Ferry was a solid NBA player but no where near the expectations he had coming into the league. He was viewed as Larry Bird 2.0 at Duke. He ended up being a poor mans Detlef Schrempf.
Strategically it was terrible judgment by Embry to trade Harper. Why would you consider trading a 6'6 young, dynamic scorer and defender at SG that can match up against the best player in the league? There were concerns he was hanging around the wrong people but who really knows about that. Gund and Embry put too much stock in that and convinced themselves they needed to get out from Harper before he spiraled out of control. Obviously he did not go down the wrong path and ended up having a long career that saw him get into exactly zero trouble.
Who knows if he would have had that knee injury if he stayed in Cleveland. That injury robbed him from being a perennial all star and potentially a hall of famer. But he transformed his game to be the key glue guy on many of Jordan's championship teams.
If they kept that core of Price/Harper/Nance/Hot Rod/Daugherty together for another 3-5 seasons, I guarantee we would have made it out of the east at least once and maybe have a championship banner hanging next to 2016.