Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Chris Washburn
August 19, 2010 by John Stansberry
Filed under Uncategorized
“Cocaine is a hell of a drug.” Rick James said it, but it could just as easily (and also just as earnestly) come from the mouth of Chris Washburn.
A whole generation of hoops fans have grown up not knowing who the hell Chris Washburn is. That’s a damn shame, because they should. Make no mistake about it; the guy was that talented of a basketball player.
Washburn was an almost unfair combination of size and agility. At 6′11″ he possessed the kind of touch that was (and still is) a true rarity in players his height.
When I was a teenager, I eyeballed him in person when he was a senior in high school at Laurinburg (NC) Institute back in 1984. In the pre-internet era, Washburn was as hyped as a high school recruit could get. So my pop drove him and me the 30 miles to Laurinburg from our home in Fayetteville one Friday night. We just had to check this phenom out.
While playing at what appeared to be half speed against inferior competition, Washburn was still a sight to behold. One trip down the floor was a monster dunk while the next was a sweet fall away jumper that found nothing but net.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was watching a guy who was TOO aware of his glorious skill set. Even with a nonchalant approach that night he dominated the proceedings. And that nonchalance was a result of having grown up with everyone telling him just how great he was. In Washburn’s mind, greatness somehow came to mean that he just didn’t need to try hard.
Dean Smith and Denny Crum sent him letters when he was in the 9th grade. And the correspondence kept on coming from all corners of the country, some even sounding downright desperate:
You’re my reason for living. Maryland coach Charles G. (Lefty) Driesell wrote to Washburn during his junior year: “Everytime I see you play I am more and more convinced that with you in our lineup next year Maryland can win the NCAA Championship.” (Sports Illustrated)
I shudder to think of the amount of mail that descended upon Washburn during his high school years. He could have probably started his own paper recycling company and turned a sweet profit in the process.
The late Jim Valvano and NC State had won the sweepstakes for Washburn even before I saw him play in person. That year Valvano and his staff also signed Vinny Del Negro and Nate McMillan in the same recruiting class.
When you consider the fact that Charles Shackleford and Chuck Brown were also on the Wolfpack roster during those years, it’s one hell of a head scratcher as to why Valvano didn’t make another national title run with that much talent.
I’ll let Jim Weber from Yahoo! sum up the train wreck that Washburn’s time in Raleigh became:
A North Carolina high school phenom, Washburn arrived at N.C. State after scoring 420 on his SATs (400 of those were for spelling his name right). Having already been admitted to college, he blew off the test and finished in 22 minutes. He says he would have been done even sooner if he could have circled the answers instead of shading in the bubbles. Just seven games into his college career he was convicted of stealing a stereo from a fellow athlete’s dorm room and suspended for the year. Washburn insisted it was a prank.
The 6-foot-11 big man exploded in his second season under coach Jim Valvano, despite smoking marijuana and drinking before games, which left him high in the first half and sleepy in the second. He cemented his draft status by lighting up that year’s No. 1 pick, Brad Daugherty, for 26 points in an upset victory over No. 1 North Carolina. (Yahoo! Sports)
Washburn was Paris Hilton before the concept of such a person became part of the nation’s pop culture consciousness. Here’s a guy who wanted all the trappings of celebrity excess (partying, drugs, lack of accountability, etc.) without ever having to put in the requisite hard work needed to achieve access to those things. For him, the party after the game mattered infinitely more than the game itself.
But even while half-assing it under the effect of drugs and booze, Washburn’s talents couldn’t be denied. So when he surprised no one and left NC State early to enter the 1986 NBA Draft, the Golden State Warriors were more than happy to select him third overall.
Even if you’re not privy to the man’s history, you can pretty much guess how Washburn’s NBA career turned out. He ended up playing in a total of 72 games, averaging 3.1 points and 2.4 rebounds in the process.
A scant three months after his NBA debut, Washburn landed in rehab with a cocaine problem. He was suspended for a year by the league after a positive drug test before the 1988-89 season and was banned for life after another positive test in the summer of 1989.
Keep in mind that Washburn went in the same draft as Maryland great Len Bias. The day after they were both made instant millionaires, Bias died of a drug overdose. Yet with that cautionary tale hitting so close to home, Washburn STILL continued to make the wrong choices.
You can imagine where the guy’s life went after being banned. For Washburn, the decade of the 90’s was basically a blur of relapses, jail time and for a short time even homelessness. When he should have been terrorizing NBA opponents and solidifying his Hall of Fame credentials, he was instead panhandling on the streets of Houston.
As Weber reported in his earlier referenced article, Washburn has been clean for the last 10 years. He’s even taken to giving speeches, passing along essentially the same cautionary tale he ignored a quarter of a century ago. But unlike Bias, Washburn is here to tell it himself, so hopefully the message can resonate a little better with the people now hearing it.
