“I’m just an average player who can do fantastic things…”
After signing a 10-day contract with the Portland Trail Blazers in February 1980, the high-flying 6-foot-4, 210-pound guard quickly became a crowd favorite for his slam dunks and energetic playing style. The league also took notice, naming him NBA Player of the Week towards the end of his rookie season. He especially excelled in the playoffs, averaging 25.0 ppg in the 1980 playoffs and 28.3 ppg in the 1981 playoffs.
However, there were signs that the 6’4″ guard, nicknamed “Dunk,” would have to make major changes in his game and attitude for him to stick in the NBA. Although he thrilled fans with his aerial exploits, the league’s yearbook said he was a great rebounder and dunker, but noted that those skills were not needed for his position. He once slept through the first half of a home game, arriving at halftime.
In September 1982, after 3 seasons in Portland, he was cut from the team. Bates later checked into a Portland hospital, allegedly for drug treatment.[2]
Bates played briefly with the Washington Bullets in the 1982-83 season, appearing in 15 games before being let go. He then had a 10-day trial with the Lakers (where he supposedly dunked on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar[3]) and appeared in 4 games, but at 25 pounds overweight, that didn’t work out either. He would never play in the NBA again.
(Source, Wikipedia)
I recall him doing work in the playoffs. Sitting up late at night watching CBS and listening to Brent Musberger.
More from wikipedia…
Bates’s career is an example of what can happen to players unprepared for NBA life in urban environs. Jerome Kersey relates,
After picking Bates up at the Portland airport, then-Blazer trainer Ron Culp advised Billy Ray not to carry large amounts of cash around, but rather to open up a checking account so that he could pay bills with checks. Bates had a quizzical expression on his face, Culp recalled, and finally worked up the nerve to ask, “What are checks?”[10]
Bates once epitomized the image of hard-partying, sex-crazed athletes in the PBA. His Filipino teammates vividly recall times when Bates downed a couple of beers in the locker room before tip-off. It is believed that he was able to put up Wilt Chamberlain-like numbers in the bedroom, as well as on the court. Even his PBA nickname, “Black Superman,” contained a hint of innuendo.[11]
Bates hit bottom on Jan. 17, 1998, when he robbed a New Jersey Texaco station at knifepoint, slashing the ear of attendant Philip Kittel in the process. The crime netted Bates a grand total of five bucks–and seven years in prison.
Bates became an inmate at Hope Hall, a 164-bed halfway house for adult male offenders in Camden, N.J. During his stay, he has taken part in classes designed to mend damaged cognitive skills, ready himself for the workplace and learn how to manage his emotions. Bates juggled church attendance, AA meetings and shifts at Aluminum Shapes, an aluminum extruder, where he readies products for shipping. In the evenings, he studies reading and writing at Camden Community College. In fact, he says, he’s written a book, Born to Play Basketball, which he hopes to publish when he’s released.
In the past, Bates has been vague about the root of his difficulties. In a 1992 interview with The Oregonian, for example, he denied having drug problems. But he now blames the gas-station robbery on cocaine and alcohol.
“I went to play the lottery,” he says. “And that’s when the devil got inside me.”
According to Bates, he’d been hanging out with some younger friends that day, “trying to help them with their lives.” Instead, he wound up drinking vodka, snorting cocaine, and holding up a Texaco. “That’s not my character,” he explains. “I was doing cocaine and drinking.”
I hope Billy Ray Bates is doing well. I enjoyed watching him play…
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
