The 2014 NBA Draft ultimately didn’t pan out as the Milwaukee Bucks would have wanted, but Joel Embiid had no interest in playing in the city to begin with.
The Milwaukee Bucks have not taken full advantage of lottery picks in their recent NBA history. That applies to Thon Maker being taken 10th overall in 2016, but most notably to Jabari Parker being selected second overall in 2014.
Of course, no tears need to be shed for the Bucks considering that they struck gold from just outside of the lottery by drafting Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2013. Still, the pick used on Parker is one that often leads to wistful reflection from Bucks fans.
More from Bucks History
- The 3 biggest “What Ifs” in Milwaukee Bucks’ franchise history
- 6 Underrated Milwaukee Bucks of the Giannis Antetokounmpo era
- Ranking Giannis Antetokounmpo’s 10 best Bucks teammates of all time
- How well do you know the Milwaukee Bucks’ top 20 career point leaders?
- Looking at important playoff numbers in Milwaukee Bucks franchise history
There’s the what could have been element that comes with imagining how things could have panned out with Parker if he hadn’t suffered two catastrophic knee injuries during his stay in Milwaukee.
But separate to that, there’s also always been the hypothetical of what could have been if the Bucks had opted to take Joel Embiid at No. 2, instead of allowing him to slip to the Philadelphia 76ers with the third pick.
For one, the landscape of the Eastern Conference and the NBA could be entirely different, as not only would the Bucks have taken Philadelphia’s centerpiece away, but they would have formed their own All-NBA caliber frontcourt tandem with Giannis and Embiid.
Perhaps bursting that particular bubble for good, in an excerpt from his new 76ers book that was released on Bleacher Report, Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers, Yaron Weitzman shared some details on Embiid’s thoughts from that time about potentially heading to Milwaukee.
According to Weitzman’s reporting, Embiid was hoping to fall all the way to the Lakers with the seventh pick, and had some choice words for the city of Milwaukee that meant he had no real desire to go second overall either.
"“The Bucks, meanwhile, had locked in on Parker, another Tellem client, at No. 2, and anyway, Embiid had no interest in playing there. ‘That place is corny,’ he told Nyam. What he really wanted was to fall to the Lakers at No. 7. He’d been living in Los Angeles and grown comfortable in the city. ‘Work your magic,’ he told Tellem. Tellem knew there was no chance of Embiid plunging that far, so instead he and Nyam sold Embiid on Philadelphia.”"
A key detail worth noting from how that draft played out at the top is that, as highlighted by Weitzman above, both Parker and Embiid were Arn Tellem clients at that time. While Embiid may not have wanted to go to Milwaukee, Parker was certainly very interested in the prospect of staying in the midwest given his Chicago roots.
As for Embiid, of course, his history of slighting the city of Milwaukee did not end there.
With his relationship with Philadelphia having endured its own tough moments of late, it’d be false to say that Embiid has had things all his own way since landing with the 76ers either.