Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Bill Simmons what if...

Big Bill had a speculative article yesterday about what would have happened if Jay Williams wasn't a fucktard and if the Bulls got Garnett for Deng, Chandler and the #4 pick.

14. What if Jason Williams never crashed his motorcycle?

"I predicted Williams (the No. 2 pick in 2003) would be a better pro than Yao Ming (the No. 1 pick).

Well, you know what? I was right. I was DEAD right.

A lightning-quick, physical 6-footer who would have been unstoppable after they changed the hand-check rules in 2004, Williams had his moments as a rookie, including the 26-14-13 he slapped on J-Kidd and the Nets. He would have been a stud. There's no doubt in my mind. But Williams stupidly crashed his motorcycle that summer -- I say "stupidly" because there's no acceptable scenario when a professional athlete with a chance to sign a $70 million contract some day should ever own a motorcycle -- and that was that. How did Jay's injury change what transpired with Chicago over the next five years? Imagine Utah only getting one season out of Deron Williams and you have some idea."

Fuck, he is totally right. Look at the renaissance in PG's accross the league since the rule change: Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Gilbert Arenas, Baron Davis, Tony Parker and a revitalized Nash and Kidd.

JW would have been nasty. And that was back when we had a decent nucleus (even after the Brand/Artest mistake). JW, Curry, Chandler, Crawford and Pfizer (WTF happened to HIM? He didn't even get in a mortercycle accident!). Still... that's a solid squad. We also got Deng and Bogo in the next draft.

Fuck.

Scroll down to 13b. "What if Kevin McHale had taken Chicago's "Godfather" offer for KG before the 2006 draft?"

"...Meanwhile, Chicago would have ended up with Garnett, Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Andres Nocioni and the typical flood of discount free agents and February buyout guys who follow a guy like KG, and on top of that Garnett would have ignited Chicago as a basketball city just like he ignited Boston (and potentially pushed the Bulls into the NBA Finals in a weak conference last spring). Instead, they gave away Chandler, turned Aldridge into Ty Thomas and wasted all their cap space on Ben Wallace. So, um ... that kind of sucked. "

Well, that makes is sound pretty bad.

Then I remember that it IS pretty bad. Not only did we pass on KG, but we also passed on Aldridge (which might end up being as bad) and we lost chandler for nothing, who is playing good ball in NO.

Well, "what if's" are really a waste of time. Shit happens and you make the best of it.

At least we've got this guy:

3 comments:

Ricky O'Donnell said...

Very interesting stuff with Jay Williams. It may be hard to remember now, but he really was one of the best college players of his generation. Thats a cause of the Bulls just getting incredibly unlucky.

Unknown said...

Pfizer was playing on Maccabi Tel Aviv until he got hurt the other week

Keggers said...

Zeke- what's up man?

So... is Pfizer any good over there?