Unforgettable anniversary

It was 20 years ago this weekend that the Celtics went from exhilaration to devastation in two days. On June 17, 1986, the team announced that it had selected Len Bias of the University of Maryland with the second pick in the NBA draft. Two days later, Bias was dead from cocaine intoxication.

This is, and always will be, one of the great what-if stories in sports, let alone basketball. Bias was everything the Celtics were not -- young, exuberant, and athletic. In an ESPN Classic special to be aired Tuesday night, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski said of Bias, ``In my time as a coach, there have been two players that were above the rest in my mind. One was Michael Jordan and the other was Len Bias."

We'll never know what would have happened. We do know that the 1985-86 Celtics were arguably the greatest team in NBA history, that Larry Bird was coming off his third straight MVP season, that Kevin McHale still had two healthy feet, and that one of the top college players in the country was going to be added to a mix that also included Robert Parish, Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, Bill Walton, Scott Wedman, and Jerry Sichting.

``How many more productive years would Larry have had? One? Two? We'll never know," said Jan Volk, the former general manager of the Celtics who was very much in the loop during that terrible time. ``But all things being equal, we had a potential superstar who could help us make the transition from one era to another."

Bird was so pumped at the news of Bias's selection that he quickly promised to come to rookie camp that summer, even though he was 29 and had been in the league for seven seasons. Ainge recalled attending a Reebok function with Bias in downtown Boston the night before Bias returned to Maryland and died.

``I was definitely excited about getting a guy like that," Ainge said. ``I mean, we had the second pick, so it was either going to be him or Brad Daugherty [who went first overall]. But Bias was definitely the sexier of the two. There definitely was intrigue and excitement, but it was very, very short-lived. I remember going out to play golf the next morning and the gas station attendant told me he had died. I said, `That's impossible. I was with him last night.' "

In 1986, the Celtics and most other teams did their due diligence for the draft, although that class yielded some major drug-problem cases in Bias, Chris Washburn, William Bedford, and Roy Tarpley. Bias had pleaded with the Celtics to draft him during his interview, and Red Auerbach, who called the shots, was very tight with Maryland coach Lefty Dreisell. If there was any evidence of drug use, it was not uncovered.

Asked if the Celtics could have or should have done more regarding Bias's drug use, Volk said, ``We were not naive for the times. But a grand jury with subpoena power couldn't prove conclusively that there was drug use. And we couldn't gather information as effectively as they did."

You look at what happened to the Celtics the very next year, and you wonder. Wedman played only six games because of a heel injury and subsequent surgery. Walton, the Sixth Man of the Year in 1985-86, was limited to 10 games because of foot woes. Four starters logged more than 2,900 minutes and the fifth, Ainge, might well have had he not sustained a crack between his third and fourth vertebrae and missed 11 games.

By the end of the year, the Celtics had to rely on the likes of Darren Daye and Fred Roberts. Greg Kite emerged as Parish's main backup. McHale then broke his foot and was really never the same player. Bird's back woes, which had surfaced before, would soon return, but not before bone spurs in both heels pretty much ended his 1988-89 season.

Would Bias have helped there? He couldn't have hurt. One of the Celtics' reasons for choosing a forward on a team already so deep at the position was to extend the careers of Bird and McHale by limiting their minutes down the road. It didn't hurt that Bias also happened to be a gifted player.

``The best college player I ever saw was Bill Walton during his junior year at UCLA," former Celtics CEO Dave Gavitt recalled last week. ``But Bias was awfully good. I remember visiting my son at North Carolina and Maryland was playing in the Smith Center. That was a very good Carolina team and, that night, Maryland won and Bias had 35 points in enemy territory. All you could say was, `Wow!' "

We can no more blame Bias for what has happened to the Celtics since then than we could blame Babe Ruth for 86 years of baseball frustration in town. The Celtics are stuck on 16 championships (still more than anyone else) and No. 17 is, well, next. This wasn't a case of us not knowing what we had until it was gone. We never had him in the first place, which, purely from a basketball standpoint, is why we still mourn his loss, two decades after the fact.

Jordan rules in Charlotte

Doesn't Bobcats owner Bob Johnson understand that about the only thing that is working according to plan in Charlotte these days is the team's basketball operation?

Coach/general manager Bernie Bickerstaff has done a terrific job building something from nothing, has never deviated from the ``Good Things Come To Those Who Wait" game plan, and now he has to report to Michael Jordan, whose track record as an executive with Washington was, to be charitable, iffy. The Bobcats have some nice pieces (Emeka Okafor, Ray Felton, Gerald Wallace, Sean May) and have, almost without exception, played everyone tough in their first two years. (They also managed to win three in a row last season, something the Celtics couldn't do.)

Yes, Bickerstaff always had to have Johnson sign off on basketball decisions, but they were his decisions. Now, he's going to report to someone with veto power just 12 days before a critical draft for the Bobcats, who have the third overall pick. Not only that, but there's no indication that Jordan plans to live in the Charlotte area, which is a recipe for disaster (see: Jordan in Washington, commuting from Chicago).

