The Legend Of Sleepy Floyd

The Golden State Warriors were a great team in the decade of the 1970s. They had a winning season for eight out of the ten years in the 70s including winning the NBA Championship in 1974-1975 season. The following season, they won 59 games but the Phoenix Suns came back from a 3-2 deficit to beat them in the Western Conference finals. But in the 80s, what those Al Attles coached teams did in the 70s became overlooked because of the terrible teams that defined the decade for the Warriors. Also, the NBA was so much of a bigger league thanks to Magic, Michael, and Larry.

It wasn't until George Karl came in (and then later Don Nelson) that the franchise found its respectability again. Being that I started to watch basketball in the mid 80s, I grew up watching some bad Warriors basketball. But there's something about the underdog Warriors that I've always loved. Being on the same coast as the Los Angeles Lakers, the Warriors were always had low visibility and for good reason. The Lakers were the toast of the 80s with big stars and long postseason runs. I was happy if the Warriors stayed with them until the fourth quarter where I expected the Lakers to pull away. There was one player that I loved watching on my lovable losers and that player was Eric "Sleepy" Floyd.

If you took one look at Floyd's eyes, you'd understand why his nickname was "Sleepy". But his play was all but tired. Floyd had a great career at Georgetown. It is he and not Patrick Ewing or Alonzo Mourning who is the career scoring leader for the school. Floyd also has the second highest scoring per game average in school history. He was on the opposite end of one of the most famous NCAA championship games in NCAA hoops history. Floyd was on the Georgetown team that lost to a late Michael Jordan jumper that gave North Carolina the 1982 NCAA Championship. Floyd had 18 points (to Jordan's 16) and five assists in the losing effort and would've had a better end to his storied Georgetown career had they not given that game away on a silver platter.

He was drafted by the New Jersey Nets later that year but was soon traded to the Warriors along with Mickey Johnson for Micheal Ray Richardson. His career blossomed with the Warriors and in the 1986-1987 season, made the All-Star team, which was big time for me. The Warriors rarely had an All-Star representative in those days and I was very excited to watch him play with the NBA's biggest stars. Floyd scored 14 points in 19 minutes for the Western squad.

Floyd's NBA coming out party was in 1987 playoffs when the Warriors had to play the Lakers. The Lakers would go on to win the NBA championship that year. In the first round of the playoffs, the Warriors beat the Utah Jazz in five games while the Lakers swept the Denver Nuggets in three. The Lakers were expected to sweep the Warriors as well, except Sleepy Floyd didn't let it happen. In game four in Oakland, Floyd went crazy. Even in that game, the Lakers led most of the way until Floyd exploded for 29 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Warriors to their lone victory in the series. That's how good the Lakers were that year. As a 10 year-old basketball fan, I was ecstatic. When everyone pretended to be Magic, Michael, and Larry when we played basketball, they now knew the guy I was pretending to be.

For some reason that I still don't necessarily understand over 20 years later, Floyd and Joe Barry Carroll were traded to the Houston Rockets for Steve Harris and Ralph Sampson the next season. It turned out to be a terrible trade for that season and the Warriors went back to being a league doormat winning only 20 games. Sampson couldn't stay healthy and we soon found out that without his twin tower brother Akeem Olajuwon, he was terribly overrated offensively. Even though Floyd was no longer the focal point offensively for his new team, he went to the playoffs with the Rockets during the next four seasons after only going once with the Warriors. He also played with San Antonio for a year and then finished his career in New Jersey, the team that originally drafted him.

Like many good NBA players, Floyd's circumstances prevented him from becoming the star he should've become. He wouldn't have been the type of player to sell basketball shoes like Jordan or carry a team on his back like Larry Bird, but he was just as good as some players who are very well known because of the teams they played on. Floyd spent the prime years of his career playing for the Warriors, who were a floundering franchise and had zero visibility. He was also a tweener guard at 6'3'' who played both guard positions, but showed that when necessary, he could run a team as evidenced by his 10.3 assist average in 1986-1987. That season, to me, Sleepy Floyd was Superman.