The history of the NBA is littered with inflection points or forks in the road. Where the end result seemed like a mere formality only to be changed at the last second sending a team or player on an entirely different trajectory. In 2006 the Sixers almost dealt a digruntled Allen Iverson to the Celtics, which would have put Al Jefferson in Philadelphia and thus erasing the original Big Three in Boston. Had Ray Allen missed a backpedaling three-pointer in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals Miami’s Big Three would have been viewed as a potential dynasty that shrunk in the biggest moments. If David Stern didn’t step in and nix the Chris Paul/Pau Gasol trade in 2011, Steve Nash never would have landed in Los Angeles and James Harden would have been dealt to a team other than the Rockets. Whether it be the NBA gods, random luck or middle aged men in fedoras these moments like so many others changed the legacy of the league, teams and individual players.

The Incident

As the 2014 NBA Draft approached the top three picks looked to be locked in. Despite a back injury that kept him out of the NCAA Tournament, Joel Embiid wowed NBA scouts and writers after holding a private workout leading observers like Bill Simmons to say, “He moves around as effortlessly as a 7-foot Serge Ibaka; he’s such an athletic freak that he’s one of those “still going up as he’s finishing the dunk” guys; his freakish wingspan might make Jay Bilas pass out; he has been playing basketball for only four years (which seems impossible); he gave up a world-class volleyball career; he has 3-point range; he can shoot jump-hooks with both hands already; he couldn’t have seemed more coachable/agreeable/likable……. Embiid was always going first. None of these teams was passing on him. Repeat: none of them.” With the lottery and Embiid’s workout complete by late May it looked like it was just a matter of time before Embiid was selected first overall by Cleveland, Jabari Parker would head north of his hometown Chicago to play in Milwaukee, and as hard as it is to believe current Rookie of the Year top candidate Andrew Wiggins would have gone third overall to the 76ers.

Then, one week before the draft the NBA community received a MEGA “Woj-Bomb.”

Followed by……

Joel Embiid was now a big-man prospect with back AND foot problems before ever putting on an NBA jersey. The ghosts of Greg Oden paid Cleveland GM David Griffin a visit and all of a sudden the 2014 NBA Draft turned into a gong show. The Cavs were no longer sure who to take first. There were rumors swirling of the Sixers and Jazz offering multiple picks to the Cavs in order to draft Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker respectively. Teams scrambled for updated medical reports. And Joel Embiid’s draft range was thought to be as wide as his wingspan.

The end result was Andrew Wiggins was selected by Cleveland before being shipped off to Minnesota for Kevin Love. Jabari Parker still found his way to Milwaukee, and for the second year in a row the Sixers decided to spin the chamber with an injured big man, stopping Joel Embiid’s slide at three.

But in an alternate universe somewhere Embiid’s navicular bone doesn’t suffer a stress fracture and the league looks entirely different than it currently does.

Cleveland Cavaliers

There are two ways to look at this as a Cavs fan. The first is the more pessimistic view, which would be that Embiid’s foot injury is revealed some time over the summer ending any Kevin Love and Lebron James pairing. This would then send all Cleveland sports fans into Lake Erie once coupled with the disastrous pick of Johnny Manziel.

The more fun view though is to assume the Cavs picked a healthy Joel Embiid first overall. Had that been the case it’s believed by a number of NBA people that the Cavs would have held onto Embiid instead of opting to include him in any Kevin Love trade.

Just imagine a trio of James, Irving, and Embiid. For the next decade the Larry O’Brien trophy may have made its home at the Mistake by the M’Lake. Lebron returned to Cleveland in July and expressed his desire to play with Kevin Love, initiating the Cavs trade of Andrew Wiggins, 2013 1st overall pick Anthony Bennett, and a top 10 protected Miami 1st round pick to Minnesota for Love.

