 style. We had a pickup run the morning of the wedding and we got the Warriors old practice facility. You know, the one that's attached to the Marriott in Oakland. Yeah. And so we had games running on two courts. Mac 10 gave us t-shirts. It was a Macman matrimony madness. That's right. T-shirts. I've still got it somewhere. He'll never turn down a free t-shirt, Bobby. I won. I know. Absolutely not. I won MVP of that pickup run. The one man. Who was the vote? What was the vote? There was a one man selection committee. Okay. It wasn't the groom. Me, myself and I. Mac 10 did hit the dagger at the end. He'll tell you he didn't have it. Mac 10 can shoot it now. I'm not going to lie. He's a pretty good shooter. He didn't have a great shooting day, but. What if you would clear it? What if he ended up on you in a switch and you would clear it? You would have cleared him out with an elbow in his eye like on his wedding day. It was made very clear. Like, listen, we're having fun here, but like. He had the red jersey on. He had the red jersey. This is general. Like, priority no injuries. You know, like that was also made clear that. But Jaron Yang, one of our ace producers on NBA Today, who actually was a D3 point guard. So Mac 10 ended up getting on our team at the end because he wanted to go out a winner. We were kind of just mopping the floor with everybody. And it gets to be where we get to game point. So at game point, like, you got to get the groom, the rock. He's got to have the walk-off shot. Freaking Jaron jacks up some off-dribble, mid-range fadeaway. And I'm like, you. So every time I see Jaron, I give him hell. Every time, you sure you would. He is a shoot first point guard if there's ever been one. Regardless of the circumstances. Fortunately, he missed. And then we're able to get back to the shot. To get back to trades that almost happened. Smart move. Another smart move? Bundling. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility variability vary by state. Back-to-school season can be tough on parents, but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes. I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, autobotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions, before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. Speaking of the Warriors, they had one back in 2012. Now famously, if I'm not mistaken, Bobby, I don't know if you remember this, but Jerry West, who was an advisor, the late, great Jerry West, he threatened to resign as advisor of the Warriors if the Warriors had traded Clay Thompson for Kevin Love in 2005. That's right. This was before the Warriors won their first championship. You know, they were, you know, it wasn't, you know, the Splash Brothers were, it was a nickname, but it wasn't really an iconic duo yet. And supposedly, you know, Flip Saunders, the late Flip Saunders, wanted, that was the player he wanted was Clay Thompson, and Jerry West threatened to resign. God, I keep wrong Kevins. Love ends up going to the Cavs for a package around Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett, two number one overall picks. That's not a bad return. Yeah, I agree. I was all ready for LeBron to go to Miami and to, like, you know, give his, like, statement. Because you remember in his letter, his Sports Illustrated letter, he wrote about all the players in Cleveland he was excited to play with and didn't put Wiggins on the list. And sure enough, he didn't play with them. LeBron had already, when that came out, I think LeBron kind of already decided how it was going to go. But anyway, in 2012, when James Harden was traded famously slash infamously, depending on which side you want, from the Thunder to the Rockets, Kevin Martin was in that trade. That was the key part of that trade, by the way, that the Thunder talked to the Warriors about getting Clay Thompson in 2012. And there may have been some draft picks. Evolved, obviously. It would have been Clay and the Warriors would have had the picks in, because I think that's the way it was gone. You know, these were two future Hall of Famers that hadn't quite done it yet. But you can talk about a sliding doors moment, Bobby, if Clay Thompson gets traded for James Harden in 12. I mean, that's a big one. And there were some scuttlebutt back then also for Clay for LaMarcus Aldridge. Like, that was one, too, that was talked about back then. So you're talking there gets it big to Golden State. And it's before these guys. It's before these guys took off. And I think it's amazing, like, you know, the trades that don't happen and then what the domino effect on these teams winning championships. Man, Clay on the Thunder. Well, there would have been no Game 6 Clay, because remember. It would have been every day, Clay. Well, but that Game 6 Clay, that really took off in OKC when the Warriors were coming back from. Trust me, I remember 3-1. Yeah, 3-1. 3-1 down. