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NBA Injuries: 20 Stars Who Deserve A Career Do-Over

By Gerald Bourguet

AUBURN HILLS, UNITED STATES: Detroit Pistons player Grant Hill (L) drives around Indiana Pacers player Chris Mullin during the first half of their game 07 February at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The Pistons beat the Pacers 107-98. AFP PHOTO/JEFF KOWALSKY (Photo credit should read JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
AUBURN HILLS, UNITED STATES: Detroit Pistons player Grant Hill (L) drives around Indiana Pacers player Chris Mullin during the first half of their game 07 February at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The Pistons beat the Pacers 107-98. AFP PHOTO/JEFF KOWALSKY (Photo credit should read JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images) /
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NBA Injuries
Cleveland Browns football player Jim Brown, Mr and Mrs Stokes holding photograph of their son Maurice Stokes, and three other men, posed in Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall for ‘Night of Stars’ benefit for Maurice Stokes fund, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, February 1959. (Photo by Teenie Harris Archive/Carnegie Museum of Art/Getty Images) /

15. Maurice Stokes

For the younger generation of NBA fans, you may or may not recognize Maurice Stokes‘ name as the latter half of the league’s Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award. But before we get to the role Jack Twyman played in all of this, here’s the first thing you need to know: Stokes was on track to have a DAMN fine NBA career before it was tragically cut short.

Named the Rookie of the Year during the 1955-56 campaign with the Rochester Royals, Stokes averaged 16.8 points and a league-leading 16.3 rebounds per game. A 6’7″ power forward/center, Stokes was a monster on the glass, but he was also an excellent passer for his position, averaging an impressive 16.4 points, 17.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game over his three-year career.

Unfortunately, the three-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA Second Teamer was knocked unconscious during the last game of the 1957-58 regular season after banging his head on the floor…and returned to the game after being revived by smelling salts. Three days later, after the first game of the playoffs, he fell ill on the team’s flight back to Cincinnati and suffered a seizure.

His encephalopathy — brain disorder that damaged his motor control — left him permanently paralyzed, though he could still communicate by blinking. Enter Jack Twyman, Stokes’ teammate and dear friend who became his legal guardian and cared for him after the incident until he died of a heart attack 12 years later.

Both Stokes and Twyman are enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and are one of the greatest examples of teammates and friendship in NBA history. But it obviously would have been much more preferable to see Stokes’ full career play out tragedy-free.

Next: No. 14