These days, the Bulls are left playing the “What if” game.
What if Bryce Drew were quicker?
What if Khalid El-Amin were taller?
What if the real Dragan Tarlac were here?
Things certainly would be a lot different around the United Center.
What if the Bulls drafted Steve Francis with the No. 1 pick in 1999 instead of Elton Brand?
Because then Marcus Fizer would have a position, and the Bulls would have one of the top young point guards in the NBA, an exciting, athletic talent, and…
Would the Bulls have been better off?
These are the things that come to mind when it’s almost March and the Bulls have almost 10 wins. It also comes to mind with the Houston Rockets and Francis playing here Wednesday. The Rockets have offloaded most of their stars from their championship and post-championship seasons and still are in contention for a playoff spot this season.
“Our team is in pretty good shape,” says Houston general manager Carroll Dawson. “We’ve got a lot of young players who are starting to gel and come together.”
The Bulls say that, too, though we don’t believe them.
The Rockets make a somewhat more persuasive argument with Francis, Cuttino Mobley, partnering with Francis in the backcourt and also averaging more than 19 points per game, Shandon Anderson and Maurice Taylor.
And a darn good chance to sign Sacramento’s Chris Webber this summer.
After all, Houston has everything player-favorite Orlando has: Good weather, low cost of living and no state tax. The last one I usually don’t get when someone is making $10 million a year, though I will consult Frank Thomas on this.
And one thing Orlando isn’t: the league leader in gentlemen’s clubs.
It’s why Houston is one of the favored locations for NBA players to have homes. And weekends.
And Webber may well join them. He is the premier free agent this summer, perhaps even the league MVP this season. And Houston also has something the other favored places, like Orlando, New York and Los Angeles, don’t have: a big salary to pay Webber.
Webber has made clear two things: He’d rather sleep head-to-toe with Don Nelson than remain in Sacramento. And he’s not about to accept any team’s $4 million exception salary for three years. He wants, as the Bulls put it last summer, the full boat. Though not in Chicago, where the boat is sinking.
If the Rockets’ renounce Hakeem Olajuwon, who has been playing exceptionally well of late but just got an AARP card, and Matt Bullard, they could be about $12 million under the salary cap next season. That would enable them to give Webber a contract worth more than $100 million. And as Frank Thomas and Sammy Sosa know, $100 million is much better than $4 million.
Plus, the Rockets may well be just a Webber away from becoming one of the elite teams in the NBA. Francis is on the cusp of NBA superstardom. He averages 19.6 and doesn’t look to shoot much. He’s among the best at his position, averaging more than six assists and six rebounds and among the league leaders in steals and three-point shooting. He’s Allen Iverson with better musical tastes. Mobley, a brilliant second-round pick out of the University of Rhode Island, is a big-time scorer, and Anderson is a sleek, versatile small forward. Even without the excellent-shooting Taylor, who could opt out and become a free agent again, that stacks up as a powerful, well-rounded lineup.
Which would end the Rockets’ rebuilding quickly.
Houston was the second-best team of the 1990s, winning two NBA titles when Michael Jordan was away. They made one more effort to get into contention when they acquired Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen. But one got fat, and the other got a fat head. So the Rockets cashed in for Francis in a trade with Vancouver and began rebuilding. Unlike the Bulls, they’ve done it with a mixture of youth and veterans, and are on the verge of returning to serious contention.
Wednesday Francis and Brand will shoot it out again. Francis made no secret of his desire to be selected by the Bulls, though it seemed more for the honor of being the No. 1 pick than the traditional post-draft trip with Krause to get their hair braided.
Would the Bulls be better? Perhaps, but Brand was the right pick. Lamar Odom probably is the most talented player from that draft since he can do everything Francis does but is about 6 inches taller. But we know he couldn’t have put up with the glacial rebuilding here without threatening to jump off the loading dock of the United Center. Francis has been a model citizen in Houston and his Vancouver holdout seemed only a behavioral hiccup that appears long cured. But would it have been if he had to play with Tarlac, El-Amin and Ron Artest instead of Olajuwon, Mobley and Anderson?
Brand has been terrific in attitude and play, though one wonders if he wishes the Bulls had taken Francis.
