[Tales of the NBA past are filled with anecdotes about enforcers named Jungle Jim and never-say-die hustlers named Hondo. But nobody ever played the NBA game harder than Ron Lee, a.k.a., The Tasmanian Devil and The Kamikaze Kid. Take your pick. Lee answered to both when he broke into the league with the Phoenix Suns as a 6-feet-4 southpaw from the University of Oregon, the 10th pick overall in the 1976 NBA draft.
If the mono-syllabic name doesn’t ring a bell now nearly 40 years later, Lee’s brand of kamikaze play was summarized quite well in this newspaper recap of a Phoenix-Denver game in April 1977. “The Suns didn’t take [a Nuggets’ run] sitting down,” wrote the reporter. “Ron Lee, for example, took a lot of it falling down. The scrambling rookie once again caromed off surrounding bodies, backboard supports, and the floor to fling in 38 points.”
The Suns’ Curtis Perry added: “Walls, floors, seats don’t seem to bother him. Bouncing off other bodies doesn’t seem to bother him. I just hope my man stays healthy.”
Lee mostly did stay healthy, lasting six seasons in the NBA more on sheer hustle than any claim to supreme ball skills. In Detroit, his final NBA stop, Lee was so beloved that then-Pistons coach Scotty Robertson agonized in October 1982 about cutting Lee in preseason, “I’ve been coaching 28 years at all levels, and this is the toughest cut I’ve ever had to make. The reason for that is what Ronnie has meant to me personally and to this franchise in the two-plus years I’ve been here.
“When things were tough or tight for us, he’s always been the guy I knew I could count on. He’s stayed in this league with his enthusiasm, his heart, his defensive ability, and his character . . . (but) in all honesty, we feel our talent level is such that it would be difficult for him to play on our club, so we decided to do this now in hopes some other club who needs a player like hi would pick him up.”
When no NBA teams called with the right offer, Lee shoved off for three career-capping seasons in Italy. His final NBA numbers read: 448 total game, 7.3 points and 3.8 assists per game, and an asterisk. During the 1976-77 season, Lee upset Denver’s high-flying David Thompson in CBS’ “Slam Dunk” tournament, which aired as part of the NBA Game of the Week.
In this brief article below, published in the February 1978 issue of Hoop Magazine, the Phoenix Gazette’s Bob Crawford weighs in on the frenetic second-year man from Lexington, Mass. via Eugene, Oreg. Nobody ever played the game harder.]
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It is one of those typical nights for Ron Lee, the Tasmanian Devil who plays guard for the Phoenix Suns. His team controls the opening tip, and Lee sees an extra inch of daylight. Suddenly, he’s sprinting up the key, soaring through the air and delivering a slam dunk for a 2-0 lead.
So much for openers.
For closers, consider the final play of the game. Mr. Lee and his friends are eight points ahead with five seconds to go. But the other team has the ball and a fastbreak. That is until Lee flies downcourt, leaps behind a very surprised shooter, and swats the ball into the third row of the bleachers.
Bleachers? What National Basketball Association has bleachers?
Well, actually this wasn’t an NBA game. It was an exhibition for charity at a high school gym in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe. On one team were assorted writers and radio-television personalities from the Phoenix-area media. On the other were a certain number of well-formed employees of the local Playboy Club. Not to mention Bunny Ronnie.
“And I can tell you exactly how he played,” said Suns teammate Curtis Perry. “Because Ronnie knows only one way to play. At anything.
“I’ve seen him absolutely destroy girls at ping pong. Absolutely destroy them . . . on a first date!”
It is this competitiveness that has made Lee an overwhelming hit with the folks who populate Veterans Memorial Coliseum when the Suns are in session. The University of Oregon product was the 10th player picked on the first round of the 1976 NBA college draft, by the time this season was over, he had:
—Earned a spot on the league’s All-Rookie team, joining Houston’s John Lucas in the backcourt.
—Won the Most Popular Player trophy awarded to the Phoenix player collecting the most fan votes over the year.
—And watched his elbows slowly swell to twice their normal size as a result of hitting the floor on his never-ending kamikaze attacks against loose balls.
At first, he was a sideshow item added to the team that had surprised by reaching the NBA championship series in 1976. But gradually, as injuries decimated the Year of the Encore (the Suns eventually settled into the basement of the Pacific Division), Lee’s play became more of a factor in what success the franchise enjoyed.
By midseason, Coach John MacLeod had inserted him into the starting lineup, replacing Ricky Sobers, who had been the rookie hero the previous season. Lee responded by averaging 14.4 points, 4.4 assists, and 2.6 steals as a starter, proving he could create more than mere havoc.
Although not starting regularly now, the only changes this season and have been for the better. “I’m more aware of what’s happening on the floor now,” said Lee, “and I have more confidence in my shooting.”
Which brings us squarely to what has been a sore subject up ever since Lee was plying his basketball trade at Lexington (Mass.) High School. The “book” on Lee always has shown that he is a sensational basketball player. But it also says his jump shot can miss the hoop on a good night and miss the gym on a bad one.
“It never bothered me what people said about my shooting,” he explained, “because my main thing is defense. I know defense is the most-important thing in basketball. The rest of it all comes afterward.”
Nevertheless, Lee hit better than 48 percent of his field-goal attempts as a starter last season (compared to 39 percent as a reserve) and worked diligently over the summer to keep from being a liability on offense.
He no longer has to worry. The Suns’ front office cast its vote for his point-scoring ability by trading the sharpshooting Sobers to Indiana for pass-master Don Buse. And Lee has proved them right by showing he has learned to take the good shots and bypass the off-balance prayers he threw toward the hoop on occasion as a rookie.
But the reason the folks love him in Phoenix is not because of what he does once he has the basketball. They love him for what he does to get it in the first place. So much so, in fact, a furniture store is offering a free waterbed to the fan who can most accurately guess how many times Lee will hit the floor in Phoenix’s 41 home games.
“A lot of fans told me I should slow my game down,” he said, “because I can’t last many years playing the way I do. Well, I can’t do that.
“I have to play the way I’ve been playing all my life. If I get hurt, at least I’ll know it was because I was trying.”
From Way Downtown 