Sports Friday Extra: The Len Bias Curse
The Celtics, whom I worshiped as a kid, have been miserable for many, many years. You can trace their decline back to 1986 when they outfoxed a bunch of teams and manuvered to get the second overall pick in the draft. They selected the great Len Bias, a 6'8" forward from Maryland. He was going to be their ticket to sustained greatness for the next ten years.
The problem is, he accidentally killed himself with an overdose of cocaine two days after the draft. The Celtics have never recovered.
The Celtics, whom I worshiped as a kid, have been miserable for many, many years. You can trace their decline back to 1986 when they outfoxed a bunch of teams and manuvered to get the second overall pick in the draft. They selected the great Len Bias, a 6'8" forward from Maryland. He was going to be their ticket to sustained greatness for the next ten years.
The problem is, he accidentally killed himself with an overdose of cocaine two days after the draft. The Celtics have never recovered.
Labels: Sports
posted by MoChassid @ 10:03 PM
3 Comments:
At 10:01 AM,
Joe Schick said…
Agree about the impact of Bias' death. However, it's not accurate that the Celtics "outfoxed a bunch of teams and manuvered to get the second overall pick in the draft." They had made a trade a few years earlier (I believe with the Sonics) for a 1st round pick and had gotten extremely lucky when the Sonics were terrible in 85-86.
At 10:34 AM,
MoChassid said…
Joe, that's not my recollection but I'm sure you are right. I will look it up if I can.
They have been cursed ever since.
At 3:07 PM,
MoChassid said…
"...on Oct. 16, 1984, general manager Jan Volk had orchestrated a deal that sent guard Gerald Henderson to the Seattle SuperSonics for their '86 first-round draft pick. The idea was twofold: 1) Open up more playing time for Danny Ainge; and 2) Hope that the Sonics would deteriorate and ultimately provide the Celtics with a prime pick."
Washington Post, June 20th 1986
The Sonics won only 31 games that year and got the second pick in the lottery.
Remember that the Celtics still had Bird, Ainge, Walton, Parish and McHale.
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