Basketball, Listed

A dedication to basketball history, catalogued and presented in convenient list form.

Ode to an athlete dying young: 11 NBA or ABA players who passed away during active careers

These players had varying degrees of skill, success and experience in the NBA or ABA, but all had one thing in common: they were taken from us too soon.

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1) Len Bias, 1986

When Bias passed away at the age of 22, his capacity for greatness had to be instantly exalted as limitless. Polite societal regulation of how we honor the famous and dead was followed. So why was his name also immediately dragged through the mud? The stigma of drug use, especially a drug like crack cocaine with its “Black” connotations, was heightened to a fever pitch in 1986. The War on Drugs was declared in America in 1971, but it was Bias’ overdose 15 years later that pushed it into the public consciousness in a way that was impossible to ignore and caused untold amounts of damage to millions of Americans caught up in its wake. It’s therefore difficult to separate Bias the symbol from Bias the man, but Bias the player truly was an incredible basketball talent. He dominated the ACC in his junior and senior seasons at Maryland, and people at the time (not just in retrospect) were comparing him to Michael Jordan in terms of stature. We’ll never know, of course, just how good Bias would have been with the Celtics but we’re all too aware of the legacy his death still carries.

2) Bobby Phills, 2000

As was their custom following morning shoot-arounds, Hornets teammates and friends Phills and David Wesley left the arena to grab breakfast together. It’s unclear what happened next but it ended in Phills’ death at age 30. Police claim the pair were racing in their cars, which Wesley continually has denied. Either way, they were both speeding when Phills lost control of his vehicle, swerving into oncoming traffic and crashing into another car. The other driver and several bystanders suffered only minor injuries but Phills was killed almost instantly. Dismayed and grief-stricken, his Hornets teammates recovered well enough to make the 2000 playoffs but bowed out in the first round. Wesley escaped charges of street racing but was found guilty of reckless driving. He was never quite the same player but did last seven more seasons, most of them with the Hornets. Charlotte retired Phills’ #13 jersey just a month after the accident, while his father took over managing his charitable foundation.

3) Terry Furlow, 1980

Considering the bacchanalia that surrounded the NBA in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it surprising there aren’t more cases like Furlow’s, whose death sounds like something out of a VH1 Behind the Music episode. A first round pick of in 1976, Furlow pinballed from the 76ers to the Cavaliers to the Hawks to the Jazz in his four NBA seasons. He averaged 10.7 points per game over that span but also quietly developed a reputation as unreliable. Following the ’79-’80 season, Furlow was in Cleveland for a former teammate’s birthday party when he crashed his car on the interstate, colliding with a steel pole and dying instantly at age 25. Traces of cocaine and Valium were found in his bloodstream, a revelation that shocked friends and family and served as another black eye for the NBA. Furlow’s tragic death didn’t do much to stem the drug use and alcoholism running rampant through the league but he was fondly remembered by family, friends, teammates, and coaches.

4) Reggie Lewis, 1993
5) Jason Collier, 2005

Shock waves reverberated throughout the sports world in 1990 when Loyola Marymount All-American Hank Gathers died due to complications from a rare heart disorder. His family successfully sued the university and the team’s doctor but little was done by the NCAA or NBA to prevent future similar incidents. Three years later there was Lewis, a 27-year-old star for the Celtics, losing consciousness during a playoff game. He was diagnosed as cardiomyopathic, meaning that strenuous exertion could prove fatal and his basketball career should be over. But Lewis was able to seek a second opinion that granted him license to continue his career and just a few months later he was dead, collapsing on the court during an off-season workout. Though Lewis’ death did increase awareness of heart conditions in young athletes, the issue remained prevalent for years. Case in point is Collier, a center for the Hawks who passed away in the 2005 offseason, with autopsy results showing an abnormally enlarged heart that should have been diagnosed in previous physicals. Eventually, the NBA and most major pro sports added checking for abnormal heart conditions as a key component of player physicals, one that has saved many lives.

6) Eddie Griffin, 2007

It was all too apparent in retrospect that Griffin never wanted to be a basketball star. He was involved in an altercation at his Philadelphia high school and expelled, then he punched a teammate during practice at Seton Hall, got suspended, and left after just one season for the NBA Draft. Despite his obvious temperamental issues, Griffin was a #7 overall pick and granted numerous chances to success. He was named 2nd-Team All-Rookie and put up decent stats in his first two seasons in Houston but also was arrested multiple times, including for assault, and had a habit of missing practices and team flights. When the Rockets waived him, Griffin checked into rehab, signed with the Nets upon emerging, then was cut before ever playing with New Jersey after an incident in which he drunkenly crashed a wedding reception. The Timberwolves gave Griffin one last chance, which did last over two seasons until he was waived following a drunk driving incident. A few months later, Griffin was three times over the legal alcohol limit when he crashed his vehicle into a moving train, possibly in a planned suicide, ending his life at age 25.

