The "what if" moment that changed every NBA team forever

Memphis Grizzlies: What if the Grizzlies hadn't selected Hasheem Thabeet?

During the late 2000s through most of the 2010s, the Memphis Grizzlies established themselves as a formidable team in the West. While the Grizzlies were able to build a perennial playoff team around Mike Conley, Zach Randolph, and Marc Gasol, they completely whiffed on a high lottery pick in 2009. That pick could have given them the missing piece that would have made them a dynasty. In the 2009 NBA Draft, they selected Hasheem Thabeet third overall instead of Steph Curry or DeMar DeRozan.

That all-time draft blunder resulted in them literally getting nothing out of a top-3 pick when two future multi-time all-stars were still on the board. Worse yet, Curry and the Golden State Warriors would go on to torment the Grizzlies and ensure that they would never make it further than the Western Conference Finals. Of course, had they drafted Curry, the Grizzlies would have been able to pair him with Conley, who was a talented point guard in his own right.

Additionally, Curry would have had two skilled big men to play with, and his spacing would have prevented teams like the Spurs from clogging the paint. The possibilities were sky-high for that hypothetical Grizzlies team, particularly since the Warriors wouldn't have become a dynasty without Curry. Ultimately, things didn't work out that way.