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, I mean, that's. It ended up being Kevin Durant's last home game in Oklahoma City. Oh, wow. By the way, great story on that night. So, the old renaissance in Oklahoma City is where everybody would stay. And, you know, the TV crews were staying there. And Barkley was down. This will shock you guys. He was down in the hotel bar holding court. So, you know, I kind of went. I went down there and benefited from Barkley's presence. And a wedding party came in. And really pretty bride. You know, the groom had pretty significantly outkicked his coverage. Barkley, being the gentleman that he is in the life of the party, got the two most expensive bottles of champagne in the house. And to do a toast, you know, to celebrate the wedding. What was the most expensive bottle of champagne at the renaissance? Oklahoma City downtown. I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you what the champagne was. But I can tell you word for word what Barkley's toast was. And everybody raised their glasses. And Barkley looked right at the bride. And he said, now, just to let you know, I'm not going to do this for your next wedding. And then I can't remember the rest of it. But it was pretty funny. Oh, man. That is amazing. Jackson, by the way, lets us know that he owns a tux. Oh, I'm impressed. I've got one. You've got one. Jackson's got one. I don't see why. Hey, by the way, Jackson, let me just get out in front of this. Please don't make us wear a tux to your wedding. But if you do, I do have one. Yeah, absolutely. We have any other near trades? I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think. We thought one year, and this is a funny story. Nobody ever told, I don't think I've ever told this. We thought we were trading for the number two pick in the draft. Chicago had two and 14, I think, that year. I'm not sure whose draft that was. It might have been the LaMarcus Aldridge draft. And so we thought we had a deal with them for we're going to get the second pick. We're going to give them, I think we were at seven, and we're going to give them a future first. What year do you think this was? I don't know. I think it was Aldridge's year. What year did he get drafted? Because I think we were thinking of taking him. I'm going to pull this up. Golly, geez. So what happened was we had a deal in place, and Aldridge goes 06. Okay, 06. And yeah, he went two to Chicago. And then he got traded to Portland and was part of the deal. So we thought we had a deal in place, and night of the draft, and we like, I think Rod Thorne was like, working out. And I go, Rod, we were good. We got a deal in place. We're going to trade, whatever, eighth pick in draft and a future first. We're going to get the second pick in draft. I'm like, oh, yeah, all right. So we're going and ready for the draft. We walk in there, and we call, I don't know if Pax is the GM. So whatever we call it, Chicago. They go, we're ready to do a deal. They said, yes, our second pick. It was their second pick. Their second. It was the 14th pick. You're kidding me. They had two ones. It was their second first. It was the 14th pick in the draft. Oh, my God. It was not the second pick. Oh, my God. This is like, this could be right out of like, this is, that's an amazing, this is like. Probably about a deflating moment. This is like, who's on first? You said you traded for the second pick. Yeah, our second pick. Yeah, the pick that comes second. Yeah, pick number two. You know, Bobby, how many hours between when you guys thought you agreed to the second pick until it was their second pick? We got it done in like early around lunchtime and then around seven o'clock, we realized it wasn't that pick. So all day long now, and you're like, okay, now we're taking LaMarcus Aldridge or maybe we're taking Adam Morrison for all I know. Yeah, maybe. Oh, my God. Yeah. And meanwhile, the Bulls are like, we just got the eighth pick for the 14th pick. How did we pull this off? What a deal. Well, I think about draft night. I'm sorry, McMahon. What year did Curry get traded? Or did he get drafted? Same year as Ricky Rubio and Johnny Quinn. Good one. Was that 09? That was, Stephen Curry was 09. Pick seven. The story goes, so Steve Kerr was obsessed with Steph Curry. Amin El-Hassan, our former colleague at ESPN, talked about how. When he was working in the Sixers or the Suns front office that like, they were so obsessed. Kerr was so obsessed. He wanted to see like video clips of all these Davidson games because he, you know, and he, I mean, put would put it together. And like, he like knew he like, he like knew everybody in the Davidson roster. Like there was some guy who would, I can't remember the guy's name who would like botch layups from Curry. And, you know, he, you know, Kerr would come into the office. Hey, how did Curry do last night? Well, he had 32 points, six assists, and. two Johnsons, which was like the guy's last name who would always botch layups when Curry delivered the ball. I don't remember who he was. So they were obsessed with trading up to get him. And they had the Suns. I don't know what pick they had. I think they had maybe, oh, they ended up taking Earl Clark. So they had a 14th pick, and they were trying like crazy to get up to seven. And they were willing to trade Amari