Revisionist history can be a dangerous thing. It is incredibly easy to allow the inevitability of time to play out, and react to it like you had a fortuitous intuition as to its probability. It’s much harder to allow those events to unfold and admit you were completely wrong about what would transpire from the outset. This is a scenario I am intimately familiar with as someone who often makes prognostications about what will happen over the course of an NBA season, and admittedly I have had only modest success at that task at best.

Telling the future is hard.

But, that’s exactly what NBA teams are asked to do every June when they are forced to decide on which player will be the best fit for their organization for years to come. The NBA Draft has been labeled as “the ultimate crapshoot”, and it has certainly lived up to that billing, especially once you begin to look back at some of the famous mistakes that have been made over the years.

No draft in recent memory embodies this fact, and lends itself to revisionist history, better than the one that took place in 2011. It had some of the biggest “busts” in the modern NBA, but it also had some of the most prominent “boom” picks in the lower-half of the draft bracket.

If teams were magically granted the power of perfect foresight and omnipresent knowledge, it is amazing how much the face of the league could have been altered. Let’s take  a look in more detail at what could have been, as I break down how I believe teams should have drafted in retrospect.

Swing And Miss

If the 2011 NBA Draft were to be re-drafted today, only five of the players taken in the lottery (top-13) would still be taken within that range today. Kyrie Irving (1) would still be taken with the top pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Brandon Knight (8) and Kemba Walker (9) probably move up a couple of slots and are taken by the Toronto Raptors and Sacramento Kings respectively. Klay Thompson (11) would likely be taken with the number two overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves. And Markieff Morris (13) moves up a couple of slots and gets taken at 11 by the Golden State Warriors.

That means that eight players drafted with a lottery pick in 2011 would not be taken that high today. Derrick Williams (2) moves down to the lower part of the first round and gets taken with the 25th pick by the Boston Celtics. Enes Kanter (3) moves down to the 14th pick, and gets selected by the Houston Rockets. Tristan Thompson (4) goes to the Indiana Pacers at 15. Jonas Valančiūnas (5) drops to 17 and is picked by the New York Knicks. Jan Vesely (6), one of the bigger busts in recent memory, doesn’t get drafted at all. Bismack Biyombo (7) drops significantly and goes to the Chicago Bulls at 27. Jimmer Fredette (10) drops out of the first round altogether. And Alec Burks (12) drops to 19, going to the Charlotte Bobcats.

Other notable players selected in the first round that would drop to the second round, or wouldn’t be drafted at all, are Chris Singleton (18), Nolan Smith (21), MarShon Brooks (25), Jordan Hamilton (26), and JaJuan Johnson (27).

The Hidden Gems

Six players taken in the second round in 2011 would unquestionably be first-rounders if teams had a mulligan.

Bojan Bogdanović (31) moves up 10 slots and goes at 21 to the Portland Trail Blazers. Kyle Singler (33) also moves up 10 spots to 23, and gets drafted by the Rockets. Shelvin Mack (34) moves to 27, and goes to the Brooklyn Nets.  Chandler Parsons (38) makes the second biggest jump out of all players, and moves up into the lottery, going to the Kings at 10. Jon Leuer (40) moves up 10 spots to the Bulls. And the biggest hidden gem of the entire draft goes to Isaiah Thomas (60), who would move up into the top-10, going to the Detroit Pistons at 8.

The New Lottery

As mentioned previously, if done again, only five players would remain in the lottery if redone. That means that eight players were taken way too high, but it also means that eight players were taken way too low. If done again, the lottery would have an entirely different face.

I have already mentioned that Kyrie and Klay would be one and two respectively. Jimmy Butler (30), would likely move up to the third overall pick, and would have been drafted by the Utah Jazz. Kawhi Leonard (15) would have been taken by the Cavaliers at pick four. Knight goes five. Nikola Vučević (16) goes six to the Washington Wizards.  Walker and Thomas go seven and eight. Tobias Harris gets picked ninth, going to the Bobcats. Parsons and Morris go 10 and 11 respectively. Kenneth Faried (22) moves into the lottery, and gets picked at 12 by the Jazz. And Nikola Mirotić (23) gets picked by the Phoenix Suns at 13.

A Completely Different League

Many of the players I have mentioned have become embedded into the modern NBA as recognizable and well-loved stars, and a few have even become transcendent players making incredible, franchise-changing contributions. Redoing the draft, and moving these players onto different teams, would have wide-reaching, lasting effects for several teams specifically.

In this scenario, the Warriors don’t end up with Thompson, but instead get Morris, a nice, but comparatively insignificant piece. It’s hard to imagine them being able to reach the heights they have this year without one half of the “Splash Brothers.” On the other hand, pairing Thompson with Ricky Rubio in a backcourt in Minnesota, in combination with a Kevin Love-led frontcourt, may well have improved that team to a point where they could have actually retained Love long-term, and improved that franchise’s prospects significantly.

The Cavaliers still end up with Kyrie in this alternative reality, but they also land Leonard instead of Thompson. Who knows what impact this would have had? It is doubtful that Leonard develops into the player he has become outside the San Antonio Spurs system, but assume for a moment that he does, and that becomes an incredible addition to that team.

But what happens to the Spurs? As we know, Kawhi was part of a draft day-deal that sent George Hill to the Pacers. A trade for Kawhi becomes impossible in this scenario because the Cavaliers would already have their future point guard on the roster in Kyrie. Maybe in this case, Hill remains a Spur and they don’t appear in two NBA Finals, not winning their fifth title, thereby expediting the demise of the “Big 3.”

The Jazz pick up Butler and Faried in this revised draft, likely expediting their rebuilding process significantly. Maybe the Jazz hold onto Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap in this reality, giving them incredible frontcourt depth, one of the deadliest starting lineups in the league, and they have embedded themselves as heavyweights in the Western Conference.

There is a virtually never-ending list of ramifications that we could go through. Kyle Lowry doesn’t join the Raptors with Knight on the roster. The Kings have Walker and Parsons, and they have no need to go after Rudy Gay, and maybe they hold onto Tyreke Evans. The Wizards don’t slow down their rebuild by taking Vesely, and with Vucevic in the center, they have no need to go after Marcin Gortat.

It frankly gets a bit too mind-boggling to dive into with much more depth.

Of course, we all know that hindsight is 20/20, and it is all too easy to second-guess decisions made in the past, but this just goes to show you how amazingly unpredictable the NBA Draft is and how many implications it can have on every franchise’s future. That’s why we see teams go to incredible lengths to stockpile draft picks, and treasure them as their most prized assets.

But, I guess looking at how often teams fail to capitalize on their draft picks makes me feel better about my prognostication skills. Maybe I should make as much money as NBA executives do.

Hey, a man can dream right?

Court Zierk is a Columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @CourtZierk, “Like” him on Facebook or add him on Google.