The 1986 NBA Draft was held on June 17, 1986.

Overview and aftermath[link]

Drug and health issues involving drafted players[link]

There were various drug-related problems that plagued players in the 1986 NBA draft. Most notable was the death of highly-touted Len Bias. Bias died less than two days after being selected second overall by the defending champion Boston Celtics. His death was ruled an overdose that resulted from the abuse of the drug cocaine. Other problems involving drugs hampered the careers of Chris Washburn, Roy Tarpley, and William Bedford.

Successful second-round players[link]

While a number of first-round selections were unable to make an impact in the league, this draft did feature a number of talented second-round selections. Dennis Rodman, who became one of the leading defenders and rebounders in NBA history, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in August 2011. Mark Price, Kevin Duckworth, and Jeff Hornacek also went on to have successful careers, and each made the NBA All-Star Game. Three others Johnny Newman, Nate McMillan, and David Wingate, had long, productive careers as role players.

International draftees[link]

This draft contained two exceptional international players, both of whom had shortened careers for unusual reasons. Third-round selection Dražen Petrović was coming off an All-Star caliber fourth season when he was killed in an automobile accident in 1993. He has since been elected to both the Naismith Hall of Fame and the FIBA Hall of Fame. The other, Arvydas Sabonis, was not permitted to play in the United States because of the dangerous political climate in the Soviet Union. He won two Olympic medals before his arrival in the NBA—a gold in 1988 with the USSR, and a bronze in 1992 with Lithuania. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Sabonis had a very successful career in Europe before finally joining the Portland Trail Blazers in 1995. Sabonis had lost much of his mobility by the time he joined the team because of a string of knee and Achilles tendon injuries. He finished second in both the Sixth Man Award and Rookie of the Year voting; after the 1995–96 season, he won a second Olympic bronze medal with Lithuania. He played seven seasons with Portland before returning to his homeland of Lithuania where he finished his career. Sabonis entered the FIBA Hall in 2010 and the Naismith Hall in 2011.

Other draftee contributions to the game[link]

This draft is also known for the number of players who made important contributions to the sport of basketball outside of the court. For example, Nate McMillan had a highly successful run with the Seattle SuperSonics as a player and then as head coach, and then spent seven seasons as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers. Scott Skiles is the current coach of the Milwaukee Bucks and also the first coach to lead the Chicago Bulls to the playoffs in the post-Jordan era. Larry Krystkowiak, a former Bucks head coach, was hired in April 2011 as the new head coach at the University of Utah. John Salley won four championship rings with three different NBA teams (Detroit Pistons, Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers) before becoming one of the hosts of The Best Damn Sports Show Period on Fox Sports Network. Jay Bilas is an ESPN college basketball analyst.

First round[link]

Brad Daugherty, the 1st pick

Ron Harper, the 8th pick

Arvydas Sabonis, the 24th pick

Dennis Rodman, the 27th pick

Pick	Player	Nationality	NBA Team	School/Club Team
1	Brad Daugherty*	United States	Cleveland Cavaliers (from L.A. Clippers via Philadelphia)	North Carolina
2	Len Bias#	United States	Boston Celtics (from Seattle)	Maryland
3	Chris Washburn	United States	Golden State Warriors	NC State
4	Chuck Person	United States	Indiana Pacers	Auburn
5	Kenny Walker	United States	New York Knicks	Kentucky
6	William Bedford	United States	Phoenix Suns	Memphis State
7	Roy Tarpley	United States	Dallas Mavericks (from Cleveland)	Michigan
8	Ron Harper	United States	Cleveland Cavaliers *	Miami (OH)
9	Brad Sellers	United States	Chicago Bulls	Ohio State
10	Johnny Dawkins	United States	San Antonio Spurs	Duke
11	John Salley	United States	Detroit Pistons (from Sacramento)	Georgia Tech
12	John S. Williams	United States	Washington Bullets	LSU
13	Dwayne Washington	United States	New Jersey Nets	Syracuse
14	Walter Berry	United States	Portland Trail Blazers	St. John's
15	Dell Curry	United States	Utah Jazz	Virginia Tech
16	Maurice Martin	United States	Denver Nuggets (from Dallas)	Saint Joseph's
17	Harold Pressley	United States	Sacramento Kings (from Detroit)	Villanova
18	Mark Alarie	United States	Denver Nuggets	Duke
19	Billy Thompson	United States	Atlanta Hawks	Louisville
20	Buck Johnson	United States	Houston Rockets	Alabama
21	Anthony Jones	United States	Washington Bullets (from Philadelphia)	UNLV
22	Scott Skiles	United States	Milwaukee Bucks	Michigan State
23	Ken Barlow	United States	Los Angeles Lakers	Notre Dame
24	Arvydas Sabonis^	Soviet Union ( Lithuania)	Portland Trail Blazers (from Boston via L.A. Clippers)	Zalgiris, Lithuania

