All (Dead) Star Team

Kobe Bryant's death has had the Schloss-Blog thinking about the basketball players you never heard of or don't remember who never had the chance to make it, never got the recognition they deserved.

Will get to Donald Trump, the administration's handling of the coronavirus (Mike Pence in charge, really?) and the Houston Astros a little later, but first...

...my favorite players who never got their due.

Like Len Bias. He was the No. 1 pick of the Boston Celtics and the No. 2 pick overall in the 1986 NBA Draft. Two days later, he died from cardiac arrhythmia induced by a cocaine overdose. The Maryland star was incredibly gifted and would've had a stellar career in the NBA, probably would've been one of the original Dream-Teamers on Team USA in the Olympics. Never got the chance.

Or like Reggie Williams. Six years after Bias passed, Williams, who was turning into a star player after a middling rookie year, collapsed on the court in a mid-summer, offseason practice session. He died from cardiac arrest, after being diagnosed, at first, with a heart condition he was told would end his career. But he sought to play, got a second, less life-threatening opinion, and kept playing. And so, the Boston Celtics lost two likely all-star players within six years who probably would've helped them maintain something close to the elite status their franchise has always enjoyed and their fans were robbed of seeing it happen.

Or like Wayne Estes. The Utah State star and Montana prep athletic legend was slated to be a first-round pick in the 1965 NBA Draft, reportedly by the Los Angeles Lakers, where he likely would've become their next Elgin Baylor. a Hall-of-Famer. But after the game in which Estes broke the 2,000-point barrier for his college career, he stopped at an accident scene, looking to help, and brushed against a fallen power line and was subsequently electrocuted. The Wayne Estes center at the school stands as the practice facility for both the men's and women's teams there. An annual prep basketball tournament in his native Montana is approaching its 40th anniversary.

Or like Drazen Petrovic. The Croatian star, regularly a thorn in Micheal Jordan's side, was an NBA All-Star and 20-point-per-game scorer for the New Jersey Nets who was contemplating returning to pro ball in Europe when he died in a car crash in Germany in June of 1993, a month before Reggie Williams collapsed and died. Not a good year for pro basketball.

Or like Ben Wilson. The 6-foot-7 star forward at Chicago powerhouse Simeon (see, Rose, Derrick) was headed to Notre Dame or DePaul or maybe Illinois after helping Simeon win a state title. But he was shot down in 1984, hit by two random bullets before he ever donned a college uniform, before he ever set foot on a college campus. This is the saddest career-shortening of them all in a type of death all too familiar to Chicagoans, even to this day. His number is worn annually now by the player Simeon considers its best player.

Or, lastly for me, Hank Gathers. At age 23, he had helped turn the Loyola Marymount Lions into a national-title threat. He had been cautioned about an irregular heartbeat but reportedly had cut down on the medication for it because he felt it curtailed his playing ability. He would subsequently pass away, on the court, in 1990, in a game against Portland. He died from what was diagnosed as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. His high school and college teammate, Bo Kimble, honored him by shooting his first free throw in subsequent games left-handed, eyes shut.

Not taking anything away from Kobe, one of the greatest ever, but none of these players and so many others who passed before achieving the stardom forecast for them got a memorial service, nationally televised from the Staples Center. But it's not like they didn't deserve it.

As to coronavirus, Mike Pence is in charge of coordinating against its spread in the United States. Prepare, maybe, to die.

As to the Houston Astros, as long as Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred considers the World Series trophy a "piece of metal," hey, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, prepare to get beaned.

Shout-out this weekend on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show to Laura Lane, George Castle, Nicole Ebat (again), Ruth Reader (hello, Brooklyn), Susan Rapper Millstone, the woman whose heart is made of gold, and Fremd basketball coaches Bob Widlowski and Jason Hogrefe, the former, the dean of the Mid-Suburban League, the latter his assistant astute enough to be a head coach anywhere.

Good night Mrs. Calabash.