Shawn Bradley, the 7’6″ former Brigham Young star, signed an eight year, $44 million deal with the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers. It happened on July 30, 1993.
The Sixers were hoping to follow the pattern set by the Orlando Magic who the previous year signed Shaquille O’Neal to a slightly less generous pact. ($35 million, seven years). O’Neal won the rookie of the year award, practically by acclamation, and went on to have a spectacular twenty-one year NBA career. Things did not turn out quite so well for Bradley and the Sixers, although amazingly, he managed to hang around the NBA for sixteen mediocre seasons.
Earlier in 1993, the Sixers selected Bradley with the second overall pick in the draft. Ten players who were drafted after Bradley scored more points more during their NBA careers, including such luminaries as: Rodney Rogers, Lindsey Hunter, and Calbert Cheaney.
The list of even better known players from the Class of ’93 who were drafted after Bradley includes:
Sam Cassell (24)
Allan Houston (11)
Nick Van Exel (37)
Vin Baker (8)
Jamal Mashburn (4)
Anfernee Hardaway (3)
Isaiah Rider (5)
At the time Shawn Bradley signed his contract with Philadelphia, he hadn’t played a competitive game of basketball for two years.(He was on a Mormon mission in Australia.) Prior to that, he played one season for Brigham Young averaging 14.8 points and 7.7 rebounds per game.
Sixers general manager Jimmy Lynam defending his choice of the inexperienced Bradley, said that he was “”arguably as good an athlete at that size as we’ve ever seen.”
Rachel Shuster’s assessment of Bradley proved to me more prophetic than Lynam’s who who compared him to Bill Walton. “The game flowed through Walton. He was the focal point for everything. Shawn can be, too. He has terrific hands, he sees others so well, he can make others better.”, Lynam said. Shuster didn’t buy it. She wrote in USA Today, when Bradley signed with Philly, “Bradley is a project in the truest sense of the word, an athlete with skills (14.8 points, 7.7 rebounds, 5.2 blocked shots a game at BYU) who lacks bulk and conditioning.”