Marvin Barnes during his tenure with the Detroit Pistons.
If you’re a basketball fan younger than 40, it’s quite possible that you’ve never heard of Marvin Barnes, who died last week at the age of 62. In a way, that’s a shame for younger generations of fans, because Barnes was one of the most talented players on the planet in the 1970s. He never did much for the Detroit Pistons, for a variety of reasons, but there was a time when he was just about the equal of a Hall of Fame forward named Julius Erving.
After a standout career at Providence College, where he teamed with fellow stars Ernie DiGregorio and Kevin Stacom to lead the Friars to the Final Four, Barnes turned pro. He was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers, who had the second pick overall in the draft, but Barnes surprised observers by instead signing with the rival ABA (American Basketball Association) and the Spirits of St. Louis, who had recently relocated from North Carolina.
The Spirits made Barnes their starting forward and watched him dominate the league as a rookie in 1974-75, as he averaged 24 points and 15 rebounds per night. Those numbers rivaled those of Erving, who was universally regarded as the best player in the ABA.
How good was Barnes in his ABA days? There were nights when he played against Erving and the Nets, or George Gervin and the San Antonio Spurs, or Dan Issel and the Nuggets, and it was Barnes who was the best player on the floor. At six-feet, nine inches, and 210 pounds of sheer muscle, Barnes had the strength to dominate the low block, making him a burden to opposing big men. Conversely, he had the quickness—including a great first step—and the soft shooting touch of a small forward, which made it almost impossible for other power forwards to defend him. At least on nights when he bothered to show up at the arena.
Beginning with his high school years, Barnes found trouble again and again. (It was no wonder why he was nicknamed “Bad News,” which could have described both his off-the-court behavior and his ability to overpower opponents.) While attending Central High School in Providence, he became involved with a gang that decided to rob a public bus. In trying to pull off the ill-advised robbery, Barnes made the additional mistake of wearing his letterman basketball jacket, which just so happened to have his name embroidered on the back. That made it particularly easy for witnesses to identify him as one of the thieves.
Problems continues at Providence, where Barnes lost his temper one day and attacked one of his teammates with a tire iron. Pleading guilty to assault, he was ordered to pay the teammate the tidy sum of $10,000.
With the Spirits, Barnes avoided incidence of violence, but he became involved with drug traffickers in the St. Louis area. His heavy use of cocaine contributed to unpredictable, even bizarre behavior. Rod Thorn, coaching the Spirits at the time, did his best to reel in Barnes, fining him and suspending him for lateness, lack of effort, and other violations of team rules. By Thorn’s estimate, he fined Barnes about $30,000 in total, a massive amount of money for the time.
Thorn, a patient and compassionate sort, did his best to help Barnes change his attitude and behavior. On one occasion, he waited for Barnes to have a good game and then sat down with him for two hours, urging him to become the on-court leader that the Spirits needed. Barnes nodded his head, seeming to accept the advice. Thorn felt the one-on-session had helped Barnes. The following day, Barnes failed to show up on time for the team plane and missed the Spirits’ next game.
Barnes’ behavior frustrated the Spirits, but he had a sense of humor and a naiveté that made him endearing, too. Two stories of Barnes remain popular to this day. One involves his legendary tardiness; he was chronically late to team flights, practices, and games, if he showed up at all. On one occasion, he arrived on the Spirits’ bench only minutes before tip-off. His coach cast him an angry glance, inquiring as to why he had arrived so late. Barnes gave him an answer that the coach didn’t appreciate, but humorists did. “Game time,” Barnes said without blinking, “is ON TIME.”
Then there’s most famous story involving Barnes, which sounds so implausible as to be the stuff of myth but is actually grounded in truth. When Barnes was given a ticket for a flight from Louisville to St. Louis, he noticed that the arrival time was actually earlier than the departure time. Apparently not understanding the concept of differing time zones throughout the United States, Barnes refused to board the flight. “I ain’t getting on no damn time machine,” said Barnes, without a tinge of humor or irony. Wanting no part of the “time machine,” he rented a car instead.
When the ABA folded up shop at the end of the 1975-76 season, the players who were not part of the four merged teams became available to the NBA in a dispersal draft. The Chicago Bulls took Artis Gilmore first, the Portland Trailblazers followed with Maurice Lucas, and the Kansas City Kings selected durable guard Ron Boone. Next came the Pistons, who had a choice between Barnes and another former Spirit, forward/center Moses Malone. The Pistons took Barnes, leaving Malone for the Trailblazers.
In retrospect, the Pistons took criticism for their decision to take Barnes over Malone, but their choice was more than understandable. Based on their talent and performance levels in the ABA, Barnes was the better player. He was more athletic, the better shooter, and more versatile. At the time, Malone was still a raw talent, a limited post-up power forward who didn’t shoot or handle the ball well. No one had any idea that he would become a Hall of Fame center. Ask anybody who watched games in the ABA, and they will tell you the same thing: Malone was a good player, Barnes was a great one.
We know now that Barnes’ talent never manifested itself in Detroit, mostly because of off-the-court problems that continued to plague him. In October of 1976, he was arrested for possession of an unloaded gun at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a transgression that resulted in a stay in prison. Missing the first 17 games of the season, he would return to the Pistons, but would struggle, shooting only 44 per cent while averaging fewer than 10 points and five rebounds per game. He also complained about his playing time. “‘Bad News’ didn’t come here to sit on no wood,” he once said in his own inimitable style.
The next season, Barnes played a little better to start the season, but he encountered additional problems, all of his doing. He was arrested for burglary and drug possession. Fed up with his behavior, the Pistons unloaded him early in his second season, sending him to the old Buffalo Braves as part of the deal that brought John Shumate and Gus Gerard to the Motor City.
By 1980, Barnes was out of the league, after failed stints with the Braves, Boston Celtics and San Diego Clippers. At one point he admitted to snorting cocaine while on the Celtics’ bench. Still consumed by drug problems in the early 1980s, he found himself living in San Diego—homeless and destitute.
Over the next few years, Barnes went through a series of drug rehabilitation programs. He finally seemed to have kicked his drug habit, and actually became a counselor, visiting schools in Providence to urge youngsters not to repeat the same mistakes that he had made with cocaine and other drugs.
Sadly, Barnes was apparently unable to keep his demons permanently at bay. Within the last month, Stacom saw Barnes, who did not appear to be well. Some of Barnes’ friends say that he had relapsed into drug use. On Monday, September 8, Barnes was scheduled to appear in court for his latest transgression but did not show up. This sounded like typical Barnes behavior from his days in the ABA and NBA, but it was something worse. Later that day, Barnes was found dead in his apartment.
As a fan of the old ABA (I used to devour the weekly recaps in The Sporting News), I was particularly saddened to hear about the death of Marvin Barnes. He had enormous talent, and in some ways an offbeat kind of charisma, but he wasted much of it on drugs, immaturity, and a general lack of responsibility. Like too many stars of the 1970s, he threw away potential stardom for the next dose of cocaine.