Bobcats watchers feel this has more to do with Johnson's unrelenting quest to have Jordan join his ownership group. You may recall that Jordan was offered a similar post after Johnson won league approval to buy the expansion franchise. Jordan kept everyone waiting and everything on hold. Then, he said no. You can only imagine the e-mails that must have been flying out of the Wizards' offices Friday.

But there also was this from Miami coach Pat Riley: ``I've taken some heat in this town; his jersey [No. 23] is hanging up here in the arena . . . I think it's great for the league, it's great for Charlotte." Time will tell.

Celtics have a half-dozen chances to get lucky at seven

The Celtics own the seventh pick in what many see as a draft that has six sure picks. The consensus top six are, in no particular order, LaMarcus Aldridge, Tyrus Thomas, Adam Morrison, Rudy Gay, Brandon Roy, and Andrea Bargnani.

So what does Danny Ainge do, holding the seventh pick?

``I think there could be one or two of those guys who could slide," Ainge said. ``I'm not sure which two. But I would be very surprised if Aldridge, Morrison, Thomas, or Roy were on the board when it comes our turn to pick."

There was one report last week that the Hawks had promised Shelden Williams of Duke that they'd take him at No. 5. That seems silly because Williams will, in all likelihood, be there at five, so why would you make a commitment to someone who you can pretty well figure is not going any higher?

If no one slides to Boston, Ainge and his draft crew will take a long, hard look at Williams, Cedric Simmons, Marcus Williams, Rajon Rondo, Ronnie Brewer, Rodney Carney, and Randy Foye. They also might consider J.J. Redick. The big dilemma could be whether to draft the best player, regardless of position, or draft for need and position.

If they're concerned about point guard -- and they should be -- then Marcus Williams might be a good fit (although he goes higher in some mock drafts). And as the draft nears, the draftees start to look better to many general managers, which might facilitate a trade.

Several teams are looking to get to where Boston is now. Ainge also said he might try to get a second-round pick, depending on how things progress.

``There are people who could slip," he said. ``And there are going to be pretty good players who don't even get drafted. We'll see how it goes."

Etc.

In winning the NBA title in 2004, the Detroit Pistons did something no team had done in the previous 20 years -- win Games 3, 4, and 5 at home. Since the league adopted the 2-3-2 format for the Finals in 1985, there were more times when the visitors won all three games, such as the Pistons in 1990, the Bulls in 1991, and the Lakers in 2001 . In the five years before Detroit's home sweep, the visiting team had a 10-4 record in those games (the Lakers needed only two games in 2002 to finish off a sweep of the Nets). But the Pistons' performance in 2004 reversed the trend, dramatically. Detroit went 2-1 in 2005 in Games 3-5 at the Palace and was denied a sweep only by a clutch 3-pointer by San Antonio's Robert Horry. And the Heat have now won Games 3 and 4 in Miami, with Game 5 tonight. So, beginning with the 2004 Finals, the home team is 7-1 in Games 3-5.

Andrea Bargnani, the putative top foreign player in this year's draft and a likely high lottery pick, was still playing last week in the Italian League playoffs. Most everyone likes the kid, who has even been rumored to be going No. 1 overall. ``I like him," said Celtics hoops boss Danny Ainge, who dispatched GM Chris Wallace to Italy to take in the playoffs as well as a draft camp in Treviso (home to Bargnani's team). ``He's a good player. He's 6-11. But he's not [Dirk ] Nowitzki. We can put that one to rest." Indeed, Bargnani has been likened to Nowitzki because of his size and outside shooting ability. ``That's about it," Ainge said of the similarities. ``It's not a joke that he's a consideration from anywhere from 1 to 10. It shows you where the draft is." As in, unpredictable. Toronto boss Bryan Colangelo, who has the No. 1 pick, said it was unfair to Bargnani to make the Nowitzki comparisons. ``It's not fair to label them," Colangelo told ESPN.com's Chad Ford. ``Everyone is unique, including Bargnani. For instance, in some ways he's further along than Dirk was at this stage. In others, he's farther behind. I think the quicker you get away from pigeonholing a guy, the better."

In the 2003 draft, the Celtics had two first-round picks and used them to acquire Marcus Banks and Kendrick Perkins. Two choices after Perk was selected at No. 27, the Mavericks, picking last in the first round, chose the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year, Josh Howard from Wake Forest. It's one of those classic ``what was everybody thinking?" scenarios, as Howard has developed into a terrific NBA player. What was Kevin McHale thinking? Minnesota drafted Ndudi Ebi, now out of the league. What was Jerry West thinking? Memphis ended up with Troy Bell, out of the league, and Dahntay Jones, a sub's sub. What about the Celtics? How much consideration did they give to Howard, now a mainstay on the Western Conference champs? ``We liked him. There was a lot of conversation about him," Ainge said. `` Leo [Papile, the assistant executive director of basketball operations] liked him. Chris [Wallace, the GM] liked him. But I think we had too many people at that position at that time. And Josh was sort of a tweener and had been a late bloomer and, that year, teams fell in love with players and commitments were made. But then I remember going out to the summer league and seeing him play for the first time. All I could say was, `Oh my gosh!' He was really good." Actually, the final three picks from that first round could turn out to be keepers in Perkins, Leandro Barbosa, who played well for Phoenix, and Howard. And Jason Kapono and Luke Walton were two of the first three picks in that year's second round.