Remembering Len Bias

YouTube - Len Bias highlights

YouTube - 1985 : David Robinson and Len Bias go at each other

YouTube - 1986 NBA Draft: Len Bias

you already know what some of the responses are going to be, don't you?

you already know what some of the responses are going to be, don't you?

No what are they?

I can't believe it's been almost 25 years. Crazy

I was only 7 when he died, so I don't really remember him as a player. I do however remember how shocking the news was. I've heard a few people say he would have been right up there with Jordan as the league's most dominant player from the mid-80's through the 90's.

I see that he died on June 19, 1986. So out of curiosity, why today for this thread?

No particular reason. I just knew him that's all.

So I'm a huge Celtics fan and also UMD grad (tho not at the time this happened). I'm stationed with the USAF in Japan, Celtics have just won the '86 champ. My boys are all kind of sick of hearing about it too. Bias gets drafted and I'm on cloud 9. I come into work and they tell me Bias died, I don't believe it and figure they're just giving me some $hit.....needless to say when I found out it was true I felt the same way as when Sean Taylor was killed.

Great player. Huge tragedy. The Celtics would probably be working on championship 21 or 22 if Bias hadn't died.

No particular reason. I just knew him that's all.I feel so bad for his family, losing his brother as well. I lived in the condos between NWHS and PG Plaza for a few years and walked across that parking lot all the time to go to the mall.

The highlight films of him are impressive. He was a specimen. Such a shame.

I was only 7 when he died, so I don't really remember him as a player. I do however remember how shocking the news was. I've heard a few people say he would have been right up there with Jordan as the league's most dominant player from the mid-80's through the 90's.

That's one way of looking at it. The other is this. Suppose he lived that night after using cocaine. Who's to say that wouldn't have been the beginning of a terrible descent into drug abuse for Bias and his career would have been a shell of what it could have been like other great who couldn't overcome rampant drug abuse. Guys like Michael Ray Richardson and Roy Tarpley.

I'm just saying he was absolutely dominant as a college player, and in a way it's nice to think "Poor guy could have been one of the greatest ever if only he had lived." At the same time though, it's not too hard to think it might have been just as sad a story had he lived.