Perhaps it was because of the death of Reggie that Jeff Green and Chris Wilcox were diagnosed with a heart problem and were able to deal with it and return to the league. And since I have been diagnosed with heart failure and have been going through a lot of questions and dealing with affairs of the heart, this tragedy hits home a lot more now than it ever has. Having a heart condition is a constant reminder of one\u2019s mortality.<\/p>\n
Reggie was drafted by the Celtics with the next to the last pick in the first round of the 1987 NBA Draft. Like most Celtics rookies back then, his first year was a learning one and Reggie mostly watched and learned from the future Hall of Fame players ahead of him. He observed and learned and pushed himself in Year One and then, in Year Two, he appeared in 81 of the 82 regular season games and finished his sophomore season averaging 18.5 points per game. More importantly, he stepped in and comforted Celtics fans\u2019 fears and worries, after Larry Bird missed almost the entire season due to surgery.<\/p>\n
Celtics fans witnessed true flashes of brilliance in Reggie\u2019s game during the 1991-92 season, as he averaged a career-best 20.8 points per game while playing in all 82 games. He averaged over 20 points again the following season. He posted a spectacular career-high 28.0 points per game in the 1992 playoffs and was the lone Celtic to be named the NBA Eastern Conference All-Star Team. After Larry Bird retired in 1992, Reggie was named the team\u2019s captain.<\/p>\n
On April 29, 1993, the Celtics began a first-round playoff series with the Charlotte Hornets. The setting for that series was the old Boston Garden. The Boston Garden at the time was the only arena in professional sports that did not have air conditioning. Opposing teams would suggest that the Celtics intentionally turned up the temperature as a way to create an edge over the unsuspecting and unconditioned players who might be visiting.<\/p>\n
Several opponents throughout the years had fallen victim to dehydration and related nausea. The most notable example was Game 4 of the 1984 playoffs when Kareem Abdul Jabbar was seen wearing an oxygen mask to help with the extreme heat. The Garden created perhaps the greatest home court advantage in all of sports. This night, the Garden was hot and humid as usual. The Celtics were on their way to a blowout victory and it was still early in the first quarter. Their captain could not miss a shot and had already scored ten points within the first three minutes.<\/p>\n
BOSTON, MA – MARCH 14: Boston Celtics Reggie Lewis, right, and Charlotte Hornets Muggsy Bogues, left, scramble for the ball during a game at the Boston Garden, March 14, 1993. (Photo by Pat Greenhouse\/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) Boston Globe via Getty Images<\/p>\n After going hard to the basket and grabbing a rebound through several defenders, Lewis began to head back down the court. Suddenly, his body slumped forward towards the court. Although the fall was sudden, it did not initially appear to be concerning because Lewis returned to his feet within a few seconds and checked himself out of the game. For many spectators, the heat in the building was probably blamed as the reason for the fall.<\/p>\n Complaining of dizziness and a black out, Lewis sat out the remainder of the first half while team doctor, Dr. Arnold Scheller, attempted to diagnose the cause of the black out. At halftime, Lewis mentioned that he had some grapefruit juice just before the game that tasted too bitter. With the high degree of humidity in the Garden coupled with the possibility of bad juice, Scheller, an orthopedic specialist, recommended that Lewis be allowed to continue to play in the second half. In that half, teammates mentioned that Lewis\u2019 legs were wobbly and he came back out of the game almost immediately.<\/p>\n After the game, Lewis was sent to New England Baptist Hospital where he underwent a battery of tests that were supervised by a \u201cdream team\u201d of 12 of the most respected cardiologists in the Boston area. After thorough testing, the team of doctors diagnosed Lewis to be suffering from ventricular tachycardia, the most dangerous form of arrhythmia. They concluded that Lewis was lucky that his first symptom was not sudden cardiac death but merely a fainting episode.<\/p>\n Reggie was frustrated because the diagnosis meant an end to his basketball career, but he also became angry with the doctors because they kept pursuing possible cocaine use as an explanation. Perhaps the death of Len Bias, which was caused by cocaine use, influenced their thoughts. Lewis checked himself out of the care at New England Baptist Hospital in the middle of the night and sought out Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital chief of cardiology, Dr. Gilbert Mudge.<\/p>\n Dr. Mudge had been following the story and even prior to Reggie\u2019s contacting him, Dr. Mudge claimed to have been suspicious of the diagnosis due to what he believed to be inconsistencies and discrepancies in Lewis\u2019 test results. After performing his own battery of tests, Mudge called a press conference in early May of 1993 and stated that Lewis was not suffering from cardiomyopathy but merely from a curable neurocardiogenic fainting disorder. Mudge prescribed beta blockers as treatment and pronounced Reggie physically fit to return to playing professional basketball the following fall.<\/p>\n On July 27, 1993, Lewis entered the Brandeis arena with a friend to prepare for a full court pickup game that night. After about an hour on the court without even working up a sweat, Lewis crumpled near the 3-point line. Nearly two hours after he collapsed at 5:07 p.m. the hospital announced that Reggie Lewis was dead at the age of 27. In the wake of his death, the heart wrenching news came out that earlier in the day, Reggie\u2019s wife Donna had just found out that she was pregnant with their second child. She never got to give Reggie the news. That quote from Kevin McHale has always stuck in my mind and no more so than when I had to have a pacemaker implanted. I\u2019m happy to say that I am still here to watch and write about the team that I have loved for over 50 years. But it makes me even sadder that Reggie Lewis isn\u2019t here to love his wife and children and be a part of that team. I believe that Reggie would have been a lifelong Celtic and that he would have loved working with the new players coming in after his career ended. He was just that kind of person. Reggie\u2019s accomplishments on the court are well documented. At the time of his death, he was the only player in the history of the Celtics to have registered 100 rebounds, 100 assists, 100 steals and 100 blocked shots in a single season which he did in the 1991\/92 season with 394 rebounds, 185 assists, 125 steals and 105 blocks. Reggie once blocked four shots from Michael Jordan in one game.<\/p>\n![\"BOSTON,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-939770562.jpg\"\/)
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Then, over subsequent months and years, it became very ugly. There were unconfirmed reports that cocaine had been at least partly responsible for the tragedy, and a debate arose among doctors whether the death could have been prevented. The reports of cocaine were totally unfounded and left a negative mark on a man who by all accounts was above reproach. \u201cThe real tragedy is that right now we should be saying, \u2018Reggie has a pacemaker and can\u2019t play basketball anymore,\u2019 \u201d Kevin McHale said after Lewis\u2019 death. \u201cInstead, we have to mourn him.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his death, still reeling from the personal loss of their captain as well as the loss of Len Bias just years before, the Celtics tried to pick up the pieces and go on. They petitioned the league for relief from his salary but were denied. The Celtics retired #35 in Reggie\u2019s honor on March 22, 1995. He became only the second player for the Celtics to have his jersey retired without having won an NBA title in Boston. Ed Macauley was the other.<\/p>\n
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