Its pretty long so I'll just throw in the 15 main points and you can go read it if you'd like

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080310


15. What if Carlos Boozer never screwed over Cleveland?

14. What if Jason Williams never crashed his motorcycle?

13b. What if Kevin McHale had taken Chicago's "Godfather" offer for KG before the 2006 draft?

13a. What if McHale had taken G-State's "Godfather" offer for KG during the 2007 draft?

12. What if the Mavs had re-signed Steve Nash in 2005?

11. What if Minnesota hadn't ticked off KG during the summer of 2007?

10. What if Portland had never signed Theo Ratliff to a three-year, $36 million extension starting with the '06 season?

9. What if the Lakers had panicked and traded Kobe before the '07-'08 season?

8. What if Ron Artest never went into the stands in Detroit?

7. What if Jason Kidd had accepted San Antonio's $87 million offer during the summer of 2003?

6. What if Tim Duncan had signed with Orlando in 2000 to play with Grant Hill?

5. What if Kobe had signed with the Clippers in 2004?

4. What if Suns owner Robert Sarver said, "Screw it, I'll pay the luxury tax every year?"

3. What if the Knicks had never hired Isiah Thomas?

2b. What if Atlanta had taken Chris Paul with the No. 2 pick of the 2005 draft?

2a. What if Portland had taken Chris Paul with the No. 3 pick of the 2005 draft?

1. What if Memphis landed LeBron instead of Cleveland?


I thought this was a very interesting read until I realized that Darko isn't mentioned. How can you write an article on some of the biggest recent "What If"s and not mention us drafting Darko? What if we had taken Bosh instead? Do we not beat SA in that 2005 series? We took them to 7 games, and I'd have to think having another great big man on our roster instead of Darko would have pushed us over the top. And after Ben leaves, Bosh could have stepped right in to fill his shoes. We get AT LEAST 1 more championship by having him, if not more. How could he not have been a huge X factor for us?

Yes this is all stuff we've talked about a million times. I just don't understand how something like Theo Ratliff's expiring contract trumps drafting Darko.

Billups, Rip, Tayshaun, Bosh, Sheed

Think about that starting lineup.

I say we spam him with e-mails about that and force him to answer why he left it out. But that's just me.

Billups, Rip, Tayshaun, Bosh, Sheed

Think about that starting lineup.


Most people think that if we had Bosh, we wouldn't have Sheed.

MORE WHAT IF'S

Here are five more "What If's" that would've made the cut if they weren't so improbable:
1. What if Shaq and Kobe had been able to juggle their egos and get along in L.A.?
2. What if Darko Milicic had turned out to be a stud for Detroit?
3. What if Grant Hill could have somehow stayed healthy in Orlando?
4. What if Chicago had fired Scott Skiles in 2006 instead of giving Tyson Chandler away and blowing its cap space on Ben Wallace?
5. What if Tim Donaghy had officiated Games 3 and 6 of the 2006 Finals?

Not exactly the same but the same idea.

Also, he's talked so much about the darko thing in the past, and all everyone does is bitch and moan about how he's an idiot who hates the Pistons....now we're bitching that he's not talking shit about the Pistons?

In #1, he talks about how if Bron had been in Memphis he would have walked to the team of his choice in 2007.....um, wasn't he restriced in '07? Memphis wouldn't have matched? He would have forced a trade? Am I nuts here?

What a pointless exercise. What if the Lions had taken Portis instead of Edwards, Brees instead of Backus, Newman instead of Rogers, Roy Williams instead of Joey and Jammal Brown instead of Mike Williams? Then we'd have pro bowlers at QB, RB, CB, S and LT instead of marginal players at all those positions. Guess what, that didn't happen either.

Guess what, that didn't happen either.

Check your text messages.

I still enjoyed reading this...

I love Simmons, he is the funniest writer I know

I still enjoyed reading this...

I love Simmons, he is the funniest writer I know



Sports Guy is a tool. His jokes are played out and every article makes references to the Celtics, Patriots or Red Sox...

Not to mention, if you read anything he's ever written about the Pistons, he has some animosity towards us for some reason...


How does "Pistons-Spurs II: The Rematch" sound, fellas? Not quite as enticing as "Celtics-Lakers: The Next Generation


and



2. DETROIT PISTONS
Preseason prediction: 50 wins (second)
Revised prediction: 52 wins

I wrote this section five different ways and each section was more boring than the last one, mainly because we've been watching this Pistons nucleus for so long I've run out of things to say about them. They're like the "ER" of NBA teams -- I know people are watching, I know the ratings are fine, but it feels like they've exhausted every possible story line and it might be time to wrap it up.

So let's save some time and ask one simple question about the '08 Pistons: If they didn't have enough last year, why would anyone think they have enough this year? Over the summer, they drafted Rodney Stuckey, signed Jarvis Hayes and planned to lean on Amir Johnson and Jason Maxiell a little more. Other than that? Status quo. I mean, it's one thing to bring everyone back when you're a title contender, but did anyone feel like last year's Pistons team could have hung with the Spurs? So why press the RESET button and start another season like nothing ever happened? I don't get it.


Especially when he wrote that article about how Joe Dumars shouldn't be a hall of famer... http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060913


and From December 2007


Detroit increases its ceiling as a team (right now, it's second round and out)


He's a clown. Plus I bought his stupid book about a year ago on amazon, and its brutal.

Sports Guy is a tool. His jokes are played out and every article makes references to the Celtics, Patriots or Red Sox...

Not to mention, if you read anything he's ever written about the Pistons, he has some animosity towards us for some reason...
I highlighted the relevant parts. :)

Simmons referenced this in his March 14th links article.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/links/080314

An inordinate amount of readers wondered why I didn't put "What if the Pistons had taken Carmelo over Darko?" in Monday's "What if?" NBA column. The short answer is I screwed up. The long answer is I overthought the issue -- since the Pistons never wavered with that pick and targeted Darko really from the moment they landed the second pick, it didn't seem like a genuine "What if?" since the alternative was never going to happen. Remember, Dumars thought he had a potential star at small forward (Melo's position) in Tayshaun Prince, and the Pistons desperately needed size at the time because they were still eight months away from Danny Ainge gift-wrapping Rasheed Wallace for them. So there was no doubt where they were going with that pick. Of course, many thought they were making a franchise-altering mistake at the time -- including me -- which opens the door for the "What if?" potential. So for my next mailbag, I'm going to "answer" that question, and then we'll retroactively insert the answer into the column.

One other note: It's easy to forget this now, but there was a definitive top-three for that 2003 draft (LeBron, Darko and Carmelo) and Detroit would have been skewered for taking Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade at No. 2. Those guys just didn't have the same value. In fact, when I re-read Chad Ford's pick-by-pick analysis after that draft (this isn't a convoluted excuse to link to an article in which Chad called Maciej Lampe "the steal of the draft," I swear), I was reminded that (A) Miami stunned everyone by taking Wade at No. 5 and (B) there was a real debate at the time whether Bosh would ever put on enough weight to be anything more than the next Keon Clark. So saying "they could have had Wade or Bosh with that pick!" is unfair unless you're making the argument Detroit should have traded down. There's no way Wade or Bosh was going second in that draft.

That's all I needed.