“As much as [Drazen] Petrovic’s upbringing prevented him from being heavily influenced by the NBA, his own career continues to hold a legacy over international players, especially those from the former Yugoslav republics.”

7) Wendell Ladner, 1975
8) Nick Vanos, 1987

One of the deadliest commercial air disasters in U.S. history, the 1975 crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 66 claimed the lives of 112 passengers and crew members. This included the 26-year-old Ladner, who had just finished his fifth season in the ABA with the Nets and was flying back to New York after visiting his parents in Mississippi. His body was quickly identified by authorities due to the ABA championship ring on his finger, earned with the Nets in ’73-’74. Ladner was also a two-time All-Star and had appeared in the 1973 ABA Finals with the Kentucky Colonels. 12 years later, an even deadlier commercial flight crash claimed the life of an NBA player, Vanos. A 7’1″ center with the Suns, Vanos was about to enter training camp for his third NBA season when he took a trip to Detroit with his fiancee to visit her parents. The flight back to Phoenix crashed immediately upon takeoff, killing 156 passengers and crew members and leaving only one survivor, a four-year-old girl. Vanos’ #32 jersey was soon after retired by his alma mater Santa Clara, and a scholarship program for Phoenix students was established by the Suns in his honor.

9) Malik Sealy, 2000

It was a significant moment for Kevin Garnett in 2013, when he was traded to the Nets and got to wear jersey #2 for the first time in his NBA career. That was the number donned by his former Timberwolves teammate and close friend Sealy. During the ’99-’00 season, Sealy attended a birthday party for Garnett in downtown Minneapolis, then was struck by a drunk driver on his drive home and killed at age 30. Named after Malik Shabazz, a.k.a. Malcolm X, for whom his father was a bodyguard, Sealy was an eight-year NBA veteran and renaissance man, pursuing further interests in acting, fashion, and music production (he founded the New York based Baseline Studios, where numerous classic hip-hop albums were later recorded, including Jay-Z’s The Blueprint). Garnett’s sartorial tribute to Sealy had to wait so long because the Timberwolves immediately retired the #2 jersey and it was further unavailable in Boston due to its retirement in tribute to Red Auerbach. Sealy’s is buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in his hometown of New York, alongside his namesake and idol, Malcolm X.

10) Ricky Berry, 1989

In the summer of 1989, Berry seemed to have it all. He was young (24 years old), talented, bright, and making big money, having just finished his rookie season as a first round pick of the Kings. He came from a good home, with a father who was his coach at San Jose State, was a loving father himself to his three-year-old son, displayed no signs of depression, and mostly abstained from alcohol, let alone drugs. Then, one night he had a fight with his wife, who spent the night with a friend to cool off. When she returned to their idyllic home the next morning, she found Berry dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A suicide note was left and though it has never been made public, it’s been reported that Berry cited his struggling marriage as the impetus of his decision. Already a seemingly star-crossed franchise at that point, the Kings fell into even further disarray after losing a player in Berry who was a terrific shooter and ball handler with the potential for an All-Star level career. Soon after his death, Berry’s #34 jersey became the first ever to be retired by San Jose State.

11) Drazen Petrovic, 1993

It’s quite possible that Petrovic wasn’t even aware of the NBA growing up in Yugoslavia in the ’70s, let alone the possibility of playing in it. But he did just that in 1989, joining the Trail Blazers three years after the team drafted him. His transition to the NBA from the EuroLeague was slow but steady and by ’91-’92, Petrovic was a star player, averaging 20.6 points per game for a Nets team making its first playoff appearance in six years. Meanwhile, his native country was crumbling, dissolving amongst a civil war in 1991, leaving Petrovic as a citizen of Croatia. In the summer of 1993, he was playing for his national team in qualifying for the FIBA European Championships, when he opted to catch a ride back from Berlin to Croatia with his girlfriend. Petrovic was sleeping in the passenger seat when their car was struck on the Autobahn by a truck that had lost control and he was killed instantly in the collision (his girlfriend and another passenger in the vehicle both survived with injuries). Tributes poured in from all over the world, including from his former Yugoslav teammate and estranged friend Vlade Divac. As much as Petrovic’s upbringing prevented him from being heavily influenced by the NBA, his own career continues to hold a legacy over international players, especially those from the former Yugoslav republics.

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