Len Bias

The rivalry that wasn't: Boston's Len Bias vs. Michael Jordan

It was supposed to have been the rivalry of the era, akin to Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain or Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

But the much-anticipated showdown across the careers of the Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan and her apparent of the Boston Celtics Len Bias never happened due to Bias’ untimely death.

Two days after being drafted by the Celtics, Bias would pass from a cardiac arrhythmia brought on by a cocaine overdose, dealing a blow to the organization that would take decades to fully recover from.

When people intimate the potential impact of Bias on the NBA of that era, it’s not just green-tinted lenses when it is suggested he might have been a true contemporary rival of Jordan.

ESPN’s Michael Wilbon recently released a video on exactly this topic, highlighting the depth of the basketball community’s loss.

Noting his omission from “The Last Dance,” the ESPN documentary on Jordan’s last season with the Bulls, Wilbon refers to Bias as a “talented force of nature who likely would have changed the course even of Michael Jordan’s story.”

But isn’t it hyperbole to suggest an untested player out of Maryland would have been capable of even approaching the success of the player many regard even now in the era of LeBron James as the greatest to play the game?

Perhaps.

But it’s not just an army of 40-something Celtics fans and Michael Wilbon who believe this, as Wilbon is sure to note:

You might not like Krzyzewski’s program, but you’d be lying if you said he wasn’t an astute judge of the potential of prospects at the college level.

“Those of us who had the pleasure of watching him believe Bias would have been to Jordan what Bird was to Magic — a true natural, equally fierce rival, the singular decade long rival Jordan never had,” offered Wilbon.

Bias’ tragic death left us only with counterfactual histories that never came to pass, hints and daydreams of what might have been a richer, fuller history of competition in the 1990s.

The loss of Bias and not long after, Reggie Lewis, would usher in the darkest days of Celtics history in the team’s seven decades of existence. But far more importantly, it robbed the world of an amazing talent — and the epic battles with Jordan that never were.

SHARE

Author

Hi, Its me Hafeez. A webdesigner, blogspot developer and UI/UX Designer. I am a certified Themeforest top Author and Front-End Developer. I'am business speaker, marketer, Blogger and Javascript Programmer.

• 
• 
• 
• 
•