The telephone message emanating these days from the offices of the Boston Celtics identifies the franchise as having won 16 NBA championships. What it doesn't mention is this: It has been 20 years since the last one.
On June 8, 1986, the Celtics closed out the Houston Rockets in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. A little more than a week later, the Celtics selected Maryland star Len Bias with the No. 2 overall pick in the draft.
On the morning of June 19, less than 48 hours after he put on a Celtics cap and was introduced by NBA commissioner David Stern, Bias was dead of cocaine intoxication. He was 22 years old.
His legacy as a basketball player would be measured solely by what he had accomplished in College Park, where he transformed himself from an athletic but hardly skilled freshman who could do little more than dunk into one of the most explosive offensive machines in Atlantic Coast Conference history.[More] source:
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