Respected American radio host and basketball analyst Stephen A. Smith has fired up a 17-year-old debate by declaring that the 1994 Chicago Bulls would have won their fourth consecutive NBA championship had it not been for a "bogus" call from a referee.

The decision by referee Hue Hollins was made in the final seconds of game five in the Eastern Conference semi-finals and led to New York Knicks guard Hubert Davis winning the game from the free-throw line with 2.1 seconds remaining. 

The Bulls at this time were playing without Michael Jordan following his first retirement.

"When Scottie Pippen was going up against the New York Knicks, and had that bogus call by Hue Hollins called against him, the Chicago Bulls would've won it all that year. They got robbed," said Smith, in a debate with Skip Bayless on ESPN's ‘1st and 10'. 

The Bulls eventually lost the series in seven games, the home team winning every game in the series, while the Knicks advanced to the next round where they then got past the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, before losing to the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals. 

The call has been subject to widespread debate and scrutiny over the last 17 years. 

Had Chicago been able to win a championship without Jordan, and with Pippen as the team's go-to-man, it would have represented one of the NBA's most memorable moments of the 1990s. 

The Bulls were expected to fall from their perch in the 1993-94 season. On the back of three straight championships, Jordan had retired from basketball and was playing minor league baseball.

But with the greatest player ever gone, the Bulls still accumulated 55 victories and were marching to the biggest fairytale in basketball history before that one call changed everything. 

In the press conference following the game, Bulls head coach Phil Jackson said, "I've seen a lot of things in the NBA, but I have never seen what happened at the end of the game like that before." 

But Davis, the victim of the foul, said afterwards: "I thought I got fouled when I took the shot." 

With the series tied at 2-2, and the Bulls leading by one point with time winding down, the Knicks had attempted to run a play for Patrick Ewing, but were forced to look for another avenue after the Bulls defence took away the Knicks first option. 

The ball ended up in Davis' hands at the top of the key who launched the long shot with a flying Pippen coming at him. 

And the rest is history.