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Still Haunted by Len Bias
By Bill Simmons
Page 2 columnist
Editor's Note: This column originally ran on June 20, 2001. Page 2 is republishing it in 2006 in remembrance of Len Bias' death 20 years ago.
Yeah, I still think about him.
Sometimes
I see red. That's the color of Maryland's uniform when Lenny Bias won
me over for good, the February day he tossed the Terrapins on his back
and toppled the No. 1-ranked Tar Heels by himself. Given that my team
(the Celtics) was holding a potential top-five pick in the '86 draft
that summer, I almost broke an ankle hurling myself onto the Bias
Bandwagon. There was one play when Bias drained a 15-footer, then came
flying back in to steal the inbounds pass and dunk the ball behind his
head, fluidly, all in one motion. I can't even really describe it. When
somebody makes The Leap right before your eyes in sports ... well, you
remember. You always remember.
Sometimes I see brown. That's the color of a Spalding basketball as it
falls into the hands of Larry Bird. The Man is still in his prime --
goofy mullet, wispy mustache, almost bored by it all, searching for
little challenges during games to maintain his interest -- and he's
jogging upcourt and bouncing that brown ball. Suddenly he spots Bias
one stride ahead of the pack. Their eyes lock. What the hell? The Man
lofts a lazy halfcourt pass in the air ... the ball looks like it might
sail over the backboard and into the stands ... but then there's Bias
gaining steam, soaring through the air, rising higher and higher ...
and Good God, he might actually get to that thing ... and the brown ball hangs up there, forever...
Sometimes I see green. That's Draft Day 1986. A green Celtics hat
crammed on Bias' head, millions and millions of green dollars ahead of
him, green with experience, holding up the green and white uniform ...
nothing but green. That smile on Draft Day, will the image ever
completely fade away? Did anyone seem happier, ever? He looked like a
little boy, didn't he? Can you still see him? I can. I see that smile
and I see miles of green.
Sometimes
I see white. That's a pile of cocaine on a coffee table. Maybe it
happened this way, maybe it didn't, but I always imagine Lenny Bias
turning that Celtics hat around so the bill of his cap wouldn't dip
into the pile ... then I imagine him sticking his face into it like
Tony Montana. He's happy, he's celebrating, he's kicking butt and
taking names, he's feeling like he could bench-press Luther Vandross,
he's the life of the party, he's suddenly a millionaire, he's the next
James Worthy, he's the heir apparent to Bird in Boston, his prime
awaits, and he's utterly and completely invincible. And he crams his
face into that white pile. And he takes the Celtic Dynasty with him.
Sometimes I see gray. That's the color of the concrete on Wyndover Lane
in Stamford, Conn. -- the street where I lived as a kid -- which is
relevant since I wandered up and down that street for an entire
afternoon on the heels of Bias' death. It took me six hours to digest
everything that had happened, my first real experience with sudden
loss. Once ESPN started flashing those "Len Bias is dead" graphics that
morning -- the "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" moment for all
Boston/Maryland fans -- I spent the first few hours in utter denial.
Did it really happen? Is it true? Is it possible they screwed up? Are
we absolutely, positively -- positive -- that he's dead? Can they give him CPR one last time? Is this a joke? Is this even possible?
I finally ended up storming outside during the middle of the afternoon
-- June 19, 1986 -- and paced up and down Wyndover Lane for three
inexplicable hours. I'm not kidding. Three hours. I walked up. I walked
down. I walked up. I walked down. Rinse, lather, repeat. Just a
16-year-old kid looking for an answer. All I found was gray. You can
drive yourself crazy thinking about it. And you know what? I almost
did.
Yeah, I still think about him.
I thought about him last February, when ESPN Classic showed that
aforementioned Maryland-UNC game from '86. You forget how good Lenny
Bias was. For example, back in '86, Mike Tyson was invincible, Eddie
Murphy had his fastball, Don Johnson was the coolest man on the planet
and Michael Jackson didn't look like an alien. Hoosiers hadn't even
been released yet. Wayne Gretzky and Bird were basically the kings of
sport. Ronald Reagan controlled the button. Kids were still playing
Intellivision and Atari. Fifteen years is a long time; maybe it's easy
to forget
As for Bias, he always reminded me of a more physical James Worthy, but
with Michael Jordan's leaping ability, if that makes sense (other than
MJ and Dominique Wilkins, nobody in the 80's attacked the basket like a
young Lenny Bias). But those weren't even the qualities that separated
him from his peers.
There
was a brashness about him, a swagger, a playground vibe. Remember,
these were still the days of tight shorts and awkward high fives; few
players were cool, and the ones who were cool -- David Thompson, Gus
Williams, Clyde Drexler, Bernard King, Dominique, etc. -- were more
subtle and unassuming than anything. Jordan might have embraced that
playground demeanor had he attended a school other than North Carolina,
where Dean Smith frowned on anything that could be perceived as
"showing up the opposition."
When Bias' same playground swagger became fashionable in
the '90s -- thanks to the UNLV guys, the Fab Five, the post-dunk
woofing, the baggy shorts, the trash-talking and so on -- it seemed
much more contrived, almost like the players were saying, "Hey, look at
me!" Nothing about Lenny Bias was contrived. He went out of his way to
dunk on people. He grabbed rebounds and spat out an occasional
"Arrrrrrggggggghhhh!" for show. He barked at his teammates, he barked
at referees, he barked at opponents. He exhibited a refreshingly honest
amount of passion and heart.
Quite simply, he stood out. And if he had arrived on the scene
seven or eight years later, I'm sure he would have been wearing baggy
shorts and woofing it up just like everyone else, but that's the
beautiful thing about this -- not just that Bias arrived when he did,
but that he wasn't contrived. Even if he ended up with a team other
than the Celtics in '86, I would have kept rooting for him. Lenny Bias
was ahead of his time.
So that UNC game on ESPN Classic reminded me of these things,
all of them. Other than Jordan, no basketball player from the '80s
resonated with the black community quite like Bias. He reminded them of
everything that they valued about the game itself -- the breathtaking
athleticism, the competitive fervor, the individuality, those
occasional mano-a-mano duels where territories were staked and
reputations were made. He belonged to them, a black man excelling in a
black man's game. And seeing him in action with Maryland, his whole
life ahead of him ... well, I had to turn the channel and watch
something else.
I couldn't take it.
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Maybe
it happened this way, maybe it didn't, but I always imagine Lenny Bias
turning that Celtics hat around so the bill of his cap wouldn't dip
into the pile ... then I imagine him sticking his face into it like
Tony Montana. He's happy, he's celebrating, he's kicking butt and
taking names. ... And he crams his face into that white pile. And he
takes the Celtic Dynasty with him. |
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I thought about him last March, when the Utah Jazz came into Boston to
play the Celtics, I glanced at my program before the game and noticed
that Karl Malone was playing in his 16th season for the Jazz. That
triggered a Bias flashback for me because the Mailman had entered the
league in '85, a year before Bias, well ... you know.
Would Bias still be chugging along, much like Malone? Would he
have stayed clean? Did he have a drug problem in the first place? Was
that awful night at Washington Hall just an aberration? Would he have
approached the 32,000 points and 15,000 rebounds that Malone compiled
over the course of his career? What would he look like? Would he still
be playing in Boston? Would he have a few tattoos? Would he have a
shaved head? Would we call him Len or Lenny?
Finally my girlfriend nudged me, snapping me out of my stupor.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked me.
"Nothing," I said.
I thought about him later that same month, when I was cleaning out my
office and found a yellowed feature that I had written for the Boston
Phoenix back in December of '95 called "The Curse of Lenny Bias" -- a
piece which described every dreadful moment that happened to the
Celtics since Bias' death. You won't find a more vivid example of a
single tragedy altering the destiny of a sports franchise. The Celtics
has just captured their third championship in six years, they were
bringing back the Big Three (Bird, McHale and Parish) in their
respective primes, and they were adding the most explosive college
player in the country. Within 48 hours, Bias was dead; the franchise
would eventually follow suit.
It happened slowly. The champions limped through the regular season in
'87, with Bird and McHale logging big minutes from October to June and
carrying them to another appearance in the Finals (a painful loss to
the Lakers in six, and yes, the Celts were a player short). McHale
injured his foot during the last month of the season, returned for the
playoffs, fractured that same foot and, incredibly, kept playing on it.
He was never the same player again. And Bird's body was never the same
after that season; over the next few years, he started to break down
like the Bluesmobile.
How many titles would Bias have been worth? How many years would he
have added to the careers of Bird and McHale? Is it safe to argue that
the addition of Len Bias to the '86 Celtics would have locked up at
least two or three more titles in the '80s? We'll never know.
The
bad luck continued through the '80s and into the '90s. Bird and McHale
broke down for good during a brief resurgence for the team in '91, the
last time the Celts ever truly contended for a title. Red Auerbach
slowly faded from the scene during that time; many believe that a
little piece of Red passed away in '86, given that Red was a staunch
Bias supporter during his Maryland days.
Reggie Lewis dropped dead in '93 and sent the franchise into permanent
doldrums; not only did the team lose its only All-Star caliber player,
but the ensuing "Did he or didn't he use drugs?" soap opera cast a
shadow over the next few seasons. Suddenly the team was hampered by
salary cap problems and inept management. Once the Boston Garden was
pushed aside by the Fleet Center in 1995, the glory days of the Celtics
disappeared for good.
My "Curse of Bias" piece from '95 ended with an anecdote from
former Celtics general manager Jan Volk, who remembered a moment before
Opening Night in November 1986, the same night the Celtics handed out
championship rings and raised the '85-'86 championship banner. About
two hours before the game, Volk noticed a piece of paper sticking out
from a cushion of the sofa in his office. Curious, he pulled out the
piece of paper and found that it was an unused plane ticket with Lenny
Bias' name on it. The team had given it to him during his post-draft
visit to Boston, about 12 hours before his death.
"It must have fallen out of his jacket that day," Volk told me.
"To find that ticket on the same night we were raising the '86 banner
... it was eerie. It really was."
Makes you think, doesn't it? Did the Sports Gods decide that
too many good things happened for the Celtics over the past few
decades? Red, Cousy, Heinsohn, Russell, the Jones Boys, Cowens, Hondo,
McHale, Parish, Bird, 16 titles ... when they stumbled into the second
pick of the '86 Draft and Lenny Bias in '86, did the Sports Gods throw
their hands in the air and say, "Enough is enough!" Does stuff like
that actually happen?
These are the things you think about when you're holding a yellowed page with Lenny Bias' picture on it.
I thought about him last April. A college buddy of mine and I
were discussing Shawn Kemp's battle with cocaine, which landed him in a
drug rehab program right before the NBA playoffs were about to
commence. Neither of us could understand why a professional athlete
would even mess with cocaine after Lenny Bias's death.
"I remember when Bias died," my friend said, "that put the fear of God in me."
"Me, too," I agreed. "Everyone was like that. It was like
this giant brainwashing of all the teenagers at that time -- don't do
coke. Len Bias was like a human anti-drug ad."
"Maybe that was his legacy."
"Yeah, maybe it was."
And we moved onto another topic ... but I found myself thinking
about it later that night. Why did that have to be Lenny Bias's legacy?
Why couldn't they have chosen someone else?
More importantly, 15 years later, why did I still care?
I
thought about him last week. My girlfriend asked me about the topic of
my next ESPN.com column, so I told her I would be writing about Lenny
Bias. Who was that? she asked. So I told her the whole story. She
soaked in everything, finally piping in, "I can't believe that he died
two days after they drafted him. That's unbelievable. (pause) I mean,
isn't that unbelievable? Has anything like that ever happened before?"
Having just finished recounting the sordid saga, I found
myself nodding in agreement. It's the same way I feel whenever I
remember the fact that Red Sox pitchers threw 13 different pitches that
could have won them the 1986 World Series. That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable. You couldn't make that up. And you couldn't make up the sequence of events that shaped the last 48 hours of Lenny Bias' life.
Imagine having the greatest day of your life. Imagine working towards a
goal for years and finally having it come to fruition. Imagine
celebrating for two straight days with your family and friends. Then
imagine you got a little carried away, and in a flash -- boom! --
paramedics are trying to revive you, but they can't, and things slowly
start fading to white ... and then you're gone. Imagine.
Later that same day, I received an e-mail from my friend Tim --
a Maryland native and one of the original Bias fans back in the '80s --
warning me about ESPN Classic's impending show about the 15th
anniversary of Bias's death. I wrote him back and explained that I
would be skipping the show, but I was toying with the idea of writing a
column about Bias.
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And
maybe that's what this was really about: in a nutshell, 1) betrayal and
2) sadness. It doesn't happen that often in sports, but when those two
emotions collide for the proverbial kick in the stomach, you remember.
And when that happens in your formative years, you hold onto the
lingering side effects forever -- emptiness, grief, anger,
disappointment, dismay, everything. |
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About 15 minutes later, Tim sent me a return e-mail that ended like
this: "I will look for the Bias article. Truly one of the saddest days
of my life. We all looked up to him."
And maybe that's what this was really about: in a nutshell, 1)
betrayal and 2) sadness. It doesn't happen that often in sports, but
when those two emotions collide for the proverbial kick in the stomach,
you remember. And when that happens in your formative years, you hold
onto the lingering side effects forever -- emptiness, grief, anger,
disappointment, dismay, everything. You harbor those feelings, each of
them, all of them, a permanent grudge. And it doesn't go away. It just
doesn't. And if none of this makes sense . . . well, it never happened
to you.
That's why I avoided watching that ESPN Classic show about Lenny Bias
on Tuesday night. That's why I still have trouble discussing the whole
thing. That's why I feel myself getting angry even as my fingers rattle
on my keyboard at this very moment.
Yeah, I still think about him.
And I hate it.
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