Len Bias, Patron Saint of Coke Fiends

I hesitate to besmirch the dead, but the hypocrisy surrounding the 20 year deification of Len Bias, and the complete misinformation surrounding his death and his abilities as a player, demand balance. This was the hardest piece I ever had to write. Indeed, I didn't want to write this, but after seeing the piece of video sap on ESPN Sportscenter (and the phony hushed tones of that Stuart Scott wannabe who introduced it), and then reading this misguided, poorly argued, hyperbolic, piece of absolute manure from ESPN's resident sychophant and alleged journalist "Scoop" Jackson, I had to rebut. Or at least someone had to rebut, and why not me? (SIDEBAR: By the way, how much of a brown nose is Jackson? Here's the interchange prefacing his question to Dwayne Wade at a recent NBA Finals postgame press conference. Wade: "What up, Scoop?" Jackson: "Oh, yo, what up, D." Yeah, I could just imagine the same thing happening to Skip Bayless, couldn't you? I almost puked when I heard it.)

Back to the issue at hand. What specifically irks me about the 20 years of misleading Bias coverage? Two things.

(1) The way Bias is constantly memorialized in language befitting an assassinated head of state, not a man who recklessly abused and died from ingesting an insane amount of cocaine.

Upon every significant anniversary of Bias' death you can count on articles stating the most ridiculous things like "He did not die in vain" or "he's done so much in death", as though he purposely ingested 3 to 5 grams of cocaine in one sitting just so he could keel over and thus make himself a sterling example for young people. Hey Kids: Don't do 20 lines of coke in one night! It could be dangerous!

My God, Jay Bilas even said he marks time by the death of Len Bias in the same way people of another generation marked time by the death of JFK. Are you shitting me? The guy took, by the examiner's account, 3 to 5 times the lethal dose of cocaine! He wasn't shot by some guy with three names or the same first and last name!

Why do we treat Bias in such reverent terms when other cokers and reckless jocks get no mercy? To answer that you have to remember the news coming out of Maryland after his death. The attitude toward Bias was shaped not only by the Bias worshipers in the Boston and Washington media, but also from two lies irresponsibly disseminated by the press in the days and weeks following his death.

The first was that Bias was not a drug user, that somehow this was his first time using cocaine. This was a steaming pantload. Besides the fact that the US Justice Department has called deaths such as Bias' "exceedingly rare" among first time users, the evidence established in a Maryland courtroom totally destroys the myth of 'First Time' Lenny ("Oh, gee, is that white pile over there cocaine? Think I could try a gram or five?").

The first piece of debunking evidence, established in the trial of the man who supplied the cocaine (a subsequently convicted major coke dealer named Brian Lee Tribble), was that, as mentioned above, Bias ingested a very large amount (3 to 5 grams) of cocaine. I spoke with some medical professionals I know and they unflinchingly confirmed what any fool should suspect: a guy simply cannot inhale a mountain of cocaine unless he has built up a tolerance over time and through chronic use. There is no question, then, based on the amount ingested on that night by Bias, that he was a world class blowmeister. (Indeed, when Tribble told Bias to slow down because he was snorting too much Bias laughingly replied "I'm a bad motherfucker! I can handle anything!" The words of a one time user?) Another debunking fact established in the Tribble trial was that Tribble was a "longtime friend" of Bias (indeed, it was he and Bias together who brought the coke over and woke up the others involved and invited them to partake). How many people do you know that are simultaneously (a) friends with a major coke dealer and (b) not riding the train? I'll answer that for you: Zero!

The second major lie surrounding Bias' death was told by the emergency room doctors who treated him on the night he passed. They reported that Bias died from ingesting crack cocaine. That bit of misinformation had an enormous influence on public opinion (and on public policy, which I won't get into). Indeed, that put a whole different spin on things, because at that that time crack was new on the scene. As such it was misunderstood and much feared. The impression thus given by those who blamed crack for Bias' death was that he died from a lethal substance whose deadly effects he, like the rest of the public, had not yet fully comprehended. In other words, "it was the crack's fault, not Lenny's". In this way he was made to look like the victim of an evil force rather than an unconscionably reckless drug abuser. (Of course, when it was later established that he in fact died from the powdered variety of the drug, government documents say this fact was conveniently "overlooked".)

I can't stand the hypocrisy of it all. We treat Len Bias as some kind of sacred victim and then we jump ugly on guys like Chris Washburn, or Roy Tarpley, or Steve Howe, or Dwight Gooden, or any number of other guys who have had their careers wash out as a result of drug indulgence. Where is the difference between those villified characters and Saint Lenny? Are those guys worse because none of them ever saw fit to administer themselves a lethal dose? I don't get it. On to my second beef.

(2) The gross exagerration of Bias' collegiate accomplishments and his professional potential

If you were to read the press accounts concerning Bias' basketball skills you would have to conclude he must have been Michael Jordan's clone. HE WAS NOT! I cannot emphasize that enough. He was not even close to being in Jordan's class. I actually remember watching him play. He was not Michael Jordan! (He did not 'dominate' the ACC, either, as some assert. Maryland finished below .500 in conference play his final year).

You don't even need to rely on my memory as proof either. A close reading of the descriptions of the fools who compare him to MJ gives away the ghost. They say he was a taller Jordan, but then the only thing they mention about him that was similar to Jordan was his leaping ability. All of the descriptions are some variation of this: Bias had a better jump shot (though he was only accurate from mid-range) but could not get to the basket like Jordan, could not handle the ball like Jordan, and was limited on his drives to the basket because he could only jump off two feet. Do you see what they are all unwittingly describing? A player similar to Kenny "Sky" Walker, the fifth pick in that same fateful 1986 draft.

In fact, Bias and Walker were quite similar in many ways. They were nearly identical size, they were both incredible leapers, neither could handle or pass at all (Bias was a turnover machine at Maryland), and both finished school with eerily similar career numbers. What I'm trying to say is, it was far more likely that Bias, rather than being the next Jordan, was slated for a middling career similar to Walker's.

Another piece of evidence pointing in the direction of a less than great career for Bias is provided by basketball guru, Dean Oliver. He says that "players that do not perform well as freshman in college can turn out to be good NBA players, but rarely do they become great. (see here)".

I cannot explain why that would be so, but the historical record overwhelmingly backs his assertion up. And Bias, by any fair account or by simple statistical evaluation, had a poor freshman season. Again, not conclusive of how he would have fared as a pro, but surely another bit of evidence calling into serious question the validity of these counterfactual suck pieces that have Bias cast as a would-have-been Hall of Famer. (Michael Wilbon has even asserted that Bias would have prevented the Pistons from capturing their two titles in the late Eighties. What a crock of shit. I cannot believe Piston Nation has not risen up and bitchslapped him for this bit of anti-history. Where are you Matt? Ian?)

Even Larry Bird, who initially had such high hopes for Bias, later (in 1987) admitted Bias most likely would have done more harm to the Celtics than good had he lived. "I would hate for him to come into this situation if he were on {cocaine} because then, that might have been the biggest blow that we couldn't overcome. . . . A guy like that could have come here and destroyed our team if he was on cocaine."

This post is not written against Len Bias. It is written against the sports media and its arbitrary, often counterfactual, always hypocritical, myth machine. In fact, I say God bless Len Bias. But don't we pay him greater homage by remembering him for the flawed man that he was, rather than the misfortunate saint that some wished he had been?