Ken Tysiac of the Charlotte Observer caught up with Washburn after one of those speeches and provided the following:
Washburn gave some typical, obvious advice. He told the players to stay away from drugs and show up early for practice. He counseled parents to take control of their sons’ college selection process.
Most important, he testified to what can happen to someone who gets involved with the wrong crowd. In his hometown of Hickory, Washburn said, people talk proudly of a local guy who’s made his mark in sports, retired race car driver Dale Jarrett.
“They never say anything about Chris Washburn,” he said. “And why is that? Because of the choices I’ve made.” (Charlotte Observer)
Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Steve Blass
Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Joe Charboneau
Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Russell Cross
Larry Ellison loses his chance to overpay for a crappy NBA team
July 16, 2010 by John Stansberry
Filed under Uncategorized
How batshit nuts is tech billionaire Larry Ellison? Well, the Oracle CEO got the best of his hated Microsoft rival Paul Allen a few years back after getting a serious case of boat envy. Allen had a huge yacht, but Ellison had to have a huger one, so he spent…brace yourself…$194,000,000 building the 454-foot long Rising Sun.
The problem was, it was too big to dock at most of the world’s marinas. So he dropped another pile of scratch to build a second, smaller one. Wow, nice problem to have.
His nautical spending spree hasn’t been limited to the building of boats, though, because he’s also taken to racing them. His Oracle team captured the America’s Cup (remember when Sports Illustrated used to actually cover Cup races?) earlier this year, which is only fitting since this event has been a haven for other batshit nuts billionaires ($1 to Ted Turner).
“Take that, Paul Allen! You, too, Bill friggin’ Gates! I’ve won the America’s Cup, a trophy that was kinda sorta relevant up until the mid-80’s!!!”
Larry then set his sights on trying to catch Allen in another arena: pro sports ownership. Years ago, Allen snapped up the Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle Seahawks before their price tags got too astronomical. In 1988 he got the Blazers for $70 million and nine years later plunked down $200 million to own the Seahawks.
It probably burns Ellison up that a nitwit from Microsoft owns not one but TWO more sports teams than he does. So when cash strapped Golden State Warriors owner Chris Cohan put his crappy franchise on the market, Ellison jumped into the mix. For the record, Oracle already owns the naming rights to the arena in Oakland that the team plays in.
Just two days ago, the San Francisco Chronicle implied that it was a foregone conclusion that Ellison would buy the team:
According to those sources, Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp., outbid 24-Hour Fitness founder Mark Mastrov, among others. If the current deal is completed, Ellison would control 80 percent of the franchise, and incumbent minority owners Michael Marks, Jim Davidson, John Thompson and Fred Harman would retain their stakes. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Once the dust had settled, though, Ellison lost out to Boston Celtics minority partner Joe Lacob and Mandalay Entertainment CEO Peter Guber. Who?!? Well, Guber I’ve heard of, he co-hosts that “In The House” show (which isn’t half bad) on Encore with Peter Bart.
Get this, the price tag for a franchise that’s made the playoffs once in 16 seasons? A record $450 million. Damn Larry, you should have gotten into this business when these teams were still cheap (well, relatively speaking, of course)! However, a statement from Ellison today makes it appear that Lacob and Guber didn’t necessarily pony up more cash:
“Although I was the highest bidder, Chris Cohan decided to sell to someone else,” he said. “In my experience this is a bit unusual. Nonetheless, I wish the Warriors and their fans nothing but success under their new ownership.” (Forbes)
So let me get this straight…Ellison made the highest offer to an owner who has a huge tab with the IRS, and he WASN’T taken up on it? Maybe it’s not that simple, as Frank Hughes of SI.com weighs in:
But Sal Galatioto, who brokered the sale for Cohan, said Ellison’s bid came in far too late. He said Cohan and Guber came to an agreement around July 4, and Ellison did not submit his bid — which Galatioto declined to expand upon but which one source said was only a few million more than the winner — until after the sides had started the closing process in the last few days.
“We are in business to turn down the high bidder?” Galatioto said. “How long would I be in business if I turned down the high bidder? I don’t think he believed we got a figure at 450 until it was too late.”
Those within the organization question whether Ellison ever even wanted to truly purchase the team. If he wanted it, they said, he could have had it. He is worth $27 billion, according to Forbes.
Instead, Ellison delayed a decision, seemingly unwilling to bid against himself, though Galatioto said he informed several of Ellison’s business partners on multiple occasions that they had a bid of $450 million and gave him plenty of time to respond.
Warriors employees reason that if Ellison was going to be that discerning about purchasing the team, he probably would not have been open to spending whatever it takes to turn around a team that seems to be in constant turmoil. (SI.com)
