05-29-23: Boston, MA: The Celtics Jayson Tatum is pictured in the second half. The Boston Celtics hosted the Miami Heat for Game Seven of their NBA Eastern Conference Championship series at the TD Garden. (Jim Davis/Globe Staff).
Jones: Remembering Reggie Lewis 30 years after his sudden and tragic death
I never got the chance to fully hate Reggie Lewis.
To be hated by Los Angeles Lakers fans is a sign of respect when you play for the Boston Celtics. And Lewis was next in line to join the likes of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Red Auerbach among those most despised by Lakers Nation in the 1980s and ’90s.
Lewis was an NBA All-Star in 1992 and expected to be the next Celtics great when he died suddenly on July 27, 1993 — 30 years ago. His death was attributed to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart condition. Lewis was 27 years old and on his way to being reviled like Cedric Maxwell or despised like Danny Ainge.
All because he was that good.
As a teenager growing up in southern California, I was a die-hard Lakers fan, but my team was in disarray following Magic Johnson’s sudden retirement after testing positive for HIV. Los Angeles had a young fan favorite in Vlade Divac, but Showtime staples James Worthy, Byron Scott and A.C. Green were no longer in their heyday.
Could Doug Christie or Anthony Peeler become stars? Who knew? What was certain was the Lakers didn’t have someone like Lewis. He was special.
Lewis was entering his prime and set to torment me as one of the game’s best two-way players. He was a 6-foot-7 guard who averaged 17.8 points in six NBA seasons. Lewis averaged 20.8 points in back-to-back seasons (1991-92 and 1992-93).
And he displayed his scoring ability in the playoffs by averaging 20-plus points in four consecutive postseasons (1989-92). Lewis averaged 28 points in the 1992 playoffs.
“I got a chance to play with him for three years, and you miss out on one of those generational guys that we’d be talking about if he didn’t pass away,” former Celtics guard Dee Brown said. “He was entering his prime; he was 27. To me — or, ask anybody — he was the second-best two-guard behind (Michael) Jordan. Better than Reggie Miller, Mitch Richmond, all those guys.”
Miller and Richmond both are in the Hall of Fame.
Lewis’ death left many wondering: “What if?”
Lewis had already given me a couple of reasons to add him to my list of annoying Celtics. He came off the bench on Dec. 16, 1988, to drop 22 points on the Lakers in a 110-96 win at Boston. It was a disrespectful performance. You don’t do that to the Lakers during Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s farewell tour.
Lewis scored 23 points and added nine rebounds and five assists in his final game against the Lakers. Boston beat the Lakers 129-119, outscoring the Lakers 49-25 in the fourth quarter at the Forum.
He was the young, shining light in Boston. Meanwhile, my Lakers were in search of their next star.
The Celtics might not have spent the rest of the ’90s chasing luck in the lottery (they had two lottery picks in 1997, the Tim Duncan year, and ended up with the third and sixth picks). Boston never landed a major free agent who could fill Lewis’ void.
Paul Pierce was drafted in 1998, but he wouldn’t win a championship for another 10 years (against the Lakers), cementing the Inglewood, Calif., native’s status as a hated figure in the rivalry.
But if Lewis had lived, the Celtics might have been too good to be in a position to draft Pierce. Lewis would have been Celtic we loved to hate.
Lewis’ death is always on Brown’s mind. He said it’s been harder this year knowing it’s been three decades. And the news of Bronny James suffering cardiac arrest on Monday brought Lewis to mind even more.
Brown now is a senior associate athletic director at his alma mater, Jacksonville University. But in 1993, he was Lewis’ teammate and, along with Brian Shaw, part of a young backcourt expected to usher in a new reign of Boston greatness.
“He was like a big brother to me,” Brown said. “He took care of me.”
Brown played 12 seasons in the NBA and eight with the Celtics. He still wonders how his career might have been different had he been able to play with Lewis for more than three seasons.
As Bird’s back ailed in the 1980s and ’90s, Lewis ascended. Brown and the Celtics had reason to believe they had their star to replace Bird.
“He showed he could carry a team and win games by himself,” Brown said. “Once he passed away, it threw the whole franchise for a loop. I kind of got put into the ‘franchise guy,’ and that wasn’t my role. I wasn’t that good a player to carry a franchise like that. You know, I was probably the No. 2; I wasn’t good enough to be No. 1. I’m very honest about that.”
Brown had one of his best seasons in 1993-94, averaging 15.5 points — the second-best of his career — to lead Boston. But it was a memorable season mostly because the franchise was still in disbelief.
Really, we all were.
“The hardest part is, sometimes, I can go look at old footage, old VCR tapes, just old, grainy video, and I try to remember the next season, and I don’t remember that season,” Brown said. “Like, I was in a fog the whole year, and I think everybody was also in a fog the whole year.”
Not only did the Celtics miss Lewis on the court, but New England also missed out on his contributions to the community. Brown recalled Lewis, who played collegiately at nearby Northeastern, establishing the Reggie Lewis Turkey Giveaway.
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“He’s the first person I’d seen around who did stuff like that, like, real stuff in the community,” Brown said. “Like, ‘I’m going to buy a thousand turkeys and a thousand sides and go right back to where I went to school and give it away.’”
It’s hard to hate something like that, and someone like that. But as a Lakers fan, it would have been an honor to despise Lewis on the court for many years.
