Back in 1991, I became friends with Dwayne McClain, who some would remember was the leading scorer in the 1985 NCAA Championship game for Villanova when they beat Georgetown. Dwayne had come down to Sydney to play pro ball (and wound up being called at the time "the Michael Jordan of Australia"). He did a tremendous amount of good for the league down here.
Anyway, I asked Dwayne about Len, and what type of player he was. Dwayne sighed and said "he was a cross between Dominique Wilkins and Michael Jordan. The guy was absolutely phenomenal. He would block hook shots, skyhooks, you name it and have his hand ABOVE THE BACKBOARD when he threw shots out. Offensively, he could do it all - run, dunk, shoot, pass, you name it. Had he lived, he could have turned into the greatest player of all time - no lie".
Even so many years back, I still remember hearing the news of Bias' death and feeling absolutely sick to my stomach. Here we were, just coming off the greatest season by any team in NBA history, with the best player in the world (who at the time was called the best ever), we draft a kid who was potentially the next great one, who would be that bridge to the future and take us to more titles, and within 24 hours everything changed.
It's taken the franchise more than 20 years to recover from the events of that day in 1986 - thank God we eventually got Danny and Doc and a fantastic ownership group to make the KG and Ray trades happen and we have now reclaimed our rightful place as one of the NBA's marquee teams.
But still, I wonder what might have been. Len Bias was potentially a once in a lifetime ballplayer and could have wound up being Larry to Michael Jordan's Magic, the one guy MJ never had in his career - a genuine competitor and rival at the same level he was.
Under the circumstances, it's maybe one of the most tragic stories in sports history.