* compensation for draft choices traded away by Ted Stepien

Second round[link]

Pick	Player	Nationality	NBA Team	School/Club Team
25	Mark Price*	United States	Dallas Mavericks, traded on draft day to the Cleveland Cavaliers	Georgia Tech
26	Greg Dreiling	United States	Indiana Pacers	Kansas
27	Dennis Rodman^	United States	Detroit Pistons	Southeastern Oklahoma State
28	Larry Krystkowiak	United States	Chicago Bulls	Montana
29	Johnny Newman	United States	Cleveland Cavaliers	Richmond
30	Nate McMillan	United States	Seattle SuperSonics	NC State
31	Joe Ward	United States	Phoenix Suns	Georgia
32	Cedric Henderson	United States	Atlanta Hawks	Georgia
33	Kevin Duckworth+	United States	San Antonio Spurs	Eastern Illinois
34	Johnny Rogers	United States	Sacramento Kings	UC Irvine
35	Milt Wagner	United States	Dallas Mavericks	Louisville
36	Steve Mitchell	United States	Washington Bullets	UAB
37	Panagiotis "Pano" Fasoulas	Greece	Portland Trail Blazers	NC State
38	LeMone Lampley	United States	Seattle SuperSonics	DePaul
39	Rafael Addison	United States	Phoenix Suns	Syracuse
40	Augusto Binelli	Italy	Atlanta Hawks	Virtus Bologna (Italy)
41	Otis Smith	United States	Denver Nuggets	Jacksonville
42	Ron Kellogg	United States	Atlanta Hawks	Kansas
43	Dave Feitl	United States	Houston Rockets	UTEP
44	David Wingate	United States	Philadelphia 76ers	Georgetown
45	Keith Smith	United States	Milwaukee Bucks	Loyola Marymount
46	Jeff Hornacek+	United States	Phoenix Suns	Iowa State
47	Michael Jackson	United States	New York Knicks	Georgetown

Notable post-second round picks[link]

Pick	Player	Pos.	Nationality	Team	School/club team
60	Dražen Petrović^	SG	Yugoslavia ( Croatia)	Portland Trail Blazers	Cibona
108	Jay Bilas	PF	American	Detroit Pistons	Duke University

References[link]

External links[link]

• SI.com's twenty-year retrospective on the 1986 NBA Draft

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2009)

The NBA Draft is an annual event in which the thirty teams from the National Basketball Association (NBA) can draft players who are eligible and wish to join the league. These players are usually amateur U.S. college basketball players, but international players are also eligible to be drafted. College players who have finished their four-year college eligibility are automatically eligible for selection, while the underclassmen have to declare their eligibility and give up their remaining college eligibility. International players who are at least 22 years old are automatically eligible for selection, while the players younger than 22 have to declare their eligibility. Players who are not automatically eligible but have declared their eligibility are often called "early-entrants" or "early-entry candidates". The Draft usually takes place at the end of June, during the NBA off-season. The Draft consists of two rounds with a total of sixty players to be selected.

