History WhatCouldHaveBeen / Sports

** This one is also a WCHB for Bakhtiari as a player. Before the injury, he was seemingly on his way to earning a place in the Hall of Fame and had just signed a contract to become the highest paid offensive lineman in the NFL; since the injury, he's played just 13 games in three seasons and his future is uncertain, as while he's still as good as he ever was when he's on the field, any team that adds him to their roster will have to weigh this against the question of how often he'll actually ''be'' on the field.

** To start, the entire 21 year dry spell could've been averted: after the Rams left, all the other NFL team owners voted to fund a new stadium for the Raiders in Inglewood next to The Forum so that the Raiders could move out of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (which had been damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake and was too big for games to be at capacity). But the league added a stipulation to the funding contract that the Raiders had to share a stadium with another team (either relocated from another city or an expansion team), and Raiders owner Al Davis wanted to keep the team's new stadium all to himself, so when the city of Oakland gave them a lucrative offer to move back, Davis left the team behind. Had Davis been more willing to accomadate another team in that stadium, we wouldn't even have this section. [[note]]In a bit of irony, the land where the Raiders' new stadium would've gone ended up being used for [=SoFi=] Stadium anyways![[/note]]

** The pick used by the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2017 NFL Draft to select Patrick Mahomes originally belonged to the Bills, who traded it for KC's first round pick in that draft and the following draft[[note]]Those picks ended up being CB Tre'Davious White and LB Tremaine Edmunds. Edmunds never made a huge impact and wasn't re-signed when his rookie contract expired, White is one of the best defensive backs in the league and while that's great he's still not a MVP winning quarterback[[/note]]. This more or less worked out for the Bills in the end as they drafted QB Josh Allen 7th overall the following year[[note]]not to be confused with the ''defensive end'' [[OneSteveLimit Josh Allen]] who went #7 overall in 20''19''[[/note]], but still, what if they had taken Mahomes? Does he become a bust? (Mahomes was regarded as a "project quarterback" before the draft.) Do the Bills end up winning the Super Bowls the Chiefs won? What happens to Allen if the Bills don't draft him?

* Another WCHB in college basketball: what if UsefulNotes/CaitlinClark had followed her family's preference and chosen to play for Notre Dame, instead of staying in her home state of Iowa? In fact, she had verbally committed to Notre Dame, but soon reconsidered.

* When Magic Johnson announced he had HIV in 1991 and went into early retirement from it (only playing in the 1992 NBA All-Star Game by fan request and the 1992 U.S. Olympic team because of Michael Jordan eventually joining the team), the NBA world wondered what might have been for the rest of his career in terms of how long he could have lasted for the Lakers as a player and how much greater his legacy could have been had he not caught the sexually transmitted infection that sent the world into a frenzy at the time. It also didn't help that he was thinking of returning with the Lakers for the 1992-93 season and played with them in that preseason period before a cut he had in a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers gave people pause for concerns that his blood would give another player HIV as well, which forced Johnson to leave the team after that game. While Johnson eventually returned to play for the Lakers in 1996 (after briefly coaching for them in 1994), though being a few months shy from being teammates with Kobe Bryant in his rookie season, many fans knew he wasn't the same player by then, to the point where he ended his playing career first with the rebranded Magic M7 Borås (now Borås Basket) in Sweden for the 1999-2000 season and then in Denmark for the Magic Great Danes in 2000.

** Not to be outdone in terms of long-term impact, the Timberwolves hired David Kahn, former businessman associated with the Indiana Pacers, to be their new President of Basketball Operations in 2009. In that same draft year, Kahn drafted three different point guards with the three first-round selections they had that year, including back-to-back selections at picks #5 & #6[[labelnote:*]](Ricky Rubio was selected 5th, while Jonny Flynn was their next selection at #6 and then later selected Ty Lawson (though traded him to Denver) at #18)[[/labelnote]]. While none of those three were ever considered All-Stars (with Ricky Rubio, the best player of the trio, being considered a decent/good, but not great player), the kicker is the guy that they missed out on that got selected one pick after Jonny Flynn... that was UsefulNotes/StephenCurry. The Hasheem Thabeet bust note below will mention other All-Star caliber players taken afterward, so there's no further need to go into other players there. However, before Kahn decided to resign from the Timberwolves in 2013, Kahn made further selections that became busts in later years like Wesley Johnson, Luke Babbitt, Trevor Booker, and Lazar Hayward in 2010 and Derrick Williams in 2011. While future selections made have been a mixed bag after Kahn left the Timberwolves by the end of the 2012-13 season, those failed selections not only played a hand with them having a failed tenure when Kevin Love was their leading player for them (eventually being traded to later win a championship with Cleveland), but also having a dysfunctional team that led to Jimmy Butler leaving them after he helped get the Timberwolves to the Playoffs in 2018... after failing to get in the Playoffs since their Western Conference Finals appearance back in 2004.

