Thursday is draft day in the NBA and draft day usually makes for interesting stories. Here's one, though, that goes beyond interesting. It's about a seemingly simple phone call that changed the destiny of the NBA for two decades. It affected two NBA dynasties and 11 NBA championships ? five by the Lakers and six by the Chicago Bulls.

I had lots of important calls during my six-year tenure as the Lakers' general manager from 1976-82 but the one I will always remember the most was from Rod Thorn, then general manager of the Chicago Bulls, in 1979.

It triggered a remarkable chain of events that determined the teams Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan would play for.

Thorn, now the president of the New Jersey Nets, called a few weeks before the 1979 draft. At the time, the Bulls had the first pick in the Eastern Conference because they had finished last. The Lakers had the first pick in the Western Conference, a pick we got from the New Orleans Jazz as compensation for their signing Gail Goodrich the previous year.

In those days, a coin flip decided which conference got the first pick. And that year it was the Western Conference's turn to call heads or tails.