Yesterday, Len Bias would have turned 50 and perhaps he would have been looking back on a stellar NBA career.
Unfortunately a cocaine overdose at the tender age of 22 put paid to a promising future for the 1986 draft pick for the Boston Celtics.
Seen as the future of the franchise and heralded as the "closest thing to Michael Jordan", Bias died two days after being drafted as a second pick by the Celtics. His death was a moment which shook the NBA and the city of Boston, with his life immortalized in the 2009 ESPN 30 For 30 documentary Without Bias.
Tonight Off The Ball spoke to legendary Boston Globe sportswriter Bob Ryan who interviewed Bias on the night he was drafted by the Celtics, which also happened to be 24 hours before he died.
"I well remember him in his brand new grey suit and the Boston Celtics baseball hat and his father beaming in the background," said Ryan.
"He was soft-spoken and facially, he reminded me of Nat King Cole. He was just a college kid and thrilled to be a member of the Celtics. Remember the Celtics had just won championship No 16 a few days earlier. He was absolutely ecstatic."
Ryan firmly believes that Bias would have become a second level perennial All Star who would be the next great star for the Celtics.
However, 24 hours later he was found unconscious in his dorm at the University of Maryland after returning home from a party.
"What we know is that he went home and partied with some friends. And the party consisted of cocaine. But it will forever be a mystery because the truth has been shrouded about whether it was a first time or whether [taking cocaine] was far from a first time," said Ryan.
"I do know this much. His coach was Lefty Driesell and I had interviewed him prior to the draft. I can still hear his words on the subject of Len Bias and he said 'Len Bias always bites his ice-cream' and we thought that was a nice, friendly line. I don't know what his acquaintance with cocaine had been. But there was an overdose, there was heart failure and he did die. It was beyond stunning and there was nothing to prepare us for this. He seemed as if he had a pristine image."
Ryan suggests that there was a cocaine problem in the NBA during the 1980s in parallel to the general problem in the population during that decade.
And he believes that Bias' death was a "milestone" which could have deterred many people from using the drug in the future.
But the tragedy did not end for the Bias family as his brother was murdered a few years after Bias' death.
And the Boston Celtics' decline began around that period ending only when they won a championship again in 2008.
Off The Ball also spoke to the director of Without Bias Kirk Fraser who felt that the film brought some level of closure for the Bias family.
"What I realized in the process of making this project was that the people close to him never had closure. It seemed like this documentary actually gave closure to a lot of people because this was the first time a lot of people got to speak about it."
