1984 NBA draft

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 19th of June 1984, at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum in New York City, twenty-three NBA teams gathered to select the future of professional basketball. It was the 37th annual draft, and the man presiding over it was a relatively new figure: David Stern, the NBA's incoming commissioner. What happened that afternoon became the most discussed talent pool in the sport's history. The questions that linger are many: how could a franchise pass on a player who would win six championships? Why did the greatest scorer in the draft's history never play a single game in the league? And who was the last man picked, and what became of him?

• 2. The First Sixteen Picks

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  The Houston Rockets won a coin flip and took Akeem Olajuwon, a junior center from the University of Houston, with the first overall pick. Olajuwon was Nigerian-born, and his selection made him the second foreign-born player ever drafted first overall, following Mychal Thompson from the Bahamas in 1978. The Portland Trail Blazers held the second pick, a slot they had obtained from the Indiana Pacers through a trade dating back to the 1st of June 1981, when they sent Tom Owens to Indiana in exchange for that pick. Portland used it on Sam Bowie of Kentucky.

  The Chicago Bulls then called the third name: Michael Jordan, who had won both the Naismith and the Wooden College Player of the Year awards at the University of North Carolina. His North Carolina teammate Sam Perkins went fourth to the Dallas Mavericks. Charles Barkley, a junior forward from Auburn University, followed at fifth, claimed by the Philadelphia 76ers thanks to a trade dating to the 12th of October 1978, when Philadelphia sent World B. Free to San Diego in exchange for a first-round pick.

  The 16th pick belonged to the Utah Jazz, who selected John Stockton out of Gonzaga. Within the first sixteen selections, four future Hall of Famers had been chosen. A fifth, Oscar Schmidt, would come much later, at pick 131 in the sixth round. Notably, both Jordan and Stockton were absent from the draft's green room, despite ultimately becoming two of the most celebrated players from the class.

• 3. Portland's Choice

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  Sam Bowie's selection with the second overall pick, one slot ahead of Michael Jordan, became the most scrutinized decision in draft history. Portland's reasoning had a logic to it at the time: the Blazers already had Jim Paxson, an All-Star shooting guard, and a young Clyde Drexler, whom they had taken in the 1983 draft. Taking another shooting guard felt redundant. Bowie, a center from Kentucky, addressed a different positional need.

  What followed made the decision look catastrophic in hindsight. Bowie had already missed two of his three preceding college seasons due to injury. His NBA career continued in the same vein: five leg surgeries limited him to just 139 games across five seasons with Portland. He averaged 10.9 points and 7.5 rebounds per game across a ten-year career, which by most standards would constitute a respectable run. But against the backdrop of what the player selected one spot later achieved, it was an enduring reminder of how chance, timing, and roster construction intersect on draft night.

• 4. What Those Players Became

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  Olajuwon's career unfolded over decades. He won two NBA championships and received two Finals Most Valuable Player Awards, one Most Valuable Player Award, and two Defensive Player of the Year Awards. He was selected to twelve All-Star Games and twelve All-NBA Teams. He retired as the all-time league leader in blocked shots, finishing with 3,830 career blocks.

  Jordan's achievements surpassed even that record. Six NBA championships, six Finals Most Valuable Player Awards, five Most Valuable Player Awards, one Defensive Player of the Year Award, fourteen All-Star Game selections, and eleven All-NBA Team selections mark his career. He also earned three NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards and nine All-Defensive Team selections. Barkley, who never won a championship, took the Most Valuable Player Award in 1993 and was selected to eleven All-NBA Teams and eleven All-Star Games. Stockton retired as the all-time leader in both assists and steals, was named to eleven All-NBA Teams and ten All-Star Games, and was co-MVP of the 1993 All-Star Game alongside his Utah Jazz teammate Karl Malone.

  All five Hall of Famers from this draft were also named to the NBA's 50 Greatest Players list, announced at the league's 50th anniversary in 1996. Jordan, Barkley, and Stockton would later share a roster as members of the 1992 United States Olympic team, known as the "Dream Team."

• 5. Alvin Robertson and Later Picks

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  Alvin Robertson, taken seventh by the San Antonio Spurs out of Arkansas, became the only other player from the draft to win individual annual NBA awards. In 1986 he captured both the Defensive Player of the Year Award and the Most Improved Player Award. He was named to four All-Star Games and six consecutive All-Defensive Teams.

  Robertson and Olajuwon share a distinction that belongs to only four players in NBA history: both have recorded a quadruple double, reaching double figures in points, rebounds, assists, and blocks or steals in a single game. The ninth pick, Otis Thorpe from Providence, and the eleventh pick, Kevin Willis from Michigan State, each made one All-Star Game. Thorpe won a championship in 1994 with the Rockets; Willis won one in 2003 with the Spurs. Rick Carlisle, taken 70th in the third round, became a coach, won the Coach of the Year Award in 2002 with the Detroit Pistons, and led the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Championship in 2011.

• 6. The Players Who Never Played

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  Oscar Schmidt, picked 131st in the sixth round by the New Jersey Nets, turned down the offer entirely. Schmidt stayed in Europe and later Brazil to represent his country in international competition, which the NBA's rules at the time made incompatible with league play. His decision would only be fully vindicated in 1990, when the NBA reached an agreement with the International Basketball Federation allowing players to represent their national teams. Schmidt appeared in five Olympic Games and finished as the top scorer in three of them.

  Schmidt's combined career total across club teams and the Brazilian national team reached 49,703 points, exceeding the NBA's career scoring record held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at 38,387 points. Even LeBron James, who later claimed that NBA record with 42,184 points, has not surpassed Schmidt's combined total. FIBA inducted Schmidt into its Hall of Fame in 2010, and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame followed in 2013.

  Carl Lewis, the University of Houston track and field sprinter and long jumper, was taken 208th by the Chicago Bulls in the tenth round. Lewis had never played college basketball. He spent the summer of 1984 dominating the Los Angeles Olympics, and had also been selected in that year's NFL draft by the Dallas Cowboys. He remained in athletics, finishing his career with nine Olympic gold medals and eight World Championship gold medals. Mike Whitmarsh, taken 111th by the Portland Trail Blazers, played basketball professionally in Germany for three years but never reached the NBA. He transitioned to beach volleyball, eventually winning a silver medal at the Olympics.

• 7. The Last Pick

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  Dan Trant of Clark University was selected 228th by the Boston Celtics, the final pick in the entire draft. He never appeared in a regular season game. Trant was working in his office at the World Trade Center on the 11th of September 2001 and was killed in the attacks that day.

  The 1984 draft was the last before the NBA introduced the draft lottery in 1985, the last to air nationally on the USA Network, and the last in which every player selected was either drafted or went undrafted with no middle ground: starting in 1985, undrafted players began entering the league each year. The draft ran ten rounds long, producing 228 selections. It was also, according to the source, the most recent draft to feature two rookies in the same All-Star Game, with both Jordan and Olajuwon appearing in the 1985 midseason event.