* One of the great missed opportunities of recent basketball history is that UsefulNotes/LeBronJames and the late Kobe Bryant, probably the two most celebrated players of the post-Jordan era, never faced each other in the NBA Finals.[[note]]The closest we would ever get to having one was in 2009, when both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers were in their respective conference finals. Cleveland lost to the Orlando Magic, who ended up facing the Lakers in the Finals, and the Lakers won in five games. By the time James won his first title -- as a member of the Miami Heat in 2012 -- the Lakers' latest (and most recent) dynasty had came to an end, and Bryant was in the twilight of his career. While James made several trips to the Finals, The Lakers never made the playoffs in Bryant's final three seasons in the league.[[/note]]

** On a similar note, the unexpected tragedy of the event combined with it happening weeks before the 2020 All-Star Weekend led to not just certain events in it having last-minute changes, but also introduced more permanent changes to its All-Star format, which included not only the All-Star MVP Award being named after Kobe Bryant (and later an award given in honor of both Kobe and Gianna through the players that most help promote girls and women's basketball, including the WNBA), but also introduced a more permanent All-Star Game change where after playing the first three quarters of the game properly (with each team given money to the charity of their choosing for each quarter won, including any ties had), the first team to score a final 24 points in the fourth quarter (or equivalent to it if trailing) in memory of Kobe Bryant (who wore 24 around the second half of his career) would win the game instead. While introduced under tragedy, the All-Star Game itself received positive fanfare for the fourth quarter modification in that game, with fans saying it got players motivated for it and caring about defense there again.

* One of the NHL's first teams in its entire existence was the Montreal Wanderers, who were previously one of the most successful hockey teams in the sport's earliest moments in Canada. Being Stanley Cup winners from 1906-1908 and 1910, the Wanderers looked to continue as serious contenders in the NHL's first year of existence, looking to appeal to Montreal's English-speaking people as an alternative to the French-speaking people that the Canadiens had. However, they started out with a 1-3 season in the league's 1917-18 inaugurial season before a fire at the Montreal Arena (their home arena) occurred on January 2, 1918. With the Montreal Arena burned down and no genuine help from the new NHL occurring, the Wanderers forfeited their next two matches that were set at home before folding altogether. Despite that, one does wonder how the Wanderers would have faired not just in that season, but beyond that had they gotten the help needed to rebuild their arena or have a proper, temporary home for the rest of that season (like sharing the Jubilee Arena with the Canadiens for the rest of the season or until further notice), especially since they had gotten Hall of Fame goalie Hap Holmes on board to try and help reverse their misfortunes earlier in the season.

* Augusta National Golf Club is the site of the Masters Tournament, the first major of the men's golf season. But one of its co-designers, the legendary Bobby Jones, pitched it to the United States Golf Association as a US Open venue. When the USGA rejected the pitch, Jones helped create a new event in its place, the Augusta National Invitational, which would be renamed the Masters Tournament after a few years. Since then, Augusta National has morphed into a wide-open, colorful and ultra-groomed course which often yields many dramatic birdies and eagles every year. On the other hand, the US Open and its venues are better known for thick, punishing rough with ragged bunkers and many winning scores at or over par.

** Shorty after his final retirement became official, the 49ers and head coach Kyle Shanahan weren't fully on board handing the QB keys over to the untested Brock Purdy just yet (who was the final pick of the 2022 Draft and was just coming off a surprise run to the NFC Championship game with Purdy after succeeding Brady's planned successor in Garoppolo), made a last ditch attempt to convince Brady to come out of retirement and play for his hometown team, while giving the promising young Purdy a mentor at QB. Brady turned them down, primarily to take a part-time ownership role with the 49ers' former Bay Area rivals Raiders (now residing in Las Vegas), while revealing that his football playing days were behind him. But what if Brady had decided that he still had it in him and to take one last shot at a record 8th Super Bowl with a stacked 49ers squad? The 49ers likely would have prevented the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes from winning their second consecutive Super Bowl and becoming a Dynasty, with Brady as the QB.

