Nobody gambles quite as hard as Isaiah Austin. Not with money, with his life.
Perhaps you remember watching the kid from Baylor on draft night in 2014, when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stepped to the podium between the 15th and 16th selections and made Austin a ceremonial pick, which fulfilled his dream of getting drafted.
The crowd gave him a standing ovation as he walked up to the podium, and he was eventually offered a job by Silver with the stipulation that he finished getting his college degree.
Everyone thought Austin’s basketball career was over. It wasn’t.
And it isn’t.
Austin is playing this summer in Nanning in Guangxi Province for a team in the Chinese equivalent of the G-League, the NBL.
He is looking for a job for the upcoming season, whether in China, the Philippines, Lebanon, Serbia or the United States — all places where he has been playing ball since that night in Brooklyn when he strode onstage at the Barclays Center and donned an NBA cap.
The thing about basketball players is that they do not want to stop playing basketball, even if they are risking their life by doing so.
In Austin’s case, that means taking a gamble that his aorta is not going to explode as a result of the disease he is fighting: Marfan Syndrome. No cure for Marfan syndrome is known, and many people have a normal life expectancy with proper treatment. But strenuous exercise is generally avoided.
Doctors in different countries have cleared Austin to play, and he still has a dream of playing in the NBA.
But in order for that to happen, he would have to be offered a contract by an NBA team.
Next, he would have to get medical clearance … and that is where the Chris Bosh rule comes into play.
During the last round of collective bargaining talks, the NBA and the NBPA devised a solution to the problem of players trying to get medical clearance when they have life-threatening conditions.
Nobody wants another Hank Gathers, Reggie Lewis or Zeke Upshaw event to happen on their watch, but nobody wants to be in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, either.
Under the Bosh rule, if a player petitions for medical clearance, the decision is made by a three-doctor Fitness-to-Play panel. If they give him the thumbs-up, he can start making millions instead of thousands.
Austin declined to speak on the record, and a spokesman for the NBA declined comment citing medical privacy rules. NBPA director Michele Roberts also declined to comment publicly, but the union is aware of Austin’s desire to play in the NBA.
Agent Harrison Gaines, who also represents Lonzo Ball, is on the case.
So we have not heard the last of this story.
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Austin actually tried to get the NBA’s permission to play once before, meeting with two NBA officials at Columbia University, along with a doctor who believed he should be given medical clearance and his former agent.
He was told ‘no.’
So the next decision Austin needs to make is whether to continue playing overseas — an option many American players actually prefer because they can make more money and be exposed to different cultures — or take a gamble on playing in the NBA.
Coach Bobby Gonzalez of the Jilin Northeast Tigers coached Austin in China last summer and said he is a lot like JaVale McGee of the Los Angeles Lakers, but with 3-point range and better shot-blocking skills.
“He is probably what you would call a stretch-five these days — a guy who is tremendously athletically gifted who has overcome an enormous amount of obstacles in his personal and professional life,” Gonzalez said.
Aside from being afflicted with Marfan Syndrome, Austin lost an eye as a 6th grader living in California when a baseball hit him. The hit loosened the retina, but it didn’t detach until two years later after his family had moved to Texas and he went up for a dunk before a middle school basketball game. Multiple surgeries were unable to repair his sight, and he now has a glass eye.
He left Baylor after leading the Bears to the Sweet 16 in 2014 with a loaded roster, and was a projected lottery pick before the Marfan Syndrome diagnosis was made.
The question he is now facing is this: Does he challenge the NBA and possibly lose the goodwill he has built with them over the past four years? Or does he acquiesce and continue plying his trade on distant shores, perhaps spending next summer playing alongside Jordan Clarkson on the Philippines national team?
There is a school of thought that says “Thou shall not challenge the NBA.”
But there is another school of thought that says “Fight for your rights.”
Now that the Chris Bosh rule exists, somebody is going to eventually become the first person to test it.
Whether that player is Isaiah Austin remains to be seen.