In the past, high school players were also eligible to be selected. However, starting in the 2006 Draft, high school players were not eligible to enter the draft directly after graduating high school. The rules now state that high school players will gain eligibility for draft selection one year after their high school graduation and they must also be at least 19 years old as of the end of the calendar year of the draft. Contrary to popular belief, they do not necessarily have to have at least one year of college basketball (as some players have chosen to use that year to play professionally in Europe for example).

NBA Draft Lottery[link]

The NBA Draft Lottery is an annual event held by the NBA to determine the draft order. The teams who missed the playoffs in the previous season participate in a lottery process to determine the draft order. The lottery winner would get the first selection in the draft. In the current rules, 14 non-playoff teams participate in the Draft Lottery. The lottery is weighted so that the team with the worst record has the best chance of obtaining higher draft picks. The lottery process determines the first three picks of the draft. The rest of the first-round order of picks is in reverse order of the teams' win-loss record. The lottery does not determine the draft order in the second round of the draft. The term "lottery pick" denotes a draft pick whose position is determined through the lottery, while the non-playoff teams involved in the process are often called "lottery teams". The Draft Lottery system was first used in the 1985 Draft.

Draft selection process[link]

All players must be at least 19 years of age during the calendar year of the draft, and a player who completed basketball eligibility at an American high school must also be at least one year removed from the graduation of his high school class. Restrictions exist on players signing with sports agents and on declaring for, then withdrawing, from drafts—although most of them are enforced by the NCAA rather than the NBA.

In the early years of the draft, teams would select players until they ran out of prospects. The 1960 draft went 21 rounds. By 1974, it had stabilized to 10 rounds, which held up until 1985, when the draft was shortened to seven rounds. By agreement with the National Basketball Players Association, the drafts from 1989 onward have been limited to two rounds, which gives undrafted players the chance to try out for any team.^[1]

Globalization of the draft[link]

The NBA draft has been dominated by collegiate players since the draft was put in place in 1950. In more recent years high school seniors have also had a large impact on the draft. These include players like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, and Amar'e Stoudemire. However, because of the new age requirement put in place in 2005, high school seniors are no longer eligible for the draft. During the same stretch that high school players were making a large impact on the draft, another group of players started to make their presence felt in the draft.

Selecting foreign players[link]

Foreign players have made a large impact on how teams are now drafting. When the draft began, foreign players were not selected. As the years progressed, things began to change and a few international players were selected. The first foreign player, in the sense of being a national of a country other than the U.S., to be chosen first overall in the draft was Bahamian Mychal Thompson in 1978. However, Thompson's selection was not a true harbinger of the game's globalization, as he had spent much of his childhood in Florida, and had played college basketball at Minnesota. One of the first foreign players selected in the draft to play in the NBA was Manute Bol out of the Sudan in 1983 in the 5th round by the San Diego Clippers. Bol's selection was later deemed ineligible by the NBA. Two years later Bol was drafted again by the NBA this time out of Division II University of Bridgeport in 1985 as the 31st pick overall in the second round. Although Bol did not have a stellar career, he is known for being one of the tallest players ever to play the game at 7 feet and 7 inches. He holds the record for being the tallest player ever to hit a 3 point field goal. The following two years saw two players born outside the U.S. selected first overall—Nigerian Hakeem Olajuwon in 1984 and Jamaica-born American Patrick Ewing in 1985. However, like Thompson before them, both had played U.S. college basketball—Olajuwon at Houston and Ewing at Georgetown—and Ewing had also played high school basketball in the U.S.

