“Los Angeles has made us a wonderful offer” – The Clippers rejected ridiculous offers from the Lakers for a chance to draft Ralph Sampson originally appeared on Basketball Network.
The Los Angeles Lakers were already a powerhouse team in 1982, but that did not stop them from getting better. Had they been successful, they could have had a twin-tower combo in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Ralph Sampson.
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Sampson was a highly decorated player in college and was easily a top prospect in the 1982 Draft. However, Ralph had one preference. He would play only for the Los Angeles Lakers over any other team.
“It doesn’t look like we’re going to get anything accomplished. All the reports we get are that he’s not coming out unless he comes to the Lakers,” Lakers general manager Bill Sharman said via the Washington Post at the time.
The coin flipped Sampson’s script
Being only in his junior year, the 7-foot-4 specimen knew he had options though.
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The San Diego Clippers crowded the Lakers for the top pick of the 1982 Draft. A coin flip determined who would get the rights to the top pick and most believed Sampson would be it.
The Lakers tried to pull out all the stops in trying to secure the rights to the top pick of the 1982 Draft. Unfortunately, the Clippers didn’t budge, turning down ridiculous offers the Purple and Gold sent their way. One of them involved six million dollars for the right to get the top pick, which was an absurd amount of money for 1982.
The Clippers were aware of Sampson’s talent and argued that San Diego would be a good place for him to play. This was pointed out by Clippers general manager Ted Podeski who had a keen interest in the Virginia native.
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“Los Angeles has made us a wonderful offer and we know that would be a wonderful place for him to play,” San Diego General Manager Ted Podleski said yesterday. “But we feel that San Diego is not a bad consolation. We’ve got something cooking here. We’ve got a pretty good young team that we’d like to improve.”
Aware of the consequences, he opted to pass on the 1982 Draft and stay with the Virginia Cavaliers. He wasn’t willing to take the risk and wanted to play only for the Lakers.
Sampson regrets not taking the risk
When the coin flip happened, the Lakers ended up winning the toss. With Sampson out, they ended up selecting James Worthy of North Carolina as the top pick of the 1982 Draft and the history now shows it was an amazing pick for L.A.
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It was a missed opportunity for Sampson to wear the Purple and Gold uniform. He admitted he got worried about the coin flip but wished he had approached things differently back then.
“I would have weighed the situation differently because of the facts involved. At the time, I had a 50-50 chance when I didn’t know where I was going to end up and I think had a hundred percent chance at Virginia to be successful, get my degree, which I did,” Sampson stated in 1984.
Ralph would instead enter the draft in 1983. He would be selected by the Houston Rockets as the top pick in that year’s class.
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When he officially played his first NBA season, Sampson showed why there was growing interest in him. He averaged 21.0 points and 11.1 rebounds in his first year as a pro and went on to win the Rookie of the Year award.
Unfortunately, his talent was not enough to lift the Rockets in his rookie year. Houston failed to qualify for the playoffs, racking up a woeful 29-53 win-loss card.
The succeeding seasons got better, especially with the addition of Hakeem Olajuwon in 1984. The Twin Tower combination of Sampson and Olajuwon pushed the Rockets to the 1986 Finals but fell short of winning the title against a powerhouse Boston Celtics team.
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Sampson’s career tumbled in 1987
Sampson played well in his first four seasons for the Rockets but things took a bad turn in 1987. A knee injury would alter his career and his performance would decline.
The Rockets would end up trading the 1985 All-Star MVP to the Golden State Warriors that same year and Sampson just faded. He became a journeyman from there. Aside from the Rockets and the Warriors, Ralph also had stints with the Sacramento Kings and the Washington Bullets.
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It is anyone’s guess if his career would have been better had he taken that risk in 1982. Playing alongside Kareem and having Magic Johnson as their point guard, one could just imagine how dominating L.A. would have been.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared.