Let's say Mikan didn't mess up and Big Lew signed with the Nets. 5 - Why Patrick Ewing was the 39th best player ever 4 - Should Bill Walton have won the 1978 MVP? Read some previews from 'The Book of Basketball' as we count down to the official release date of October 27. As Kareem wrote later, 'The Nets had the inside track and had blown it.' Milwaukee swoops in and signs Alcindor for a record $1.4 million. The ABA owners flip out when they realize that Mikan never gave him the check. Alcindor feels insulted and vows never to play in the ABA. So Alcindor's team leaves the meeting wondering why the ABA didn't totally step to the plate.

71 On top of that, they lowball him with a s- offer. It stays in his pocket! Either he freezes or he forgets. For whatever reason, Mikan never gives Alcindor that check. They talk about sticking Lew in New York and maybe even flanking him with a few of his old UCLA teammates. ABA commissioner George Mikan met Alcindor's people next. Okay, so the NBA goes first and makes an offer that Kareem would later call 'extremely good' in Giant Steps. FYI: It's 60 percent off on now - just $12. Order 'The Book of Basketball' from, Barnes & Noble, Borders or IndieBound. Not only will that check prove that we're serious and we don't have financial troubles, but it will burn a hole in his pocket and he'll eventually say yes. The jackasses running the ABA somehow came up with one of their only shrewd ideas: When we meet Alcindor, we'll give him a certified check for $1 million up front as part of whatever offer we make. But he wasn't interested in spending the summer playing the leagues against each another, so Big Lew's team told the ABA and NBA the same thing: We will meet you once, we will listen to one offer, and that's that. How do we know this? He confessed as much in his 1983 autobiography Giant Steps 70 - everything I just told you - and fled Milwaukee as soon as a window opened after the '75 season. Milwaukee held his NBA rights, but Big Lew was more interested in the Nets he grew up in New York, loved the idea of playing near family, found the city's Muslim population appealing and understood the value of a big market. Without ever tipping his hand publicly, Alcindor decided privately that he wanted to play in the ABA. If anything, the ABA should have overpaid for Alcindor and hoped to recoup the money with ticket sales and TV money. Both leagues needed him desperately: the NBA because he was the biggest star to enter the league since Oscar Robertson, the ABA because Big Lew would have legitimized their league, gotten them a TV contract, and forced a merger down the road. When Lew Alcindor finished his UCLA career in the spring of 1969, his family assembled a team of agents and advisers and spent the next few months debating between the ABA and NBA. This excerpt is from a chapter called 'The What Ifs?', in which I rank the 33 biggest NBA 'What Ifs' of all time.

The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons