“He would have been to Michael Jordan what Larry Bird was to Magic Johnson”. Surely, There is no phrase that honors the memory of Leonard Kevin Bias more: Len Biasthe Celtics’ new hope and a budding NBA star who died on the second day of his professional career. On June 17, 1986 it was drafteado for the Boston franchise, the NBA champion, and on the 19th he died from a heart problem associated with cocaine use. He was 22 years old and he was expected to mark an era and moved the duels he had already had with Michael Jordan to the NBA Eastern Conference in the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) of the NCAA.
The 1985-86 Celtics confirmed themselves as one of the most powerful teams in history in the Finals against the Rockets (4-2) and after passing through the East like a tornado (11-1 against Jordan’s Bulls, the Hawks and the Bucks). It was the battleship of the big three Larry Bird-Kevin McHale-Robert Parish with Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge in the backcourt and Bill Walton, the red giantas sixth man. But with the exception of Ainge (26), the other five were over 28 years old. So Red Auerbach, the forger on the bench of the celtic dynasty in the fifties and sixties and later franchise architect in the offices, He had drawn up a plan to relaunch the team and put it on course for the 90s without falling from the forefront of the league.: In October 1984 he had sent Gerald Henderson to the Sonics in exchange for a first round pick in 1986. He ended up being an invaluable number 2 that the verdes They would invest in Bias, chosen behind Brad Daugherty, an excellent center that the Cavs selected from North Carolina that had been Michael Jordan’s.
At Bias’s funeral, Red Auerbach was one of those who addressed the more than 11,000 people who gathered in Maryland to say their final goodbyes to the local idol who had just left. He assured, excitedly, that he had been operating for two years to obtain Bias and that That had been the hardest blow to the city of Boston since the death of JFK. The shock was general: Bias came from a good, structured and religious family. He had grown up in the suburbs of DC and had spent his entire career around Maryland, from high school to college. In his four years with the Terrapins he went from project to project “very green and undisciplined” to great university star. Twice Player of the Year in the ACC, he scored more than 23 points and 7 rebounds per game in his fourth season.
His total averages in College were 16.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and 54% shooting. Jordan’s in North Carolina 17.7, 5 and 54. They said that It mixed the elasticity of someone who was already a star in the Bulls and the power that Shawn Kemp would later bring. And he did, again in the words of Auerbach, many more things: “He passed, he defended, he had an excellent mid-range shot… he would have been an all-star every season. And he played with passion”. The Celtics were going to have a different type of star than the traditional ones in the franchise. One that grabbed headlines and highlightsa player who brought the stands to their feet with his springs and his muscle.
The death of a dream
But it couldn’t be. In June 1986, Sports Illustrated dedicated its cover to the tragedy: “The death of a dream”. After being chosen with the 2nd in the draft, at Madison Square Garden and by the legendary Celtics who were also NBA champions, Len Bias’s life was cut short in just 48 hours and after making a round trip from Maryland to Boston to meet the Celtics and con Reebok, who offered him 1.6 million dollars for five years.
Back home, he met his friends on the University of Maryland campus. There he got involved with cocaine along with several teammates and his old colleague Brian Tribble. While speaking with Terry Long, another terrapinhad a breakdown. When someone finally called the police (6:32 in the morning) he was no longer breathing. At 8:55 a.m. on June 19, and after several desperate attempts by medical staff at Leland Memorial Hospital in Riverdale, The death of Len Bias was certified due to an arrhythmia linked to cocaine consumption. There were no other drugs or alcohol in his system.
Brian Tribble, Terry Long and David Gregg were charged with possession of cocaine with intent to sell and obstruction of justice. Four years later Len’s brother, Jay Bias, was killed in a shooting at just twenty years old. His parents began social awareness work, the mother against drug use and the father against the uncontrolled use of firearms. By then, Ronald Reagan had already signed a law sentencing to life imprisonment those traffickers whose business could be directly related to the death of consumers. It was known colloquially as the “Len Bias law”.
On that night of June 19, the dreams of a player who was one of the great hopes of the NBA for the generational change that had to follow the reign of the Lakers and Celtics. Many saw his rivalry with Michael Jordan as the beginning of a new duel of colossi in the style of Bill Russell-Wilt Chamberlain and Magic Johnson-Larry Bird. Their confrontations in ACCthe rebellious Maryland against the media-driven North Carolina, had been a sensation throughout the country; a young man from the suburbs of Washington DC challenging the almighty Tar Heels of Daugherty, Sam Perkins and, of course, Michael Jordan, who was already a sensation in 1986 in that NBA in which his great rival who never was never debuted: Len Bias .
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