If you ask Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranidive who his real choice was for his team's number eight pick back in 2014, he would give you a different name from who they ended up selecting.

According to the 59-year-old owner, he liked another player who worked out for them before the draft but was forced to say a different name. This was because the majority decided to take a different player and he was willing to support whatever most of them agreed to do. As they say, all-for-one and one-for-all.

In a recent Q&A with Sam Amick of USA Today, Ranidive talked about what transpired that night and denied any involvement in trying to persuade his front office personnel to select his personal choice, Elfrid Payton, over who they wanted, Nik Stauskas:

“So what happened, and again – these guys didn’t want me to talk about this. I’d had another player who had tried out for us that I had liked, and that I had thought was great. And by the way, I’ll tell you, it was (Orlando Magic point guard) Elfrid Payton. But everybody else wanted another player – (Nik) Stauskas (now of the Philadelphia 76ers). And so they told me to say (Stauskas), and obviously I’m not going to say that I wanted Payton but they picked Stauskas. I made a big deal of all-for-one and one-for-all, so ‘Whatever you guys decide, I’m going to say yeah to Stauskas.’ That got put on camera, but what was I going to say, that ‘Hey, I don’t agree with their choice?’ Even now, with Vlade, I have a private joke with him, that if his choices don’t work out with him in a couple of years, that he’ll be shaving his head.

“So if you see Vlade with a shaved head in a couple of years, you’ll know what happened. So look, I trust these guys to make the decisions. Obviously as a fan, I may have opinions, but a lot of the stories are just simply categorically untrue.”

It would have been interesting to see how things panned out if Payton ended up in Sacramento at the point guard position is where they lack depth. After seeing Rajon Rondo leave them in this year's free agency after one unfruitful season with them, they are left with only Darren Collison and Garrett Temple to man the one spot, which is definitely a big step-down from the former all-star of Rondo.

Stauskas did not last long with the Kings as he was traded after his rookie season. In contrast, Payton has become the undisputed starting point guard of the Magic and has had two solid seasons averaging 9.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists in 29.9 minutes per game.