In the history of the NBA, there are, arguably, four particularly low points. The heavy drug use in the late ‘70 and early ‘80s, the death of Len Bias two days after the 1986 draft, the Kermit Washington punch that nearly killed Rudy Tomjanovich and the Malice in the Palace (we’re tempted to include Donald Sterling but he owned the Clippers for 33 years, which would be 44.5 percent of the life of the NBA, so it’s hard to call that a low point since it would be nearly half of the graph).
The Washington punch woke the NBA up to the fact that very large powerful men could cause serious bodily harm and great collateral damage to the league as well.