Top 10 Most Interesting NBA Trade Rumors of the Past 15 Years

Last February, the San Antonio Spurs called the New Jersey Nets in an attempt to pry away Vince Carter. But apparently, the Nets weren't interested in what the Spurs had to offer.

The thought of Carter going to San Antonio sounds rather funny since the Spurs have always been considered boring, and Vince is one of the most exciting players the game has ever seen.

When Clyde Drexler requested to be traded from the Portland Trail Blazers in the middle of the 1994-95 season, reports out of Miami had him going to the Heat for slam dunk champ Harold Miner.

Luckily for Drexler, he ended up going to the Houston Rockets, where he reunited with his college buddy Hakeem Olajuwon to win the title that season.

After the Washington Wizards landed the top pick in the 2001 draft, rumors began to swirl that the team would possibly send the pick to the Vancouver Grizzlies for up and coming point guard Mike Bibby.

Maybe if Michael Jordan, the Wizards GM at the time, had pulled the trigger on that trade, he would be more respected today as an executive.

John Paxson's refusal to trade Luol Deng cost the Chicago Bulls the chance to bring the Memphis Grizzlies big man to the Windy City in 2007.

As of now, the Bulls are still in search of a low-post threat to dump the ball to.

On the day of the 1997 draft, Boston Celtics GM/head coach Rick Pitino thought about trading his two lottery picks, No. 3 and No. 6, to the Chicago Bulls for Scottie Pippen and Luc Longley.

Chicago wanted the picks to draft Keith Van Horn and Tracy McGrady and rebuild for the future.

Rumor has it the trade never came to pass because Michael Jordan didn't approve of losing his veteran teammates for a pair of rookies.

This past February, the Cleveland Cavaliers attempted to get their hands on Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O'Neal in exchange for Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic.

Suns general manager Steve Kerr nixed the deal because he thought to himself, "Who would I rather have, Shaq or Ben Wallace?"

But all joking aside, with Shaq in a Cavs uni, LeBron James would probably have won his first title this year.

Around the 2007 trade deadline, the New Jersey Nets offered the Lakers All-Star point guard Jason Kidd for a package that included young center Andrew Bynum.

But the deal was off the table after the Lakers refused to part ways with Bynum for the aging Kidd.

Too bad—a backcourt of Kidd and Kobe Bryant would have been awesome.

Before the 2007-08 season, Kobe Bryant wanted to get traded to the team his idol Michael Jordan played 13 years for—the Chicago Bulls.

But the L.A. Lakers star later changed his mind after learning that the Bulls would have to give up too much in the deal, which meant there would not be enough talent left in Chicago to compete for a championship.

Before the 2007 draft, four teams—the Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Indiana Pacers, and Boston Celtics—were rumored to be involved in trade talks that centered on All-Star forward Kevin Garnett.

In the four-way trade, the Lakers were to receive Garnett, the Celtics would acquire Jermaine O'Neal, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum would have been shipped to Indy, and Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, and the No. 5 pick in the draft would have packed their bags for Minny.

Supposedly, everything fell apart because the Celtics were unhappy about their end of the deal.

In 1994, Chicago Bulls general manager Jerry Krause reportedly wanted to deal Scottie Pippen out west to the Seattle SuperSonics in exchange for Shawn Kemp.

If that trade had gone down, would Chicago still have won titles from 1996-1998 with Kemp in the lineup instead of Pippen? We'll never know.