Sam Bowie is the story seen, reviewed and re-reviewed of this second choice of the 1984 draft. The one who had the misfortune to be chosen just before Michael Jordan… but especially of the one who never chose to be this mistake of fate, this masterful flop, this mythical loser…
On the contrary, and in the ESPN documentary entitled “Going Big”, he revealed that he had hidden the seriousness of his physical problems before being selected in second place in Draft 84 by the Portland Trail Blazers. ” I still remember them with their little hammer, and they were hitting me on the left shin. I told them ‘I don’t feel anything’. But deep inside, I was hurting. Even if it’s considered a lie, even if it’s not right, in the end when you have a family to feed, I did what anyone would do. »
Portland already had Clyde Drexler
We must also put into context this choice of Draft passed into legend as being one of (or the) worst managerial decisions in the history of NBA basketball.
First, Portland already had Jim Paxson who was then an All-Star guard who was averaging 21 points. And then, the franchise had just selected a certain Clyde Drexler.
If, as a rookie, “The Glide” had totaled only a small average of 7 points per game, we could already feel the future star of the game rising in the sky of Oregon. No, a priori, the choice to select the pivot of Kentucky, Sam Bowie, seemed logical and rational for the Blazers.
The real problem is that of transparency. On the one hand, we therefore have a player who by his own admission, and the very evening of his Draft, knew that his physical condition was alarming (“ deep down, physically, I didn’t have the level of these guys “) but who wanted to secure his future by signing his NBA contract. And then on the other hand, we have the franchise of Portland which did not necessarily know how to detect and prevent this unfortunate choice.
Before the knees of Brandon Roy and Greg Oden…
Because if we watch the videos of Sam Bowie, the high school student from Pennsylvania, we realize that his huge body was already put to the test, that the future NBA player was not well enough surrounded to know how to manage his body. Tall with the hands of a lacemaker, he will play his first NBA season without any problem and as the second begins, it is Michael Jordan, the exceptional rookie from Chicago who injures his foot and has to end his season, only a week after opening.
Just after, it is indeed Sam Bowie who will begin his long way of the cross. Left leg broken his second season. Right leg broken his third. Right tibia fractured his fourth. In short, from the spring of 1985 to February 1989, Sam Bowie disappeared from circulation. He will end his career after two periods at the Nets and the Lakers, far from the starification of Michael Jordan and his six titles, but having managed to hide his secret: ” I never told the Portland Trail Blazers staff that I was in pain. »
The tragic story of Sam Bowie reminds us how much the Portland franchise has never been polished, and we still remember the knees of Brandon Roy and Greg Oden. Both had the “franchise player” potential to bring the Blazers to the top, and unfortunately their physicality decided otherwise.
