Len Bias

I missed this Wilbon column from a couple of weeks ago... I was able to see him in a game vs. Virginia and he was everything and more. I think Wilbons right in saying Bias would have changed NBA history.
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Remembering Len Bias


By Michael Wilbon

Wednesday, November 19, 2003; Page D01


There's no place in the nation that will remember him as vividly as we remember him here, the way he evolved from a young colt into a thunderous player before tragically betraying his own promise. It may stun you to know that yesterday would have been Len Bias's 40th birthday, which is reason enough to reflect.

We observed the first anniversary of his incomprehensible death, then the fifth anniversary, which seemed like yesterday, then the 10th. Now here we sit, 17 years later, wondering as many of us have wondered all along what might have become of his life. His career in professional basketball would certainly have ended by now. Perhaps Bias would be waiting for induction into the Hall of Fame, perhaps he'd be on TV analyzing basketball games, or simply enjoying retirement. Either way, on Tuesday he'd have celebrated a milestone birthday instead of a few of us in Washington and Boston observing it posthumously.

Reminded Bias would have turned 40, Jay Bilas, now ESPN's college basketball analyst, fell momentarily silent on the telephone. Bilas entered Duke the same year Bias entered the University of Maryland, played against Bias for four years, and barnstormed with Bias in the days before the 1986 NBA college draft, the days immediately before Bias died of a cocaine overdose in a dorm room on the College Park campus.

"My heart sank just hearing it would have been his 40th birthday," Bilas said. "For people of my parents' generation, they mark time by when President Kennedy was assassinated. For me, and I think for many people who are about this age, I mark time by the death of Len Bias. We knew exactly where we were when told he had died. . . . I had just played in some barnstorming games with him, and to us he was a superman, an indestructible super stud.

"I'm not going to say we were in awe of him when we were on the court because we knew we could have success against him in a game," Bilas continued. "But, my goodness, he was remarkable. . . . I guess I was at that stage of my life when I figured out that not all men are created equally. It makes me sad just thinking about the waste of it."

In covering Maryland basketball for this newspaper in the early and mid-1980s, I watched just about every game Bias played his first two years, and most of the home games he played as a junior and senior.

Washington and Boston are the places where folks don't easily shake Bias's death. He lived and died here, and was supposed to pursue greatness in basketball in a Celtics uniform. I never once walked into Cole Field House in College Park after his death without thinking about Bias. Not many athletes have come from here with as much talent and promise. The giddiest time in my career came in the early 1980s when, while covering college basketball for The Post, I was able to see, live and in color, the developing careers of Ralph Sampson, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Reggie Williams and Bias.

Sampson, Ewing and Robinson were picked No. 1 overall in the NBA draft. Bias went No. 2 and Jordan went No. 3.

Bias was the one I found most irresistible to watch. He had the best jump shot of the group. "It was totally pure," Bilas said of the way Bias could rise off the floor, straight up with no lean whatsoever, over any defender. His release and rotation were perfect, and came at the height of his jump. Bias couldn't handle the ball as well as Jordan, but he was every bit as explosive, and at least two inches taller, at 6 feet 8.

"The only thing Len couldn't do," Bilas said, "was put the ball on the floor and get all the way to the basket off one foot."

But Bias could jump every bit as high as Jordan, could throw it down with at least as much force as Ewing. "He was just so damn good," Bilas said. "He hung 41 on us in Cameron one night. . . . He and I came into college with about the same ranking. . . .

"But as we grew older, as he got better from his freshman year to sophomore year, I remember thinking, 'I'll never be that good. . . . I'll never be able to do what he can do.' He really knew how to play. He never talked a lot of noise, never pointed a finger at anybody, even though he'd dunk on you and leave his crotch in your face. He was just a man of steel to us."

As Mike Krzyzewski told columnist Bob Ryan: "This is my 24th year at Duke. And in that time there have been two opposing players who have really stood out: Michael Jordan and Len Bias."

He would have changed the game, you know. Bias would have altered the course of NBA history for sure. He would have joined a defending champion Celtics team with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish up front, Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge in the back court. Bias would have practiced with Bird and McHale every day, would have been shaped by their way of playing the right way. And in short time, Bias's presence in the lineup would have allowed Bird and McHale to play fewer minutes. Bird's back likely wouldn't have given out so quickly, McHale wouldn't have had to play so many playoff minutes on a busted ankle. Both would have almost certainly been healthier for a few more seasons.

That means the Bad Boy Pistons probably would not have existed, not in championship form. They wouldn't have gotten past the Celtics. The Lakers wouldn't have won in 1987 and '88. Perhaps Magic would have gotten them past the Celtics one of those years, but not back-to-back. And Chicago's run would have started in, oh, '92 or maybe even '93, and Jordan probably wouldn't have retired for the first time, at the end of the '93 Bulls Threepeat.

You know how history has noted Michael Jordan never had a rival in the NBA? Len Bias would have been Jordan's rival. "My feeling," Coach K told Ryan, "is that [Bias] would have been one of the top players in the NBA. . . . He could invent ways to score and there was nothing you could do about it."

So guys like Ryan and Bilas and me, or for that matter anybody who watched Bias with awe during his college years, are left to wonder, sometimes to fantasize about what would have been, what ought to have been.

I was sitting at my parents home in Chicago, about to begin vacation, when my friend Gary Pomerantz called me from The Post newsroom on the morning of June 19 and said, "Sit down. Seriously, you'll need to sit down before I tell you this. Len Bias just died."

They're the most chilling words I'd ever heard, at least until Sept. 11, 2001.

It's almost too much to take in now, too overwhelming, too sad to contemplate for very long. So instead of picturing Bias at age 40, his hairline receding and waistline expanding, it's better just to remember him as we last saw him on the court, in Maryland jersey No. 34, rising, flicking that jumper, maybe dunking and landing on the shoulders of 7-foot North Carolina center Brad Daugherty. Maybe reliving the fabulous times are as good a 40th birthday present as we can offer him.

 

The sad thing is, there are a bunch of these stories... maybe not at Bias's level, but how many HS/street greats have there been that either screwed up, got injured, or couldn't catch a break?

 

I can't argue with what you say but I will tell you there was a vibe off of Bias that wasn't ever there for Sampson. Pre-pro players I've seen and had that vibe on: Dumars, Drexler, Bias. Players I've seen that I didn't have that vibe on: Perkins, Kenny Smith (who was very good in college), Sampson, Sheed and a bunch of other ones.