Despite the acquisition of Love the Cavaliers would still need help solidifying their post defense. GM David Griffin and deputy GM Lebron James’ first move was to give the walking medical bill, Anderson Varejao, a three year (the third year is a team option) 30 million dollar extension. Once the 32 year old Varejao was lost for the season Cleveland’s hole in the middle became a problem, resulting in a January trade for the Nuggets Timofy Mozgov.

But before the Cavs acquired Mozgov they traded professional provocateur Dion Waiters to Oklahoma City, stopping just short of leaving him outside the Well Fargo Center in Philadelphia with a Golden Corral coupon and a Greyhound ticket to Oklahoma City. In return the Cavaliers received a top 18 protected pick from the Thunder along with a solid perimeter defender in Iman Shumpert and another malcontent of sorts in J.R. Smith from the Knicks.

That top 18 protected OKC pick along with a Memphis first round pick acquired in 2013 were used to pry the Russian center away from the Nuggets. Luckily for the Cavaliers, the trades have worked out well. And while David Griffin looks rather intelligent now, giving up two future first round picks for Mozgov and throwing J.R. Smith onto a team with championship aspirations was a real roll of the dice.

The Cavaliers final addition in an attempt to solidify the center position was to sign the recently released Kendrick Perkins, which is a lot like stopping at the Joyce Kilmer rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. You only do it if there is no other option.

Milwaukee Bucks

I’m not sure any amount of cosmic intervention was going to stop the Nicholas Sparks-esque love affair between Jabari Parker and the Bucks franchise. So we can all just move on.

Flip Saunders Legacy

Nobody benefited more from the injury to Joel Embiid than Flip Saunders and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Saunders could survive for another decade as the Wolves GM/Coach after the success of the Andrew Wiggins trade. And credit is due to Saunders for not panicking and trading his lone superstar, Kevin Love, on draft night for a collection of middle of the first round picks from the Celtics, or for the Lakers 7th overall pick and the Steve Nash’s mangled vertebrae.

But had GM Lebron not come to Saunders with the offer of Wiggins, Anthony Bennet, and a top 10 protected Miami pick there is a better than decent chance Saunders would have received far less than equal value for Kevin Love or botched the situation entirely and watched his All-NBA power forward sign with another team without anything to show for.

And if you believe that Saunders would have successfully navigated his way through the Kevin Love Auction, you need only look at his brief two year track record as Timberwolves general manager. While the Pekovic extension in 2013 is excusable given the promise he showed at the time, and the trade of Trey Burke for Shabazz Muhammad and Gorgui Deing looks like a positive for Minnesota, the contract extension Saunders gave Ricky Rubio last offseason is indefensible.

Behold the Rubio experience below!

Rubio was set to become a restricted free agent this summer, meaning Saunders could have matched any offer given to his point guard. Instead, Flip handed Rubio a 4 year 55 million dollar extension, despite Rubio’s career slash line of 36.7/31.4/80.1 and averaging only 51 games played per season after his first four years. Was Saunders scared there would be a rush on point guards who can’t shoot, get to the line consistently and stay healthy? Just to put in perspective how preposterous the Rubio extension was, that same offseason ALL-STAR point guard Kyle Lowry signed a 4 year 48 million dollar extension with Toronto. This season Rubio has a PER of 15.3, placing him 33rd among point guards and behind such luminaries as J.J. Barea, C.J. Watson and Jeremy Lin.

Saunders also handed out $27 million to Kevin Martin and another $15 million to Chase Budinger in 2013. And this season he potentially tied up his first round pick from 2017 to 2020 in order to acquire Adrien Payne from the Atlanta Hawks, who wasn’t exactly lighting it up in the D-League during his rookie season.

