Remembering Reggie Lewis: 1965-1993

Cover photo: Boston Celtics’ forward Reggie Lewis against the Detroit Pistons in the 1991 NBA playoffs. Photo credit: Focus on Sport, Getty Images.

The 1981-82 and 1982-83 Dunbar High School boys basketball teams are considered some of the best, if not the best, high school teams that there has ever been. In 81-82, the program went undefeated, while in 82-83 they were ranked first in the nation with a 31-0 regular season record. Gary Graham, David Wingate, Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues, and Reggie Williams made up four of the five. Wingate, Bogues, and Williams went on to the NBA. The fifth member of the talented starting five went on to the NBA, too.  

Reggie Lewis, a Baltimore, Md. native, was a star at Northeastern University in the Eastern College Athletic Conference North - now known as the America East Conference - four times named the All-Conference team and three times its Player of the Year. After 17.8 points per game as a freshman, Lewis averaged 24.1, 23.8, and 23.3 points per game in his sophomore, junior, and senior campaigns, leading the conference in each of those three seasons. In his junior season he also registered 9.3 rebounds, 2.8 steals, and 2.1 blocks, all which led the conference. 

Lewis was drafted 22nd overall in 1987 by the Boston Celtics, in a draft that produced Hall of Famers David Robinson, Scottie Pippen, and Reggie Miller. All-Stars Mark Jackson, Kevin Johnson, and Horace Grant, too. 

Drafted one year after Len Bias was taken first by the Celtics, Lewis represented the next era of Celtic basketball, overlapping with Boston’s resident Big 3 of Bird-McHale-Parish. 

Lewis played sparingly as a rookie, seeing action in just 8.3 minutes per game. By his second season though, he was averaging over 30 minutes (32.8), and was a 48.6% shooter, an efficiency that he would continue throughout his career. He averaged 15.6 shots per game in his second season and put up 18.5 points per game in 57 starts. 

In his third season of 1989-90, Lewis in 79 games (54 starts) put up 17.0 points per game on 49.6% shooting (13.8 attempts) in 31.9 minutes per game. He started all 79 games that he played in in 1990-91 (36.4 minutes per game) and averaged 18.7 points on 49.1% shooting (15.4 attempts). 

Lewis hit his stride in 1991-92, becoming an NBA All-Star. He posted averages that season of 20.8 points (50.3% on 17.0 shots), 4.8 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.5 steals and 1.3 blocks per game, starting all 82 games and averaging 37.4 minutes per game. He averaged 20.8 points (47.0%, 17.6 attempts) once again in 1992-93, playing 80 games and 39.3 minutes per game. 

The tragedy of Reggie Lewis, who passed away on July 27, 1993 in Waltham, Mass. during a workout (he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), was one of tremendous devastation not only to the Celtics who had just lost Bias seven years earlier but to the basketball world as a whole. A supremely talented young man with his life and career ahead of him gone too soon. The Celtics were a playoff team in 1992-93, a 48-win team that lost in four games in the first round to the Charlotte Hornets. It was a talented young group - Lewis was in his fifth season, Dee Brown was in year two and Rick Fox had been in the league one year - that was anchored by its two venerable veterans in Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, the lone holdovers from the 80s title teams. 

Three years prior to Lewis’ passing, Loyola Marymount superstar Hank Gathers, 23 years old, collapsed on the court during a game against the University of Portland. 

Both deaths rocked the basketball world, both young men with their lives ahead of them. Beyond basketball, both deaths are profoundly sad in the fact that young and successful lives were gone prematurely. Bias fits that category, too.

Lewis, a rangy 6 foot, 7 inch forward, was a smooth scorer who had defensive capabilities. On March 31, 1991 at the Boston Garden, Lewis in scoring 25 points against the Chicago Bulls also blocked Michael Jordan four times. The four blocks were one off of Lewis’ career-high (he registered five in a game on Nov. 12, 1991). Nearly three years prior to the five-block effort, on Nov. 15, 1988, he recorded five steals. He registered his career-high in rebounds (12) on April 14, 1989 and put up his career-high in rebounds, also 12, on April 14, 1989. On April 12, 1991 against the Miami Heat, he made 16-of-24 shots and 10-of-12 from the free-throw line for a career-high 42 points in a 119-109 Celtics’ victory. 

“That hurt, I really got emotional about that because he was like an extension of my family because we were teammates. That really shook me. Matter of fact, I still think about Reggie,” Parish told former Celtic teammate and 1981 NBA Finals MVP Cedric Maxwell earlier this year. 

“Reggie was such a good guy,” said McHale to Maxwell. In the same interview, McHale recounts to Maxwell a game in 1991-92 where the Celtics were riddled with injuries. “He had 22 points in the first half,” says McHale of Lewis. “He walked by me and I was like ‘who is this guy,’”? I’ve seen some flashes in practice but not like that. I mean, he was lighting up good defenders. He was 6’7 with crazy long arms, and he was just shooting over the best defenders in the league.” 

McHale continues in the interview to say, “He was really a good guy. What a shame because he was young when I retired. He could have bridged that next gap for the Celtics. Reggie was really a good guy. Really a tremendous guy. I never heard Reggie say a bad word about anybody.” 

Gone too soon, but left his mark as a great player and person. We remember Reggie Lewis on what would have been his 60th birthday.