Remember LO was one strike away from being banned from the NBA...he got himself clean while playing for Miami and the Lakers...too bad it looks like he's off the wagon now that he's gone from the league.
Another guy who was at one point almost lost was Lloyd Daniels. He was one of Tark's questionable signees at UNLV and iirc, he didn't play a minute before he got arrested inside a crack house, with footage of him being taken to the car in cuffs while wearing a UNLV sweater. I recall he got a break with the Spurs because Tark briefly coached them in the 92/3 season and was taken over by John Lucas who had experience himself with personal demons. Then we picked up Lloyd when the entire 95 Laker team was crumbling in injury. I remember a great game at the Forum, I think against Indy, where he hit a freak shot in the final seconds. Wonder what happened to him after that year.
That's a blast from the past. I remember that game, and I remember the hype. I also remember that Daniels was a functional illiterate who kept losing his battle with drugs and self-discipline. Whatever the hell happened to that guy?
Bias would have been a star, I was in awe watching him lead Maryland. I had to agree with a couple of Celtic fan friends that this was a game changer in the balance of power between LA and Boston.
I still remember Bias' alleged last words: "I'm a bad mother(finder), and I can handle anything." Those last words are a lasting beacon to those wishing to experiment with drugs.
Oh, agree on the star point. As case-closed as you can get and that was back when college players were 20 at bare minimum when they left for the pros, so they were well-defined entities. As such, he looked good playing against Jordan in college, which wasn't too common a thing even Mike's early years. He had a bigger body and was visibly more developed than Jordan was in his first few years in the league. He actually looked fairly similar to Hank Gathers. They played the Westhead 30/30 with the scene of Gathers' death in the group of recent episodes. He had some deficits in his offensive game, but I think he would've been a success on some measure in the pros. Harder to say than it is for Bias because he played at a midmajor. He had the NBA body and conditioning for sure. His biggest problem was only at the free throw line, which isn't a dealbreaker by itself. Interesting tidbit is that Spoelstra played for Portland Univ and saw him die. I can see why the Heat are stringing Bosh along considering.
Chris Herron, another Tark signee at Fresno St. He busted out of the NBA as an active heroin addict. He started off on Oxy Contin. He makes speeches to teens and college players now. Probably best case, Herron would've maxed out with a Scott Skilesish career or Bobby Hurley at worst, but he messed that up. There's a show on his story that I saw a couple yrs ago, forgot who produced it, but he went thru his whole story. He said with the Nuggets, there was a time where he was gonna start and he was in severe withdrawals and ran to the tunnel to get a handful of OCs from his dealer who didn't get to the arena at the usual time. He gulped them down and played. He hit rock bottom. He had one of those standard stories about waking up in an alley behind a 7/11 with a couple of homeless muthas. He woke up and did a where the bleep am I? assessment. _________________ GOAT MAGIC REEL SEDALE TRIBUTE EDDIE DONX!
If Bias didn't die, the Celtics would've probably won a couple more championships.
Maybe, maybe not. MJ himself has said that there's a lot more talented guys than him in the NBA such as Shawn Kemp. But that doesn't mean they have his motivation and drive to succeed. Which I think sets apart the truly great ones.
Who knows how hard Bias would've worked in the NBA. Considering how he started w/ coke, maybe he would've been the NBA's next Roy Tarpley as much as the next Michael Jordan.
Bias would have been a star, I was in awe watching him lead Maryland. I had to agree with a couple of Celtic fan friends that this was a game changer in the balance of power between LA and Boston.
I still remember Bias' alleged last words: "I'm a bad mother(finder), and I can handle anything." Those last words are a lasting beacon to those wishing to experiment with drugs.
Oh, agree on the star point. As case-closed as you can get and that was back when college players were 20 at bare minimum when they left for the pros, so they were well-defined entities. As such, he looked good playing against Jordan in college, which wasn't too common a thing even Mike's early years. He had a bigger body and was visibly more developed than Jordan was in his first few years in the league. He actually looked fairly similar to Hank Gathers. They played the Westhead 30/30 with the scene of Gathers' death in the group of recent episodes. He had some deficits in his offensive game, but I think he would've been a success on some measure in the pros. Harder to say than it is for Bias because he played at a midmajor. He had the NBA body and conditioning for sure. His biggest problem was only at the free throw line, which isn't a dealbreaker by itself. Interesting tidbit is that Spoelstra played for Portland Univ and saw him die. I can see why the Heat are stringing Bosh along considering.
Chris Herron, another Tark signee at Fresno St. He busted out of the NBA as an active heroin addict. He started off on Oxy Contin. He makes speeches to teens and college players now. Probably best case, Herron would've maxed out with a Scott Skilesish career or Bobby Hurley at worst, but he messed that up. There's a show on his story that I saw a couple yrs ago, forgot who produced it, but he went thru his whole story. He said with the Nuggets, there was a time where he was gonna start and he was in severe withdrawals and ran to the tunnel to get a handful of OCs from his dealer who didn't get to the arena at the usual time. He gulped them down and played. He hit rock bottom. He had one of those standard stories about waking up in an alley behind a 7/11 with a couple of homeless muthas. He woke up and did a where the bleep am I? assessment.
Chris Herron had NBA talent, I think a Scott Skiles ceiling is about right. He was exciting to watch, sort of a Jason Williams Lite. I didn't know about his drug problem (getting kicked out of BC) when I first saw him play for Tark, but he resonated very bad vibes, the kind you recognize immediately if you previously lived in a (bleep) hole. I'm glad he turned his life around, because I thought he'd end up residing in a dumpster with the likes of a Delonte West.
Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 35854 Location: Santa Clarita, CA (Hell) ->>>>>Ithaca, NY -≥≥≥≥≥Berkeley, CA
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2016 5:30 am Post subject:
rwongega wrote:
Taking OJ Mayo over Russell Westbrook. LOL.
Beasley and Rose too.
I remember everyone thought the OJ for Love trade was ridiculous at the time. _________________ Damian Lillard shatters Dwight Coward's championship dreams:
O.J. Mayo says abusing prescription painkillers triggered NBA ban
Last year, O.J. Mayo was banned from the NBA for at least two years due to a drug violation. Aside from stating a plan to come back, Mayo didn’t say much publicly.
Until now.
Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated:
He acknowledged smoking marijuana and abusing a prescription pain medication that triggered his two-year ban because it is on the NBA’s “drugs of abuse” list. (He emphatically denied testing positive for hard drugs like cocaine.)
Mayo also concluded that he had been “overwhelmed” by a string of difficult life events: his father, high school basketball star Kenny Ziegler, was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for distributing crack cocaine, his brother was placed in juvenile lock-up, a close friend went to jail, and another was killed. “I was bred to play basketball and I thought I could balance everything,” he said. “I couldn’t.”
That’s part of an interesting feature on Mayo, who’s training for his come back. Golliver’s story makes it easy to pull for Mayo.
But the guard will be 30 when he’s eligible to apply for reinstatement, and he played lousily in his last three seasons with the Bucks.
Hopefully, Mayo has and keeps his personal life in order. But returning to the NBA will be an uphill battle.
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