Basketball is a massive, global business that draws in billions of dollars every year.
For many players, the court is a sanctuary for them to escape from
the darkness they have to battle off the court. With that in mind,
here are the tragic stories behind some of basketball's biggest legends
Tim Duncan's career was the model of quiet excellence. For 20 years,
he led the San Antonio Spurs to five championships and retired as one of the game's greatest players.
Like many great athletes, he loved more than one sport. Before he fully committed to the NBA,
he even aimed to make the Olympics as a swimmer. But while training for the 1992 Games,
a natural disaster ruined his chances. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo devastated Duncan's
home on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, destroying the only Olympic-sized swimming pool
the island had in the process. This forced the 13-year-old Duncan to swim in the ocean instead,
but that ended quickly thanks to his fear of sharks.
Around the same time, the Duncan family suffered an even greater setback, as Tim's mother Ione was
diagnosed with breast cancer, and she died the day before his 14th birthday. His older sister
Cheryl and her husband Ricky Lowry returned to the island to care for the family. Lowry,
a former college basketball player, encouraged his brother-in-law to pick up the sport.
The year prior, the couple had shipped a basketball hoop to the family, and it
survived the hurricane. So Duncan picked it up, and with Lowry's coaching, he never looked back.
Allen Iverson changed the landscape of the NBA when he arrived in 1996.
He helped popularize hip hop culture and morphed a somewhat conservative fanbase into something
much more vibrant. But when he was a teenager, his entire life could've turned out very differently.
Back in 1993, he was a top football and basketball star at Bethel High School in Hampton, Virginia.
On Valentine's Day of that year, a racially charged fight broke out at
the local bowling alley. Despite the lack of any serious injuries, Iverson and three
other young Black high schoolers were convicted of, quote, "maiming by mob,"
a statute established in Virginia after the Civil War to protect African Americans from lynchings.
"A town was- was immediately divided, and the rhetoric was heightened."
Iverson was sentenced to 15 years in prison. According to the statute,
the prosecutor didn't have to prove the boys' level of participation in the brawl, just that
they were present. Community efforts eventually led to Iverson's release after four months.
He went on to get his diploma and play basketball at Georgetown University, and he continued to
fight negative stigmas the rest of his career as he became an iconic figure in basketball history.
Michael Jordan is synonymous with basketball excellence, plain and simple.
So it's pretty amazing that at the peak of his professional success,
he stepped away from the game for 18 months to play minor league baseball.
To understand why, you need to know about his relationship with his father James Jordan Sr.,
who was killed in July 1993 in a carjacking. During his early career, Jordan's father was
his closest confidant. Two months after the killing, the younger Jordan retired from the NBA,
and the following February, he signed with the Chicago White Sox. He then reported to
Birmingham to play for the minor league Barons in the hopes of making it to the majors.
The older Jordan's favorite sport was baseball, and he'd suggested to his son
that he should try to play that sport. But after just a single season in the minors,
he returned to the basketball court in March of 1995. He won three more championships with
the Bulls before retiring for a second time in 1999, before then returning again for a couple
more seasons with the Washington Wizards, and finally retiring for good in 2003.
Throughout the 80s, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird helped the NBA reach
previously unprecedented levels of popularity, as they ushered in the modern game of basketball.
But by the 90s, they were both forced into earlier-than-expected retirements. Bird
followed a spectacular 1988-to-89 regular season with a subpar postseason. This came in large part
because of bone spurs in both of his feet. After recovering from surgery, he only played six games
the next season. By the 1990-to-91 season, he was the old man on a younger, faster Boston roster,
with his lower back soreness significantly hampering his abilities. After a playoff victory
that year, he spent the night in a hospital with back pain. The following season would be his last.
While Bird struggled, Johnson opened the 90s with an MVP award and an NBA Finals appearance.
He hoped that this decade would be just as fruitful as the last, but that came to a halt
when he discovered that he had contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He was forced to retire,
with many fearing for his life. Ultimately, he was fortunate enough to never become seriously sick,
and he and Bird have both gone on to become successful sports executives.
Kobe Bryant left an indelible mark on the NBA during his 20-year career,
all with the Los Angeles Lakers, winning five titles and two Olympic gold medals.
After retiring in 2016, he transitioned from basketball star to mogul seamlessly.
In 2018, he even won an Oscar for Best Animated Short for Dear Basketball,
which was based on a poem he wrote. That same year, he opened the Mamba Sports Academy,
a joint athletic-training business venture with Bryant and Sports Academy CEO Chad Faulkner.
Tragically, Bryant's post-NBA career and life came to an abrupt end on January 26, 2020, when he,
his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and six other passengers were flying by helicopter to the
Academy for a basketball game. Despite severe fog, the pilot attempted to make the 40-minute flight.
The helicopter crashed when visibility was lost, killing all nine people on board. As NBA games
were set to begin or were already underway that day, players, coaches, and fans alike
all paid tribute to the fallen basketball icon and the eight other people who lost their lives.
"So in the words of Kobe Bryant, Mamba out. But in the words of us, not forgotten. Live on, brother."
