I was on a basketball board, and there was this thread about how the Bulls almost traded His Airness to the Clippers in 1988. With that in mind, I came up with this DBWI since there haven't been any sports threads for a while:
In 1988, after discussing every angle of it, GM Jerry Krause, Owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and Coach Doug Collins decided that it was best to trade Jordan. They thought that they would be in a better position to win rings without him because he was a me-first ball hog. Meanwhile, Donald Sterling, the Clipper owner, jumped at the trade when it was offered. He felt that it would bring more people to Clipper games, and also help them get out from under the Laker shadow.
So, Jordan was traded to the Clips for the first and sixth overall picks in the 1988 draft. Krause decided to use those on C Rik Smits and SG Mitch Richmond. Then, after trading Charles Oakley and the 19th overall pick that year to New York for the 11th pick, they used it on PG Rod Strickland. They added B.J. Armstrong and Nick Anderson in the draft the next year, and seemed to have the nucleus of a championship team going into the 90's.
The trade made the Bulls more of a team, and they ended up winning championships in 1992 and 1993. As for Jordan, he was what the Bulls thought he was in LA, a me-first player who put up 40-50 a night at the expense of his teammates. His discontent started in 1991, when it became apparent that Donald Sterling wasn't going to listen to his trade demands. So, at the end of the 1991-92 season, he quit the Clips to play baseball at the urging of his dad. He improved a lot, but he realized that this wasn't going to be his calling, so he decided to go back to the NBA for the 1993-94 season.
The Knicks signed him, and he helped lead them to the Finals in 1995 and 1998, but he never got over that hump. He retired in 1998 with a legacy of being able to put up great numbers, but not being able to get his team to win rings.
However, what if the Bulls would have decided to keep him? How would his legacy have been different? Would he still have been a ball hog?