By the 1997 Draft, the number of foreign players being drafted dramatically increased. The top pick in that draft, Tim Duncan, became the third international player picked number 1 overall—although his designation as "international" is a matter of semantics, as he is a native of the United States Virgin Islands and, like all USVI natives, is a U.S. citizen by birth. He also had played U.S. college basketball at Wake Forest. Including Duncan, 12 international players were selected in the two rounds of the draft—although half of them, including Duncan and the next two such players picked, had played college basketball. The 1998 draft saw another foreign player picked first overall, Nigerian Michael Olowokandi, but like Duncan he had played college basketball, in his case at Pacific. In 2001 the highest drafted foreign player, Pau Gasol, was selected 3rd overall by the Atlanta Hawks. That would all change the following season when Yao Ming became the first foreign player without U.S. college experience to be selected number 1 overall. Not only was the first overall pick an international player, but five more picks in the first round alone were also from overseas. In total, the 2002 draft produced 17 international players, with only three of them (all second-round picks) having U.S. college experience.

International players selected number 1 overall[link]

As noted earlier, four international players had gone first overall before 2002, although all had played college basketball in the U.S., and one of them was in fact a U.S. citizen by birth. It was not until 2002 that an international player without college experience went first overall—Yao Ming. His selection was not only a watershed moment for the NBA, it also had a large impact in Yao's homeland of China. Hannah Beech (2003) writes "Yao has single-handedly transformed his countrymen from nameless, faceless millions into mighty men who can jam with the very best." ^[2] Yao has helped the NBA grow into a worldwide product. Beech (2003) goes on to write "Ratings for NBA games broadcast on Chinese TV have never been higher than this year as the nation keeps track of its new favorite team, Yao's Houston Rockets." ^[2] For his career Yao is averaging a solid 19.0 points per game, 9.2 rebounds per game, 1.89 blocks per game, and is shooting 82.6 percent from the free throw line.

2001 Draft[link]

From the 2001 draft to the 2006 Draft there were a total of 6 foreign players selected. This trend shows how NBA teams are expanding the way they are selecting players in the draft. Players like Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki, Yao Ming, Tony Parker, Nenê and Luol Deng are changing the landscape of the NBA to include a wide array of players from all over the globe.

2002, 2005 and 2006 Drafts[link]

The 2002, 2005 and 2006 Drafts saw international players picked first overall. In 2002 the Houston Rockets selected Yao Ming from China first in the draft. Also in 2005, the Milwaukee Bucks picked Andrew Bogut, from Australia by way of the University of Utah, #1. The next year, the Toronto Raptors made Andrea Bargnani the second foreign player without U.S. college experience to be selected number 1 overall.

Other notable past NBA drafts[link]

Some of the most noted NBA draft years are 1984, 1996, and 2003. Each of those is often referred to as one of, if not the, best NBA Draft ever, though the 2003 Draft was too recent to accurately compare. The 2000 NBA Draft has been regarded as the worst in history, with Sports Illustrated calling its first round "a horrible group of players."^[3] The 1986 Draft was notable for the number of solid and even outstanding players selected in later rounds, partly because of drug problems that claimed the life of second overall pick Len Bias and affected the careers of several other first-round picks.^[4][5]

See also[link]

• Draft bust
• Expansion draft
• Haywood v. National Basketball Association
• Mock draft
• NBA Draft Lottery
• NBA first overall draft pick
• NBA territorial pick
• WNBA Draft

References[link]

General

Specific

External links[link]

• NBA.com: NBA Draft History
• Basketball-Reference.com: NBA Draft Index.
• TheDraftReview.com: NBA Draft Index

Leonard Kevin "Len" Bias (November 18, 1963 – June 19, 1986) was a first team All-American college basketball forward at the University of Maryland. He was selected by the Boston Celtics as the second overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft on June 17, but died two days later from cardiac arrhythmia induced by a cocaine overdose. He is considered by some sportswriters to be one of the greatest players not to play at the professional level.^[1][2]

Early years[link]

Bias was known to friends and family by his childhood nickname "Frosty". He was given the nickname by his good friend and pastor Rev. Gregory Edmond because he was "tall and cool and quiet and unassuming".^[3][4]

College career[link]

From Landover, Maryland, Bias graduated from Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, and subsequently attended the University of Maryland, where he became an All-American player.

