Every time Isaiah Austin reached the precipice, something changed. Already a highly regarded prospect in the eighth grade, he was playing in a city championship game when the vision in his right eye went out, never to return.
Even with only one functioning eye, he regained his status as marquee basketball talent. When he was a high school senior, he and future NBA point guard Emmanuel Mudiay led Grace Preparatory Academy (Arlington, Texas) on a Cinderella run to the 2011 Culligan City of Palms Classic championship game, only to be stomped by 20 points by a team they’d beaten just six days before.
He became a legitimate star at Baylor and was widely projected as a late first-round NBA draft pick in 2014 when, five days before the draft, the NBA ruled him medically ineligible because of a rare and potentially deadly condition known as Marfan syndrome. To deal with the awkward situation, the NBA made Austin a ceremonial draft pick, with Commissioner Adam Silver announcing his name between the 15th and 16th overall selections, a point during the first round when a team may well have taken him if not for his diagnosis.
Austin was impressed by Silver’s gesture, but it didn’t save him from falling into depression. On Oct. 25, 2016, his 23rd birthday, he made a plan to kill himself by swallowing 10 pills. A roommate saw the state he was in, and after they spent some time together, Austin flushed those pills down the toilet.
A life full of “almost” goes on for Austin, as does his basketball career. A doctor who specializes in Marfan syndrome cleared him to play again, even though the NBA clings to other medical research that says he should not.
So, he became a world traveler, playing for teams in Serbia, a Chinese minor league, the Philippines, Taiwan and Lebanon. He had finished his second stint in China’s second-tier National Basketball League when he got a short-term gig this past fall with the Nanjing Monkey King (you read that right) of the Chinese Basketball Association, the premiere Asian circuit that has employed Stephon Marbury, Jimmer Fredette, Michael Beasley and other luminaries.
That proved a turning point. Austin parlayed a month-to-month arrangement into a season-long job, averaging 16.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game. Even the top-flight Chinese league is a far cry from the NBA — gaudy numbers in China are rarely harbingers of success at basketball’s highest level — but they tell a compelling story of rebirth.
There’s no sign the NBA will reverse course anytime soon and allow Austin a chance to become the second member of his family to play in the league. (His uncle, Ike Austin, played nine years in the NBA and won the Most Improved Player award with the Heat in 1997.) The doctor who gave him clearance also requires that he receive regular echocardiograms to monitor his aorta, which could rupture because of Marfan syndrome. The condition also threatens Austin’s remaining eyesight. There are no guarantees.
No one is more aware of that than Austin. For him, what seemed like a sure thing hasn’t been. But his basketball journey — one that included a noteworthy all-court performance at the Culligan City of Palms Classic — continues.