Highs and Lows Under the Basket

By Tom Callahan

The road is dreary, the money is there, and so are the drugs

On Nov. 3, the day of the Washington Bullets' first home game of the basketball season, playmaking Guard John Lucas missed a morning physical and an afternoon "shoot around." He came late for the game. Lucas had been undependable for some time, and his teammates would not have been surprised by anything Luke said when he finally arrived--except by what he did say.

"Luke came right in the door," recalls Kevin Grevey, the other starting guard, "and in front of everyone, said, 'I've got a drug problem; I did too much cocaine last night.' You could hear a pin drop. 'Gene,' he turned to Gene Shue [the Bullets' head coach], 'help me. Kevin, help me.' He went around the room. 'Don, help me. Rick, please help me.' Nobody could say a word. We were stunned."

They were not stunned by the news that one of their number was using cocaine. The fact that sports heroes lie, steal, cheat, drink, smoke dope and snort cocaine at roughly the rate of their fellow men has never been the revelation to athletes that it is to others. "But I've never, ever heard anyone admit it," Grevey says, "especially to his coach."

Lucas played that night. Remarkably, word of the locker-room confession did not leak out for two months, but when it did, Lucas and his lawyer met with a Washington Post reporter, and Luke confessed anew. "It started last year when I was depressed about a lot of things," he said. "It's not affecting my play at all. There are a lot of guys who go out on the court all messed up. I'd never do that."

Though a lot of "messed up" guys is as specific as anyone gets, it is easy to believe the whispered reports that quite a few players get a kick from cocaine, and mere alcohol doesn't thrill them at all. There probably isn't a place of affluence anywhere in sports or society where consciences or nasal passages are completely clear; and the National Basketball Association can be a particularly dreary place. "When I first came into the league in 1976," says Lucas, "the old pros told me: 'You'll be jolly and peppy for about three years, and then you'll settle into the rut. Everyone does.' "

Baseball players at least get to unpack for a three-day series, but the pro-basketball life constitutes vaudeville, endless one-night stands, night after night; catching the last flight at midnight or the first one in the morning; playing 100 games a year--too many for the body, the soul and even the customers. "Sometimes," says Grevey, "your legs start to ache real bad just walking down the steps to go to the game, and you realize they aren't even injured, they're just tired. Then, on the court, you feel like you're playing in Army boots. You have to pace yourself to go the season, live within human physical capabilities."

Living within human capabilities sounds so simple. Once, Lucas' capabilities seemed unlimited. In his senior year at the University of Maryland, Luke was the country's only two-sport A11 America, a basketball star skilled enough, though only 6 ft. 3 in., to be the first player selected in the pro draft, and a tennis player qualified to compete in World Team Tennis. For a time he attempted to play both professional sports.

When a college superstar becomes an ordinary pro, there is always some shadowy hanger-on standing by to tell him how great he is, to supply him with commiseration and anything else he may want. The average salary in the N.B.A. exceeds $200,000 a year, and Lucas makes $300,000. At those rates, 9-to-5 people are not likely to spend much sympathy on the John Lucases, whose problems are no more profound than anyone's pressures at work--the death of a boyhood coach, loneliness, self-doubts, shattered images. The only difference is that the basketball player can afford the latest pharmaceutical cures.

The N.B.A. was forced to consider the problem a couple of seasons ago when two Atlanta Hawk players went after the same starting position: the loser could not cope with failure, and the winner could not handle success. They both crashed: Terry Furlow struck a highway pole--the coroner found cocaine in his bloodstream; Eddie Johnson subsequently ran into the law--he was charged with possession of cocaine. After that, the league and the players' association agreed to share the cost of affiliating with the Life Extension Institute, a medical group offering psychological counselors on call 24 hours, to provide quiet help.

If the trouble is public, though, sympathy seldom flows from leagues. Last August, N.B.A. Commissioner Larry O'Brien left little room for leniency in the rules on illegal drug use. "Any player proved to have engaged in such activity," he decreed, "will forfeit his right to play in the N.B.A." Soon after the Post report, Lucas answered a summons to the commissioner's office in New York City, and he must have expected a suspension.

Instead, he received understanding. "It was very informal--it wasn't a hearing," says O'Brien. "We talked for four or five hours. For about an hour and a half, I put him together with Dr. Stephen Duvall of the Life Extension Institute. At one point, John had told me: 'I'm not talking about whether I play for the Bullets any more; I'm talking about my very life.' What do I say to that?"

O'Brien decided that if Lucas would undergo an intensive rehabilitation program and avoid "any recurrence of his involvement with drugs," he could continue playing. The time-honored response of sports powers to drug scandals is usually to say they are blown out of proportion, and quickly cashier the players who get caught. There is more honor in understanding the rigors of the sport and acknowledging the horrors. "We have to accept the fact that we're part of society," says O'Brien. "The N.B.A. isn't immune."

Lucas continues as the Bullets' floor leader, and the players continue to help him. Like everyone else, the N.B.A. has to understand and live within its human capabilities. --By Tom Callahan

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