Stoudemire for him. And I don't know the whole story on the Warriors' end, but the press room in Phoenix at the time was right below the Suns' war room. It was like one floor below. And so the media is all in the press room, you know, watching the drafts, sitting there, eating their free food, whatever. And they hear this explosion of applause upstairs. Or maybe it was down the hall. Whatever it was, they heard like this explosion of applause because they thought they had agreed to acquire the number. Seven pick, and they were willing to trade Amari Stoudemire. They thought that they had traded Amari Stoudemire in the 14th pick to get Steph Curry to be a Sun. And I'm sure there's a billion of these stories on draft night, as you know, Bobby, which I'm still not over this story, Bobby, about. Who would you have taken at number two? Do you remember? Marcus Aldridge. Okay. Yep. Man, that is an amazing story. Anyway, but the reason it's so interesting is because it was Kerr. Kerr was obsessed with getting Curry. And then, you know, he ends up, it ends up working out. That's a pretty good draft. I mean, the top Blake, Harden, Curry, DeRozan, in the top 10. Pretty good. Yeah. Hashim to beat, too. Oof. Rudy Gay had a great career. So, the Bulls must have traded, ended up trading that second round pick because I don't think they ended up with this. Oh, it's the 16th pick. It looks like. But I think they traded back. Wasn't Tyus Thomas involved there? Probably. Yeah, Tyus Thomas and Marcus Aldridge got traded for each other. That's right. Yeah. So, the Bulls ended up trading the number two pick anyway. They did. By the way, we mentioned Mitchell as a guy who, you know, a local kid who wanted to play for the Knicks and basically requested, I mean, he didn't officially request a trade, but requested a trade to New York. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar absolutely requested a trade. To the Knicks when he was involved. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made a trade request and it stayed silent for a year. I guess you imagine. And it leaked, it leaked when Marv Albert reported it on New York City Radio. Amazing. Yeah. He wanted to go to New York and ended up having to settle for the Lakers. And that worked out okay for him, too. There's a legendary story that was, I think it was in the New York Times. It must have been the LA Times that told the blow-by-blow story of the night that Kareem asked for the trade. It's an all-time great story. I'll find it real quick here because I remember it had an incredible detail in it that he, let's see here. Yeah, Thomas Bonk wrote this story in 1987, Christmas Day, 1987. And he had incredible detail. You think Ramona Shelburne gets good details on her TikTok stories? Now, granted, this was a decade or like 15 years later. So maybe, you know, let's point that out. But Ramona does it in 15 hours. But he writes about the night where the Bucs met with Abdul-Jabbar and they had beef wellington and they ate beef wellington. There was like a beef wellington and then there was a wine course and then a cheese course and then it was all over. Wasn't this kind of sweet, like a Sheridan or something? Incredible memory. I can't believe you remember that. Yeah, the downtown Sheridan. And so he wrote this story 13 years after it happened. But anyway. And then he asked to be traded. And so that was in October of 74. He didn't get traded until like the fall of 75. And by the way, that's one thing that does crack me up when people talk about, oh, you know, player empowerment, like it's some kind of newfangled thing. Kareem requested a trade more than 50 years ago after he'd won a championship in Milwaukee. Right. And Kareem's quote in the late 80s was, I only had one. I only had one year left in my contract. And I told him I wasn't really interested in signing up again. If they would trade me, that would be the best thing for everybody. So a genuine trade request with one year left on his contract. You know, why was Giannis afraid to just say it? I mean, come on, Kareem said it. I know it. That's a whole different deal. Giannis was so. What do you think the meal that Giannis would have had before would have been Chick-fil-A? Nuggets. All right. Well, if we. If we forgot any all-time near trades, just put them in the comments and Jackson can tell me about them. Hey, I enjoyed our little walk down memory lane here in the NBA. Story time. Yeah. Brought to you by SoFi. Get your money right. This whole podcast was brought to you by SoFi. This whole thing was one giant SoFi. Walk down memory lane. All right. Thanks to our producers. Thanks to Jackson. Jackson, Beef Wellington would be great at the reception. I need to see if you dish. Oh, that's right. McMahon doesn't eat red meat. All right. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you, McMahon. Thank you for listening and watching The Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you in a couple of days. Adios, amigos. No two football players are exactly alike, and the same is true off the field. 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