GritsK9 in a post below lamented what would the 2019-20 team have been if Clax returned. My belief is a deep, deep NCAA Tourney team. Alas, we'll never know.

I often wonder - as I bet Fox does too - what if Thompkins and Leslie had returned for their senior year?

What other player what-if's can you think of?

Indeed. So many cause and effect crossroads in that deal, any one of which had it gone a different direction the last 15+ years of UGA basketball would have been totally different.

Good questions, Monk. I will add, what if we recruited Walt Frazier from Howard in Dekalb County and he accepted?

I was gonna mention Frazier, judge, but the list of players we have lost in-state is really long.

If it wasn't Cole....then some other waste of oxygen would've derailed us because Junior was so careless.

Remember, we dodged a bullet with the post kid who miraculously took a walk-in ACT in New Jersey and doubled (or whatever it was) his score then couldn't replicate it in Georgia.

When you're stupid person (and Junior was), it's hard to not be careless, too.

That's what derailed us. A reckless, careless and stupid proof point for why Nepotism Rules exist in the first place. Senior didn't give a F about the rules. But he was smart enough not to have a PRINTED WIRE TRANSFER receipt in the hands of a loser like Cole. That was Junior.

The fake class situation was meaningless in the grand scheme. It was just bad PR. We only got pinched on that deal b/c a coach told 2 kids to lie to the investigator about it. Instead of leaning into it like UNC did and just say "Yep. This was the class. Suck it."

Better yet....

What if Adams had enforced our nepotism policy when he hired Harrick Sr.

What if 2005 5* G Lou Williams, the overall #7-ranked player in the country, had enrolled at UGA rather than opt for the NBA Draft (2nd round selection)? In 936 NBA games he's avg. 14.2 ppg in 24.6 minutes/game, mainly as a sixth man. One would have to think that Dennis Felton's Hoop Dawgs would have benefited from the play of the Snellville, GA product, who was a UGA signee.

Yeah, funny how Donnan couldn't hire his son and that almost caused him to leave us for I think the UNC job, but he allowed Harrick to hire his son? Course it was probably the Donnan case that pushed Adams/Dooley to allow Harrick to bring in his son. I also think Richt wanted to hire his son at UGA but was not allowed. Interesting to ponder.

To me the biggest what if, what if UK didn't offer Tubby the job after only two years in Athens.

If Williams was going to college, not sure he picks us. He was strongly inclined to go pro when he joined close friend Mike Mercer in committing. (He's also the top scorer in NBA history as a 6th man). And I wanna say his spot when he declared pro went to AAU teammate and other great signing, Billy Humphrey.

How about what if DA Layne doesn't go pro? That not only keeps the scholarship spot filled that went to Tony Cole, solving those what ifs but adds a damn good G and shooter to a 20+ win team. Do we get past Southern Illinois with him and Rashad at G, Ezra and Jarvis on the wing, Jonas, CD, and Steve Thomas inside? Solid 7 man rotation.

His dream school was NC. And again, if he wasn't looking likely to go pro the summer before his senior year, I'd think Roy Williams would have gone after Lou over Marcus Ginyard. And Lou would have been more serious about his school choice than playing out the string before declaring.

I can appreciate him saying those things now. But I can also remember the conversations we had back in 04 and 05.

I find it hard to believe that Williams did not have a committable offer from UNC before signing with UGA. Did he blossom more in his senior year? Looks like he averaged almost 17 pts. per game in 3 big-time HS all-star games.