12 NBA Players who died during their Playing Career 

#9 Len Bias

Len Bias (via tidesports.com)

The former college star never got to play a single NBA game before his untimely passing.

Bias was selected by the Boston Celtics as the second pick in the 1986 draft after a remarkable spell at the University of Maryland. He had loads of promise and was thought to be nearly on par with Michael Jordan, even completing talks with sportswear giants Reebok over a $1.6 million dollar endorsement upon his arrival in the league.

But despite all of the grand developments in his life, Bias joined friends for the last party he would ever have, on a fateful morning in June of the aforementioned year, passing out through cocaine use. He was pronounced dead nearly three hours later, as a result of cardiac arrhythmia from a cocaine overdose.

The Celtics proceeded to hang his jersey from their rafters, with then-coach Red Auerbach claiming that the city of Boston hadn’t been this taken aback since the assassination of U.S President John F. Kennedy.