Bias impressed basketball fans with his amazing leaping ability, his physical stature and his ability to create plays, and was considered one of the most dynamic players in the nation. By his senior year, scouts from various National Basketball Association teams viewed Bias as the most complete forward in the Class of 1986. According to Celtics scout Ed Badger, "He's maybe the closest thing to (Chicago guard) Michael Jordan to come out in a long time. I'm not saying he's as good as Michael Jordan, but he's an explosive and exciting kind of player like that."^[5] Jordan was then in his second professional season with the Chicago Bulls.

NBA selection and overdose[link]

On June 17, Bias was selected by the defending NBA champion Celtics as the second overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft, which was held in New York City at Madison Square Garden. Arnold "Red" Auerbach, as the Boston Celtics President and General Manager, had previously dealt guard Gerald Henderson and cash to the Seattle SuperSonics for the pick in 1984. After the draft, Bias and his family returned to their suburban Maryland home.

On June 18, Bias and his father flew to Boston, Massachusetts, from Washington, D.C., for an NBA club draft acceptance and product endorsement signing ceremony with the Celtics' coaches and management, as well as with Reebok's Sports-Marketing Division. Bias reportedly signed a $3 million shoe contract with Reebok.

Later that day, his father left Boston to return to Washington in the late afternoon. There he gave a short press conference for the local Washington media at Washington National Airport. The media were at the airport expecting to interview Bias, so his father stood in, reporting on their "day with the Celtics" and their appreciation of the beginning of a new chapter in his and his son's lives.

Bias, who returned home later that night, retrieved his newly leased sports car and drove back to his room on the campus of the University of Maryland.

However, prior to, and concurrent with, some of the given timelines of his activities at the campus, Bias's vehicle was observed and recorded by undercover agents of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan police department "cruising" one of the city's most notorious drug neighborhoods along Montana Avenue, in the northeast section of the city. Although the surveillance did not determine who specifically was in the vehicle, or if the vehicle had stopped for any purpose, they estimated that there were at least two people, driver and passenger, in the vehicle, and they recorded its license number when the vehicle returned to campus around 11 p.m. He then dined with some teammates and a member of the football team. He left campus at approximately 2 a.m. on the 19th and drove to an off-campus gathering, which he attended briefly before returning to his dorm in Washington Hall at 3 a.m. Bias took a dose of cocaine which likely induced cardiac arrhythmia.

At 6:32 a.m., when the 911 call to Prince George's County emergency services was made by Brian Tribble (a long-time friend), Bias was unconscious and not breathing. All attempts by the emergency medical team to restart his heart and breathing were unsuccessful. According to the campus timeline, Bias collapsed sometime between 6:25 and 6:32 a.m. while talking with teammate Terry Long. According to Bias's sister, who only had a secondhand account of the story,^{[citation needed]} Bias was sitting on a couch and leaned back as though he were going to sleep, but instead began seizing.

Bias was unconscious and was not breathing when county ambulance attendants arrived at his dormitory suite at 6:36 a.m.—four minutes after they were called and six minutes before a mobile intensive care unit arrived—and he never regained consciousness nor breathed on his own. At the hospital, Bias was given five drugs in an attempt to revive him: epinephrine, sodium bicarbonate, lidocaine, calcium and bretylium. After the chemicals failed, a pacemaker was implanted into his heart muscle in a failed attempt to try to get it beating.^[6]

Bias was pronounced dead at 8:55 a.m. in the Emergency Department at Leland Memorial Hospital in Riverdale, Maryland, of a cardiac arrhythmia related to usage of cocaine.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

Four days after his death, more than 11,000 people packed the Cole Field House, the university recreation and student center where Bias played for the Terrapins, for a memorial service. Those speaking at the service included Auerbach, who said he had planned for three years to draft Bias for the Celtics. Auerbach added that the city of Boston had not been so shocked since the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Bias is buried in Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Suitland, Maryland.^[11]

On June 30, 1986, the Celtics honored Bias with their own memorial service, giving his never used #30 Celtic jersey to his mother, Lonise.