Saunders most egregious move though may have been his decision to ship the top 10 protected Miami pick, he received from Cleveland, along with the expirings of Luc Mbah a Moute and Alexi Shved to Philadelphia for Thaddeus Young. Saunders was delusional enough to believe his Wolves team still had a shot at making the playoffs in the Western Conference despite trading away their All-NBA player. So to fill the void left by Kevin Love he traded for Thaddeus Young, who has the ability to opt out of his contract at the end of this season. To the surprise of nobody outside of the voices in Saunders brain, the Wolves were a terrible team this season, leading Flip Saunders to eventually trade Thad Young to Brooklyn in order to bring back the almost 40 years old Kevin Garnett. Meaning Young spent about as many weeks in Minnesota (48 games) as the show Animal Practice aired on NBC.

Had Cleveland picked Embiid and elected to keep him Saunders would probably be working at ESPN in time for the 2016 playoffs.

The Kevin Love Trade Market

While the Embiid injury and subsequent Kevin Love trade did produce a social media soap opera complete with Lebron’s own fortune cookie advice we did miss out on the Kevin Love sweepstakes. Teams across the league would have been scrambling to put together their best offer to pry Love away from the Wolves. And the rumors would have dominated the conversation until Flip made his decision. Just imagine the possibilities.

Out in Los Angeles Jimmy and Jeanie Buss would have tried to cobble together an offer, which would have been like watching two fish attempt to hold a spoon. Just north in Sacramento the chance to acquire Love would have yielded a Whiplash type of scenario with Vivek throwing chairs and draft reports at Pete D’Alessandro’s head screaming, “more assets!” Phoenix and Denver could have both put together competitive offers potentially shifting the course of their respective franchises. Danny Ainge and the Celtics would have tried putting the one red paperclip theory to use, seeing if small incremental increases in assets could lead to a superstar. And in New York, since the Knicks are devoid of assets Phil Jackson would have resorted to offering a spot in his book club and guru-ing Saunders into giving him Love for Iman Shumpert, Tim Hardaway Jr. and a pick from Carmelo’s hat collection. Not to mention Marc Stein and Woj breaking any previous PER record for NBA insiders.

Philadelphia 76ers

When Embiid’s injury was announced it put the Sixers in a tough spot. In the long run the Embiid injury may be exactly what produces a star for the lowly Sixers, but in the short term Embiid’s surgery put the Sixers last in the draft buffet line. The 2014 NBA Draft was a three player draft and the Sixers had the third pick.

If the draft played out as planned, Wiggins would be in Philadelphia right now teaming up with Nerlens Noel to form a human Wipeout obstacle course intimidating opposing offenses. GM Sam Hinkie would have been labeled a visionary instead of a quack or a con-artist. Deadspin.com and cranky old sports writers across America would have had to find a different target to shame this season.

Michael Carter-Williams may very well still be the Sixers starting PG if Wiggins is there, meaning the Lakers 1st round pick wouldn’t be in Philly’s hands. Sam Hinkie would have had to find a different trade partner for Thad Young. That also means that Alexi Shved wouldn’t have been a Sixer and traded two more times before the season ended. And the Thunder pick the Sixers acquired in the JaVale McGee salary dump would not have taken place because that pick was originally dealt to the Cavs in the Dion Waiters trade.

Final Talley

Andrew Wiggins, Kevin Love, Anthony Bennett, Luc Mbah a Moute, Alexi Shved, Dion Waiters, Timofy Mozgov, Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith, Lance Thomas, Alex Kirk, Lou Amundson, Thad Young, Kevin Garnett, JaVale McGee, Michael Carter-Williams, K.J. McDaniels, Pablo Pirgioni, Ronny Turiaf, Kendrick Perkins and Isaiah Canaan all had their careers altered this season. In total that is 22 players and a half dozen or so draft picks that can be directly connected to the Embiid injury and Kevin Love trade. One small fracture to one of the 26 bones in the foot and the league was shaken up like a Etch A Sketch.

The NBA can be both a forgiving mistress (think Timberwolves) and a vindictive one (think 76ers). But that is exactly what makes the league and professional sports so great and exasperating. Being able to go back a trace the steps of what led the league to its current iteration and thinking about what could or should have been.