* The Jimmy Garoppolo trade to the San Francisco 49ers is a big one for the New England Patriots, was almost the Tom Brady trade given that it was a pivotal decision where there were strong opinions on both sides. Garoppolo was drafted by the Patriots in the second round of the 2014 draft as the heir-apparent to Creator/TomBrady, but ahead of the 2017 season (the final season of Garoppolo's rookie deal), Brady was showing no signs of slowing down, while Garoppolo made it clear he would not accept a contract extension that would keep him as an indefinite backup to Brady. The Patriots were then faced with a critical choice that would shape the future of the franchise: would they let Garoppolo go and keep Brady as the starter for the foreseeable future, or would they trade Brady after 2017 in order to hand the starting job to Garoppolo? Head coach Bill Belichick, who usually gets to make the calls in personnel decisions, wanted to do the latter (as later revealed in interviews, Belichick was willing to send Brady to his hometown 49ers to honor his lifelong dream of playing for them), believing that Garoppolo was good enough to take the reins and that the long-term stability that Garoppolo (nearly 15 years younger than Brady) offered was worth taking the risk, but team owner Robert Kraft overruled Belichick and subsequently forced him to trade Garoppolo to the 49ers as a further show of commitment to Brady (and because it allowed them to get something in return as opposed to losing him for nothing in free agency). Brady won one more Super Bowl with the Patriots, but ended up leaving the team just two years later to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (where he would win his record 7th and final Super Bowl), which led to a dismal 2020 season and only middling success ever since for the Patriots; meanwhile, Garoppolo took the 49ers to Super Bowl LIV and the 2021 conference championship, but also missed significant time in 2018, 2020, and 2022 with injuries, leading to something of a roller-coaster trajectory for the 49ers, and this ultimately led to him being released ahead of the 2023 season, landing with the Las Vegas Raiders (also for one season, despite him signing a three-year deal) before the Raiders would cut him loose. In the years since, the hypothetical alternate reality where Belichick got his way in 2017 has been a topic of discussion among NFL fans. Would the Patriots still be an AFC powerhouse if they'd had the smoother transition, or would they have been the ones dealing with a perpetually-injured quarterback while watching Brady succeed with the 49ers? Keeping Garoppolo also likely means no Mac Jones (although the 49ers ironically drafted Garoppolo's intended successor, Trey Lance, in the same draft where the Patriots took Jones, so the possibility isn't completely nonexistent), but given his sharp decline after a solid rookie year, Patriots fans would probably be okay with that tradeoff. Meanwhile, assuming Brady did in fact end up with the 49ers, what happens with the 49ers if their quarterback is Brady rather than Garoppolo, and how does that impact other teams? Of particular note here is the Kansas City Chiefs, as they have ''three straight years'' (2018-2020) where the outcome of their season was intertwined with some aspect of this hypothetical: they lost to Brady and the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship, beat the 49ers with Garoppolo in Super Bowl LIV, and then lost to Brady and the Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV. On one hand, they might not win their first Super Bowl in the modern era if Brady was under center for the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, but they also potentially make it to the Super Bowl a year sooner if the 2018 Patriots didn't have Brady in the AFC Championship (which the Chiefs only barely lost even ''with'' Brady on the other side). As for the 2020 season, Tampa Bay probably isn't in the Super Bowl in the first place if they don't have Brady, so the Chiefs would face some other team, with the Saints and Packers (both of whom were eliminated by the Buccaneers in the postseason) the most likely candidates -- but then, if Brady is with the 49ers (and stays healthy like Garoppolo couldn't), the Brady-led 49ers are right in that mix as well. The Miami Dolphins are another team that would likely feel the impact of this alternate history, as a 49ers team with Brady probably doesn't make the massive trade-up for Trey Lance in the 2021 draft, meaning the Dolphins don't get the haul of picks they've used to shape their roster in the years since.