NBA: Top 5 biggest what-if draft selections from the 1990s

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NBA Mandatory Credit: Rick Stewart /Allsport /

2. 1997 — Tracy McGrady to the Los Angeles Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers’ 3-peat run over the early 2000s is acclaimed for their sheer dominance. With Shaquille O’Neal winning nearly every low post duel and Kobe Bryant scoring at an MVP rate, the two were a force to be reckoned with. But what would have happened if Tracy McGrady was added into the mix?

This video game-like scenario was inches away from becoming a reality in 1997.

In their first season together, Shaq and Kobe helped lead the Lakers to a 56-win season and appearance in the Western Conference Semifinals. But at the time, Bryant was just a promising rookie while All-Star Eddie Jones was the one who formed a one-two punch with Shaq.

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Lakers team executive Jerry West aspired to improve the team even more and looked to the 1997 NBA Draft, where an 18-year-old Tracy McGrady caught his attention. In a pre-draft workout, McGrady, who had declared out of high school, impressed West so much that it prompted him to consider trading into the top 10 to select him.

“I don’t think anybody can look at an 18-year-old and say he’s a Hall of Famer,” former Lakers head coach Del Harris said. “You couldn’t even do that with Jordan. And Kobe was a young 18 in his first season. He was still in a pretty normal teenage body, compared to when LeBron James came in and had a man’s body.

“McGrady came in the next year with a more mature body and worked out so well that Jerry kind of tooled around with the idea that maybe we should just go ahead and make a deal for whatever it took to get this guy — even though it’d be a step back in the short term — to have two guys like this on the same team.”

West dangled on the possibility of trading Jones in order to acquire McGrady, but the idea was not entertained by both Del Harris and then-Lakers owner Jerry Buss. Thus, the Lakers did not trade into the first-round and McGrady ultimately went to the Toronto Raptors via the ninth pick.

McGrady went in-depth over this what-if draft selection.

This is one what-if where both sides ended up as winners. But had the Lakers ultimately pulled the trigger and proceeded with the trade, McGrady likely does not emerge as a 20-plus points per game scorer right away and becomes more of an instant offense player to complement both Shaq and Kobe.

But the biggest question of them all: do the Lakers still go on to 3-peat… and possibly add more titles with this dream trio?