30 for 30 running thread

[JackReacher]

Didn't see this yet. Simmons's book, of course, has a section on a what-if with Bias. How great the 87 Celtics would have been, how Bird and McHale's careers would have been extended, how Bias would have been a true rival to Jordan, etc.

But if you're doing those what-ifs, isn't it just as likely that he would have flamed out, like Roy Tarpley, William Bedford or Chris Washburn?

Given the talent that was surrounding him, doubtful. Look at the No. 1 picks these days. All of them go to shipty teams and are thrust into being THE MAN right away. Bias was going to a championship team with several HOFers. I think I like his chances of becoming a success.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Didn't see this yet. Simmons's book, of course, has a section on a what-if with Bias. How great the 87 Celtics would have been, how Bird and McHale's careers would have been extended, how Bias would have been a true rival to Jordan, etc.

But if you're doing those what-ifs, isn't it just as likely that he would have flamed out, like Roy Tarpley, William Bedford or Chris Washburn?

Given the talent that was surrounding him, doubtful. Look at the No. 1 picks these days. All of them go to shipty teams and are thrust into being THE MAN right away. Bias was going to a championship team with several HOFers. I think I like his chances of becoming a success.

But was he suddenly going to stop doing coke?

 

[JackReacher]

Didn't see this yet. Simmons's book, of course, has a section on a what-if with Bias. How great the 87 Celtics would have been, how Bird and McHale's careers would have been extended, how Bias would have been a true rival to Jordan, etc.

But if you're doing those what-ifs, isn't it just as likely that he would have flamed out, like Roy Tarpley, William Bedford or Chris Washburn?

Given the talent that was surrounding him, doubtful. Look at the No. 1 picks these days. All of them go to shipty teams and are thrust into being THE MAN right away. Bias was going to a championship team with several HOFers. I think I like his chances of becoming a success.

But was he suddenly going to stop doing coke?

Who knows? Then again, I've always had a soft spot for Bias and that tragedy, so I tend not to think about how poorly he would have done in the NBA or how much of a coke addict he might have become.

You seem pretty good at it, though.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Jeez, touchy? I have no idea if he'd have become a coke addict. Just saying that I've read a lot of stories that make it sound like he was a surefire Hall of Famer and that he would have led the Celtics to glory for the next 15 years. I'm not stomping on his grave or old Terrapins jersey by saying it wasn't a 100 percent certainty.

 

[JackReacher]

Jeez, touchy? I have no idea if he'd have become a coke addict. Just saying that I've read a lot of stories that make it sound like he was a surefire Hall of Famer and that he would have led the Celtics to glory for the next 15 years. I'm not stomping on his grave or old Terrapins jersey by saying it wasn't a 100 percent certainty.

I am, a bit. Sorry if I came off like a duke. But you're right. No one knows what would have happened. Perhaps one of the greatest "what-ifs" in sports next to Bo Jackson.

 

[Pancamo]

Tarpley didn't go to a ship team and suddenly become "The Man". The Mavericks had Aguirre, Blackman and Derek Harper so Tarpley was hardly thrust into a high pressure situation.

Celtic fans automatically ashume he would have been a star. He had the talent but his death is definitive evidence that he did not make decisions that would have kept him on a path to stardom.

 

[JackReacher]

Definitive? Not sure about that.

 

[Pancamo]

Definitive? Not sure about that.

He's died from a cocaine overdose. Death is definitive proof that doing coke wasn't a good life decision.

 

[JackReacher]

Definitive? Not sure about that.

He's died from a cocaine overdose. Death is definitive proof that doing coke wasn't a good life decision.

No ship. But you're acting like he would have kept doing coke, which would have ruined his NBA career. You do not know that. Neither do I.

 

[Pancamo]

Definitive? Not sure about that.

He's died from a cocaine overdose. Death is definitive proof that doing coke wasn't a good life decision.

No ship. But you're acting like he would have kept doing coke, which would have ruined his NBA career. You do not know that. Neither do I.

Like Bill Parcells says, " You are what you are".

 

[expendable]

Definitive? Not sure about that.

He's died from a cocaine overdose. Death is definitive proof that doing coke wasn't a good life decision.

No ship. But you're acting like he would have kept doing coke, which would have ruined his NBA career. You do not know that. Neither do I.

Don't know it for sure, but giving a coke user millions of dollars is almost akin to putting a fire out with gasoline.

 

[Stoney]

I thought the best nugget was the fact that the coke that killed Bias was 98 percent pure. That's ridiculous. NO ONE gets that kind of pure coke except the hardcore dealers.

Very true. And I suspect that the "hardcore dealer" here was his pal Tribble. A few years after he was acquitted for his involvement in the Bias death, Tribble finally was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for being a major player in the D.C. cocaine trade (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/longterm/memories/bias/launch/triblate.htm); a fact that went strangely unmentioned in this documentary, except in some miniscule text at the very end. Tribble sure didn't learn any lessons from Len's death.

Tribble got far more sympathetic treatment in this documentary than he deserved. Bias didn't die because he was doing normal cocaine, he died because he was doing incredibly pure and undiluted cocaine usually only found in the hands of dealers near the top end of the distribution chain. And there was only one known coke dealer in that room. If anybody did deserve blame for this, it was Tribble. And I didn't like how the doc glossed over that.

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