"Remembering Len Bias"

["Jim Hill" <jahill199@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wonderful article on Len Bias.  Whew, what a tragedy for his family,
basketball and the C's.  <Jim

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.
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