Well thanks for a half-assed back up. He was a stud, and the fact that he didnt have much of a career makes him very hard to stack up against similar players. The drug abuse is an obvious flaw, for that I cannot argue much more than this is hypothetical, not a repeat of the past. I do concur with the perennial all star game comment as well, he always had tremendous upside but the drug use always kept him from his true potential. Bad pick or good pick or awful pick, his potential out ranges anyone else available at this position.

His injuries came at 24-27 when he was still in the league. His 2 healthy years were at 22-23 which don't count for the league.

Yes to Lewis, no to Drazen. Lewis isn't getting a new heart in this, why would we act like he is?

Its not a crutch, its facts. His career was ruined because of drugs. It has been discussed already that someone whos career is ruined by drugs is worse than a guy with injury problems.

The bolded part isn't even close to being true. There are players with higher PER, higher PPG, higher everything right now and higher upside. Now there aren't many 20/10 gusy or guys who rebound and do otherthings that well at this point I will agree there but you take a giant risk with this guy. He's obviously ******ed as well, banned for many years comes back and immediately banned again for the same thing.

yeah but he's not 23 right now, so he really has no potential.

also in addition to the drug stuff he had at least one arrest for doing super sick abusive **** to his girlfriend - iirc it involved using an iron on her?

Who says Lewis is getting a new heart? The fact is, his heart works! And tragically it decided to stop. And guess what, tragically a car ran into Drazen's and now he's dead too. If you can't give one guy another shot a life, then how do you do the same for another dead person? Heart or not, both were very sad accidents. Fact is, accidents happen, you can't just pretend that they don't and move on while ignoring the facts.

And drug abuse is worse than injuries. But you can't assume that 2 players retire at the same time for seperate reasons, and because one guys career ended because of drugs, rather than an injury, the guy with the injury somehow becomes better in retrospect. That's just ignorant

Lmao, I don't remember hearing about that!... haha He was on drugs, i'm sure his mind became pretty screwed up.

Tarpley wasn't even that good. Perennial All-Star? Huh? I'm not gonna deny the man's talent at rebounding but he wasn't much of a scorer. Plus he was a foulbox.

He had a heart condition, maybe caused or made worse by coke use. I'm not saying it's 100% he dies, but he had a pretty serious condition. He was a ticking time bomb.

There are a few guys with decent ppg and per, but yea, none of them rebound. It's a risky pick, I wasn't crazy about any one else (once again) so I gambled rather than taking the "safe" pick. Nothing wrong with that in my eyes.

The point is it was just bad luck that Drazen got into a car wreck he was not pre-dispositioned to get in car wreck any more than any of us are. Likewise I believe Reggie Lewis was probally pre-dispositioned to have heart issues then again there is thought that he had cocaine issues as well that ruined his heart. So your in the same boat with Reggie that you are in with Tarpley. With Tarpley in this your pretty much pre-dispositioned to have a drug issue and injury issues. I guess you can theorize he can get away from them, but that's your call I guess.

Really Reggie Lewis and Tarpley on the same team with Stackhouse and B-Diddy. Wow.....................wtf.

I think the thing with drug use is that it usually is a gradual thing. I know that there have been lots of studies done with cigarettes that show that almost everyone who smokes starts off in their teens, it's not a habit you suddenly pick up at 25. I don't think it's a stretch to say that serious illegal drug use falls under that same category (ie, not P.O.T.). So, while he may have been caught for the final time at 26, it's probably a 95% chance that he's already started down that road at 23. It's not like a broken ankle where you can point to one specific fall which injured it, and of course that specific fall won't happen in this league, so it could not happen to us. If he's doing enough drugs to get banned from the league, he's not just going to stop because you tell him to.

What? Reggie Lewis didn't have a fully functioning heart that just randomly stopped. He was on cocaine.

Who has factual information that he was on coke, and the coke contributed to his heart failure? It's all hear say as far as I know.....

And there was dozens of other nba players using cocaine with him or without him i'm sure. They didn't have heart problems so he's the only one you hear about.

He had severe heart damage when he died, whether that was congenital or caused by cocaine doesn't really matter, it's almost assuredly a pre-existing condition. In fact, he collapsed twice, once a few months before his fatal collapse. I don't think that can be called a freak incident when it happens repeatedly.

You have Lewis and Tarpley?

Yes he has both.

Now, how many people do you know that have heart attacks at 27. It's either he has a huge heart issue or was a a huge coke head on top of a heart issue.

We should probably draft more than 9 guys so he can be able to field a starting lineup.

did you watch him a lot?

if that was him on drugs and injured then without those it's a no-brainer that he makes a lot of all star teams.

rofl

Well let's see... I don't know that many people with heart problems at 27, but I also happen to know a **** load of people who used a lot of coke before 27 and don't have heart issues! The heart issue is unrelated to cocaine, if he was using it and it contributed, then so be it, but as far as i can tell none of you can prove it so stop speculating. He had a bad heart, it happens, he's dead and it sucks so no need to throw additional unwarranted speculations on his grave.

A third of his team is made up of guys dead or kicked out of the league by 27. I mean, I have an injury prone team, but that's ridiculous.

http://www.afrocentricnews.com/html/...c_defends.html

Mudge said the inconsistent tests results made him consider cocaine as a cause.

He said the heart damage was "consistent" with cocaine use.