The 1986 NBA draft is the draft of “what ifs” with guys like Len Bias, Chris Washburn and William Bedford all seeing addiction ruin their careers, but there’s one more player from that draft whose career met the same fate, and that’s Roy Tarpley, yet Tarpley was slightly different. Bias passed before playing an NBA game, and Washburn and Bedford were very underwhelming. But Roy Tarpley, excelled when he was playing. He went from a constantly improving four year player with the Michigan Wolverines, spending his senior season alongside a freshman Glen Rice. He would be a top 10 draft pick by the Dallas Mavericks led by Mark Aguirre and Rolando Blackman, and in his first season would make the all rookie team, then in year 2 he would be voted 1988 Sixth Man of the Year while being an integral piece during the Dallas Mavericks 1988 Western Conference Finals run. But after this, he would play less than 70 games combined over the next three seasons. He would be suspended for drug and alcohol related offenses multiple times as an addiction was engulfing his life, until he received a lifetime Ban in 1991, over the next couple of years, he would dominate in other league’s throughout the US and Europe before being lucky enough to get one more chance and return to the Mavericks for ’95 season, where he was a veteran on a young Dallas team featuring Jason Kidd, Jim Jackson and Jamal Mashburn, but after a solid comeback season, he received another lifetime ban for alcohol related offenses, and would never play in the NBA again. Roy Tarpley was the ultimate hustle player from the beginning and was consistently refining his skills on the offensive and defensive side of the ball every year. It was a matter of when he would be considered a star, not if, but before that could happen, his addiction won over and ruined the career of someone who could have been one of the top players in the league.
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