Would Megadeth be better if Kerry King was still their guitar player?

Kerry King, the guitarist for Slayer, was asked in a recent Q&A session with readers of Metal Hammer magazine in the United Kingdom who he would choose if he could have played in any other band. 

I was almost in Megadeth. I think if myself and Dave Mustaine could have co-existed for four years, it would have been a very different band. I’m not saying I’d have made them better – I’d have made them different. It’s funny. I was backstage at Mercyful Fate’s show in Las Vegas and got talking to Hank Shermann, and said to him, ‘I thought you guys might come knocking’, and you could see his head explode. ‘It never fucking occurred to me!’ I’m a huge Mercyful Fate fan so I’d have done that in a heartbeat. I’d also love to play with Judas Priest. That brief second where Richie got sick and they suggested going out with one player, I thought if they called me and said, ‘Can you be that one guitarist?’, I honestly don’t think I could, because they’re such a dual guitar band. Thankfully they never did it, but if they’d have asked, I think it would have been the hardest ‘no’ of my life.

In a 2015 interview with Loudwire’s “Wikipedia: Fact Or Fiction?” signature series, Kerry previously discussed his brief experience with Megadeth during the band’s early days, when King played the second guitar for the band during its first five gigs. 

I was one of the lucky people — and there’s certainly no offense against Kirk Hammett; Kirk’s a wonderful friend of mine — but I was lucky enough to see Metallica with Mustaine. And I say that because it’s just a rare thing to be able to say that. I saw them play with Woodstock [in Los Angeles], and I was so intringued by Mustaine, because he was just ripping on guitar and looking out that way somewhere. And I can’t do that to this fuckin day. So I was just blown away at his guitar playing. And to find out — I think it was through B.C. Rich, ’cause we all played B.C. Rich back then… I think it was through B.C. Rich I found out that Dave was inquiring if I would play. At the end of the day, I thought, ‘This is a gigantic learning situation.’ And I also thought people would see me and know me from Slayer. ‘Cause, I mean, we only went to the Bay Area; we only got up there. So I think if people saw me, it would at least make ’em think, ‘Slayer.’ So I had Slayer’s best intentions in mind. I didn’t go and say, ‘Hey, I wanna be in Megadeth.’ I don’t know how anybody can be in Megadeth for more than a couple of hours, ’cause that guy’s crazy.