June 19, 1984. The NBA Draft. Houston selects Hakeem Olajuwon with the first overall pick — a decision that looks reasonable in hindsight. Portland then selects Sam Bowie with the second pick. Portland needed a center. Bowie was a center. The reasoning was defensible. The result was not. With the third pick, Chicago selects Michael Jordan.

Sam Bowie played 511 games in the NBA. He was plagued by injuries and never fulfilled the promise that made Portland choose him over Jordan. Michael Jordan played 1,072 games, won six championships, six Finals MVPs, five regular season MVPs, and is considered the greatest basketball player who ever lived. The gap between what Portland got and what they passed on is the largest in the history of professional sports drafts.

This is the third Carl V. Sissac print in the DimeLabs collection — joining the 1984–85 Rookie Dunk and the Empty Arena rookie portrait. Three photographs by the same Bulls team photographer, spanning Jordan's earliest seasons. No private collection holds more Sissac originals of Jordan than DimeLabs does. And this one — Jordan physically rising above the man Portland chose over him — is the most historically layered of the three.