'86ed

Then there were the injuries. Guards Harper and Dawkins were both felled by torn anterior cruciate ligaments. Harper eventually regained something close to his previous form and now starts—as a role player, not a star—for the Chicago Bulls. But Dawkins was never the same, and he was released by the Detroit Pistons last March. Sabonis opted to play in Europe and did not join the NBA team that drafted him, the Portland Trail Blazers, until this season. But after surgery on an Achilles tendon, he causes observers who remember him when he was healthier to shake their heads wistfully. "At one time he was the best center prospect I'd ever seen," says Marty Blake, the league's director of scouting.

Even Daugherty, a five-time All-Star and the most successful member of the class of '86, has not avoided the cloud that hovers over the group. A back injury put him on the sidelines on March 4, 1994; the following December he underwent surgery to remove two herniated disks, and he has not played since. He hopes to return to the Cavs this season, but it's possible that his career is over.

"Was it that bad a group?" Blake asks of the class of '86. "Every draft has guys who don't make it, for a variety of reasons." But then Blake listens as the list is read, and he interrupts when he hears Washington's name. "Wait a minute," he says. "What happened to Pearl?"

Pearl Washington lives on Prince Street in Cambridge, Mass. His apartment number is 1, the number he wore his first season with the Nets, who drafted him with the 13th pick. He recalls the players who were drafted with him in the first round. "Maybe it's cursed," he says. And, later, "It never dawned on me that all of us were in the same class. No one ever brought it up."

Washington is the most recent member of the class of '86 to suffer a serious misfortune, but he considers himself more blessed than cursed. On Nov. 12 he had a severe seizure as a result of what was later diagnosed as a benign brain tumor, and only the heroic action of 13-year-old Sean Howard, the son of Washington's girlfriend, Anita Howard, saved his life. Sean discovered Pearl lying on the floor of the apartment, choking on his own blood. He called 911 and followed the dispatcher's instructions to turn Washington on his side, allowing the blood to flow out of his mouth. Two days later Washington underwent six hours of brain surgery to remove most of the peach-sized tumor. He is undergoing chemotherapy to eradicate the rest of the growth and taking medication to prevent a recurrence of the seizures.

As he sits at his kitchen table, the scar on his shaved head is visible in the dying afternoon light. It stretches from ear to ear, like a headset. Washington's voice is soft, his eyes sleepy. His 6'1" frame seems to carry about 15 pounds more than it did during his playing days. He hardly looks like the young man who became a legend on playgrounds in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn or who inspired T-shirts at Syracuse that read AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY GOD CREATED PEARL, but then Washington was always slightly rounded, like the gem whose name he bears. As Rafael Addison, one of his college teammates, once said, "If Pearl was in a police lineup and you had to pick out the basketball player, no one in the country would choose him."

Washington says his doctors expect him to make a full recovery. "They were saying the tumor was probably there since I was born," he says. "It was a slow-growing tumor. I went to the doctor so many times for team physicals, for X-rays, CAT scans, I can't see how it was never detected." He dismisses the suggestion that the tumor had an effect on his NBA career, which ended after three years—two with the Nets and one with the Miami Heat. He joined the Rapid City Thrillers of the CBA during the 1989-90 season but was injured in the first quarter of his first game. While recuperating, he gained 30 pounds in a matter of weeks and was traded to the San Jose Jammers. He finished that season and the following one in San Jose. That was it.

The consensus on Washington is that once his poor shooting and lack of speed were exposed in the NBA, he did not have the determination to improve his game. He doesn't dispute that.

"The NBA wasn't what I thought it would be," he says. "It was much harder, and I just didn't have the desire anymore. It wasn't fun. It wasn't like college. It wasn't like high school. It wasn't like summer league. It just wasn't fun. If you ever watched me play when I was in college and in high school, I was always smiling. In the pros you didn't see that."

Washington signed a three-year contract with the Nets for $900,000 and a five-year endorsement contract with Avia for a reported $1.1 million. He has not worked for pay since he left basketball four years ago, but he says he has enough from his playing days to live comfortably. After a Syracuse newspaper published an article about Washington following his surgery, he received more than 250 gifts from fans, including two $20 checks. "I sent them back," he says. "It was nice of the people. I thanked them, but I didn't think at that point that's what I needed."