The Legend of the Black Superman

Tony Harris, Michael Hackett, Bobby Parks, Andy Fields, Byron Snake Jones, David Thirdkill, Rob Williams, and Larry McNeil were some of the great imports who graced our shores. Some of them may be recognizable to you if you followed Pinoy hoops intently, while others may be alien to you. If you lived in the 80s, you probably remember the man who revolutionized Philippine basketball – Billy Ray Bates a.k.a "The Black Superman". The 6-3 210-pound Bates led Crispa to its second grandslam in 1983. He was also responsible in Ginebra’s title-winning bid in the 1986 Open Conference in tandem with Michael Hackett. To some, he was the most exciting, most explosive import to ever play in the country. To others, he was god who just assumed human form to play the game of hoops and entertain us. He was everything an import should be. Despite his achievements on the basketball court, there was something that kept Bates from becoming a much bigger star. We look back and examine the stuff that made Bates both a legend and an ignominy in basketball.

Billy Ray Bates was born on May 31, 1956 in Goodman, Mississippi. He was the eighth of nine children of Frank and Ellen Bates and attended high school ball at McAdams High in Mississippi and college ball at Kentucky State University. He earned the nickname "Dunk" when registered 67 stuffs in 30 games as a Kentucky State junior All-America guard in 1976-77. He averaged 22.9 ppg that season and hit .550 from the floor. Kentucky State rode on Bates' heroics to post a 27-3 mark. As a senior the next year, Billy Ray averaged 22.8 ppg and 11.2 rpg. He shot .601 from the field, leading the varsity thoroughbreds to a 19-9 card.

The Houston Rockets drafted him in the third round or 47^th overall in the 1978 NBA Draft but even before the season started, he was cut by the Rockets and he ended up playing for the Maine Lumberjacks in the defunct Continental Basketball Association, where he won the league's Rookie of the Year and the slam dunk competition in the All-Star game. He was sensational in his two-season stint with the Lumberjacks. As a league rookie in 1978-79, he averaged 27.5 ppg in 46 games. The next campaign, he hit at a 27.1 ppg clip.

After signing a 10-day contract with the Trail Blazers in February 1980, Bates immediately made his presence felt with the team, leading the team in scoring as a rookie to the tune of 25 points per game. The 1982 Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball described Bates as an "explosive offensive player who is an acrobatic dunker despite his relatively smallish stature... and can score equally from long range or in close." Former teammate Ron Brewer even called him a "miniature Darryl Dawkins" because of his built, strength and explosive dunking ability (reminiscent if the Chocolate Thunder).

In his rookie season in the NBA, Bates averaged a scintillating 11.3 ppg and became the team's most popular player. He raised his numbers the following season to 13.8 ppg and was poised to become a fixture in the league in his junior season. He played for 75 games for the Trail Blazers in the 1981-82 season, putting together an average of 11.1 ppg before receiving a grim news from his agent. He was informed that he'd been cut from the team due to drug-related issues.

Bates attempted to make a comeback in the NBA with the Washington Bullets (now Wizards) but it was short-lived. He also flunked an audition with the Los Angeles Lakers which may have sealed his fate in the pro league. He would never make it back to the majors again.

From the NBA, Bates would take his acts to the PBA, taking the league by storm in 1983. He was awesome in his debut with the Redmanizers, exploding for 64 points (full story in the next post) thrilling the crowd with a spectacular display of inside and outside forays to lead the Redmanizers past the Norman Black-led Great Taste Coffee. He had an accurate jumper from the 3-point range, a muscular upper body to physically match up and intimidate the skinnier/taller opponents, and a mean game from the paint punctuated by his favorite arsenal, the slam-dunk. He won the Best Import awards in both the Reinforced and Open conferences of the 1983 season, leading Crispa to its second grandslam, averaging 41.7 ppg.

Billy Ray’s skills plus a charismatic, outgoing personality endeared him to the basketball watching Filipino public and the media. He was called the Black Superman as a tribute to his high-flying maneuvers on the hardcourt. A local shoe manufacturer gave him an endorsement coming out with a line of shoe with “Black Superman” emblazoned on it. Writer Mike Ganis wrote that Bates revolutionized slam dunk in the PBA in the same way Julius "Dr. J" Erving did the same in the NBA/ABA during the 1970s. His natural ability to hang in the air longer than any defender and at the last instance powerfully slam the ball into the rim brought the shot to the next level.

Bates still has a vivid memory of his Manila stint. "Those people, they loved me," Bates would tell The Oregonian. "There, I was like Michael Jordan. I could have anything I wanted. All I had to do was snap my fingers. I had my own condo, my own car and my own bodyguard with an Uzi. I had to fight off the women."

After his Crispa stint, Bates played in Switzerland, the World Basketball League, and the Continental Basketball Association. On February 21, 1984 during the pre-game warm-ups, Bates shattered an entire backboard, collapsible hoops included in a mighty display of power dunking. It was actually the fourth backboard victimized by the Mississippi native. As a Main Lumberjacks rookie in the 1978-79 CBA season, Bates dismantled 3 backboards. A CBA newsletter dated March 1, 1984 said Bates "now holds the all-time pro basketball mark by breaking four backboards in his career".

He made his way back to the PBA in 1988. Bates suited up for the popular Ginebra squad in tandem with 1985 Best Import awardee Michael Hackett in the 1986 Open Conference. He proved that he was still deadly as the years before, leading all scorers in the league with a 54.9 ppg average. His inside-outside combo with Hackett was probably the best of all-time, besting the Manila Beer duo of Best Import awardee Michael Young and partner Harold Keeling to hand Ginebra its first ever PBA crown.

After seeing action for leagues in Mexico and Uruguay, he was back again in the PBA in the 1988 season but was visibly out of shape. He played in only 4 games (31.2 ppg) and was eventually replaced by ex-Boston Celtic Kevin Gamble for the remainder of the season.

His career hit rock bottom on January 17, 1998, where he robbed a New Jersey Texaco station at knifepoint, slashing the ear of attendant Philip Kittel. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Bates still vividly remembers what happened on that day.

"I went to play the lottery," he says. "And that's when the devil got inside me."

According to Bates, he'd been hanging out with some younger friends that day, "trying to help them with their lives." Instead, he wound up drinking vodka, snorting cocaine, and holding up a Texaco.

"That's not my character," he explains. "I was doing cocaine and drinking."

He has since been released and is living in the Camden and Trenton areas of New Jersey. He and former 76ers guard Earl Harrison are trying to start a basketball skills coaching clinic.

It was a sad tale for the man they dubbed as the greatest import to play in the PBA.

He still remains the barometer for what a PBA import should be. It has been 19 years since he left the PBA scene but still the memory of "The Black Superman's" exploits on the hardcourt still lingers brightly on every Pinoy aficionado's minds.