Aftermath[link]

Trial[link]

On July 25, 1986, a grand jury returned indictments against Bias's friend Brian Tribble for possession of cocaine and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and Bias's Maryland teammates Terry Long and David Gregg (both for possession of cocaine and obstruction of justice).^[12] Long and Gregg were both suspended from the team on July 31.^[12] All three defendants entered not guilty pleas in August.^[12]

On October 20, 1986, prosecutors dropped all charges against Long and Gregg in exchange for their testimony against Tribble.^[12] On October 30, the grand jury added three more indictments against Tribble—one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and two counts of obstruction of justice.^[12]

Also on October 30, Kenneth Mark Fobbs, Tribble's roommate, was charged with perjury for allegedly lying to the grand jury about the last time he saw Tribble.^[12] The state ultimately dropped the perjury charges against Fobbs on March 24, 1987, and a jury acquitted Tribble of all charges related to the Bias case on June 3, 1987.^[12]

In October 1990, Tribble pleaded guilty to being a major drug dealer. He cooperated with the government and so was not sentenced until October 15, 1993. He was sentenced to ten years and one month of confinement.^[13]

In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed a stricter Anti-Drug Act that is known as "The Len Bias Law." It was backed by both parties and reinforced the previous drug law with stiffer penalties and expanded the DARE program.

University of Maryland[link]

The circumstances surrounding Bias's death threw the University of Maryland and its athletics program into turmoil. An investigation revealed that Bias was 21 credits short of the graduation requirement despite having used all his athletic eligibility.^[12] On August 26, 1986, State's Attorney Arthur A. Marshall Jr. stated that in the hours after Bias's death, Maryland head basketball coach Lefty Driesell told players to remove drugs from Bias's dorm room.^[12] Two days later, Bias's father, James, accused the University of Maryland, and Driesell specifically, of neglecting the academic status of its athletes.^[12] The National Collegiate Athletic Association subsequently began its investigation into the affair that fall.

The controversy prompted athletic director Dick Dull to resign October 7, 1986, with Driesell following suit October 29, after serving as the Terrapins' coach for 17 years.^[12] The grand jury presiding over the Bias case issued a final report on February 26, 1987, that criticized the University of Maryland's athletic department, admissions office, and campus police.^[12] Following an investigation, the NCAA placed the Terrapin Men's basketball program on a three year probation due to academic and recruiting violations by both Lefty Driesell and his successor, Bob Wade. The Terps were banned from television for one year and stripped of scholarships, beginning with the 1988–89 season. Since then the University has adopted stricter admission standards for all its student-athletes and students alike.

Jay Bias[link]

On December 5, 1990, Bias's younger brother, James Stanley "Jay" Bias III, a promising young basketball talent, was shot to death at age 20 following a dispute in the parking lot of Prince George's Plaza, a Hyattsville shopping mall located just a few miles from the University of Maryland. Two gunmen had allegedly fired several times into the vehicle Jay and two friends were in, and Jay was shot twice in the back. He was pronounced dead at the same hospital where Len Bias had died, and was buried next to him at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery.^[14]

Parents[link]

Following their sons' deaths, James and Lonise Bias assumed vocal advocacy roles. Lonise became an anti-drug lecturer, while James became an advocate for handgun control.^[15]

Film[link]

A film about Bias's life, directed by Kirk Fraser, was promoted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival^[16] and was released June 19, 2009. The documentary Without Bias premiered on ESPN on November 3, 2009, as part of their 30 for 30 documentary series, commemorating the network's 30th anniversary.

Notes and references[link]

• Weinreb, Michael (2008-06-24). "The Day Innocence Died". ESPN. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=bias. 

Further reading[link]

• Bratcher, Drew. "Death of a Legend", Washingtonian, June 1, 2009.
• Abel, Greg. "It Was 20 Years Ago Today", "PressBox", June 14, 2006.