The Boston Celtics of the 1980s had one of the greatest runs in NBA history. They won three
championships in a six-year span, and they hoped to rejuvenate their aging core with fresh, young
talent in the draft. But the two players who were meant to hold together the dynasty died before
either could reach their full potential. In 1986, the Celtics were coming off a championship season,
and they held the second pick in the upcoming draft. They selected Maryland forward Len Bias,
who many believed was destined for a Hall of Fame career. But just two days after the draft,
he passed away from a cocaine overdose in a friend's dorm room. He was only 22.
The Celtics had another hopeful the following year when they drafted Reggie Lewis out of Northeastern
University. He developed into a steady contributor during the late 80s and early 90s. But then during
a 1993 playoff game, he collapsed for a moment on the court. At first, he received a diagnosis
of focal cardiomyopathy before getting a second opinion that wasn't as serious. But then during
an off-season workout, he collapsed again and succumbed to sudden cardiac death. He was only 27.
Jerry West is so legendary that he's literally the symbol of the NBA. That's right, the league's
logo is a silhouette of West dribbling the ball in front of a red and blue background.
But despite reaching this level of stardom, he's also suffered great pain in his life. In 2011,
he revealed that he'd been battling depression since his childhood when he suffered at the
hands of his abusive father. In an interview with Bryant Gumbel, he discussed how he would
go to bed at night feeling like he didn't want to live anymore. The interview was a
promotion for his autobiography, which was aptly titled West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life.
"I didn't want to live. I mean, why, why face this?"
It was only when West's sister began to also suffer at his father's hand that West began to
stand up to him. He also went to sleep with a shotgun under his bed just in case he needed to
use it. For West, basketball was an escape. But the game that he loved could also hurt him. Over
the course of his career, his Los Angeles Lakers lost six championships to the Boston Celtics,
and because of the pain of defeat, he couldn't return to Boston after retiring.
Loyola Marymount University is from a basketball powerhouse,
but for a few seasons in the late 80s, the Lions had aims to join the nation's elite company.
Coached by Paul Westhead, they set records in scoring while being led by stars Bo
Kimble and Hank Gathers, the latter of whom entered the 1989-to-90 season as a
favorite for the National Player of the Year award and a potentially high NBA draft pick.
During a game against UC Santa Barbara on December 9, Gathers collapsed on
the court. He was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and was prescribed a beta blocker to
control his condition. But a side effect of the drug was reduced energy, so Gathers limited his
intake to continue to play at a high level. Three months later, he again collapsed on the court
after throwing down a dunk. He rose for a moment only to collapse again. It was later determined
that he died from the heart-muscle disorder hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He was only 23.
An autopsy revealed that there wasn't even a trace amount of the medicine in his system.
Led by Westhead, Kimble, and the memory of their fallen leader, the Lions went
on a deep run in the NCAA tournament, before falling to eventual champions UNLV.
Chicago's Simeon Career Academy isn't just a high school; it's also a factory for turning out elite
basketball players. Such future NBA players as Derrick Rose, Nick Anderson, and Jabari Parker
all attended the school. Unfortunately, one of the great stars of Simeon never made it to college,
let alone the NBA. Ben Wilson entered Simeon as a 6-foot 1-inch freshman who wasn't guaranteed
any playing time, but his skills and body grew to the point that by his senior year,
his 6-foot 9-inch frame and all-around game were making college coaches salivate.
As his teammate Nick Anderson said of him,
"Benji was Magic Johnson, but with a jump shot.
He had all the moves. We played one-on-one a lot. Benji usually won."
On November 20, 1984, Wilson decided to skip lunch to talk to his girlfriend, who was also
the mother of his son. After a brief argument, he accidentally bumped into another young man,
which led to a fight. The other man then pulled out a gun and fired two fatal shots into Wilson's
stomach. His funeral was attended by 8,000 people, including Mayor Harold Washington,
and the eulogy was given by Reverend Jesse Jackson.
"We can't get over it, nor should we get over it, cause it should remind
us that none of us is secure until all of us are secure."
The story of the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award is the stuff of a Disney
movie about the power of friendship. Jack Twyman of the Rochester, later Cincinnati,
Royals was one of the great players in the NBA's early years, as he was one of the first to average
30 points per game for a season. But his greatest contribution came as a teammate. His fellow Royal
Maurice Stokes was just as good, if not better. During his three seasons from 1956 to 1958,
Stokes was an All-Star who's been described as an early version of Magic Johnson.
During one game, Stokes landed on his head and was knocked unconscious. He then regained
consciousness and continued playing. But days later, after a playoff game in Detroit,
he suffered a seizure. He then went into a coma and when he awoke, he was left paralyzed
and later diagnosed as having post-traumatic encephalopathy. The Royals quickly cut Stokes'
salary. This is where Twyman stepped in. He worked for an insurance company during
the off-season and successfully sued in order to get Stokes' family workman's compensation.
He also organized charity games and raised funds to help pay for his teammate's medical bills.
Twyman also even became Stokes' legal guardian until Stokes passed away in 1970.