A year before the Seattle SuperSonics matched up with the Bulls in the NBA Finals, they nearly acquired a Hall of Famer to join Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp and Detlef Schrempf.
Then-coach George Karl said this week his team almost added Clyde Drexler in a midseason blockbuster deal and claimed he wanted the trade to go through before team president Wally Walker got cold feet. Instead, Drexler went to Houston and won a championship.
Seattle lost in the first round that season but perhaps could have made a deeper run with the offensive support of Drexler. The next year, when Michael Jordan beat the Sonics in a six-game Finals series, the team could have also used Drexler as a difference maker.
It almost happened... pic.twitter.com/XlMU88xF8a
— George Karl (@CoachKarl22) June 10, 2020
Love the feedback from Sonics fans about our convo with Bob Whitsitt. A lot of surprise about the failed Kendall Gill for Clyde Drexler deal. I wanted it! Wally talked himself out of it. Clyde goes to Houston and wins the title.
— George Karl (@CoachKarl22) June 9, 2020
Think we would have won it with Clyde in 95??
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Drexler averaged 20.5 points per game in the 1994-95 playoffs and 16.6 points per game in the 1995-96 postseason. Those were his age-32 and age-33 seasons. He would have been a veteran leader for a Sonics squad already stacked with experienced players.
It's obviously possible the Sonics would still have fallen short in the 1995 playoffs and either failed to retain Drexler or still lost to the Bulls in 1996.
Still, imagining how a Big 3 of Payton-Kemp-Drexler would have fared against the Jordan-led Bulls is a fun exercise.