Only now, after a lifelong battle, does Turpin find sympathy

Thoughts and prayers are rampant in the NBA these days. Sadly rampant. And typically ineffectual, because thoughts and prayers and condolences are often for us and those left behind, not for those who have died. Not for Lorenzen Wright, 34, the hometown basketball hero and 13-year NBA veteran gunned down and left in the woods outside Memphis.

And not for Melvin Turpin, the affable giant from the University of Kentucky whose five seasons in the league passed in a blink back in the 1980s and whose life, at 49, ended way too early as well. Turpin was found at his Lexington, Ky., home earlier this month, the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Authorities still are sorting out the details of Wright's death. Turpin's, meanwhile, was similarly violent, equally tragic and incredibly lonely, leaving behind a nagging, helpless guilt for many who crossed paths with him, both way back when and far more recently.

Inevitably, in moving from the unnerving news of Turpin's death, you think back to the highlights of his life, the man-child days as a four-year starter at Kentucky and his rapid bounces through the NBA. And that's where the guilt creeps in, because when Melvin Turpin was battling a personal demon that would end the best professional dreams of his life, the basketball world -- coaches, executives, teammates, rivals, media and fans -- laughed, ridiculed, hollered, benched, fined and waived.

Turpin had a weight problem. And people thought it was funny.

That's why thoughts and prayers to his family and friends seem kind of late now, surely too little. Restraint and compassion, in even tiny doses at the right time, might have helped. But it rarely was there for the big guy.

No one -- repeat, no one -- is drawing a line from the "conditioning issues" that riddled and scuttled Turpin's career as a basketball player two decades ago to what occurred in his home in a Lexington subdivision in early July. He might have been, in 2010, happy. He was, by all accounts, living life and dealing with its challenges -- one failed marriage, children who didn't see him enough, a second wife who recently had suffered a stroke -- while reportedly enjoying his work as a security guard at the university where he once had been a very big man on campus.

Ah-ah, there it is again. That's how it always started. A little off-handed remark, a snide aside, ballooning into gibes and jeers and cruel taunts from the stands, weak jokes in the newspaper and butt-chewings in the locker room.

Let's make this clear: Turpin liked to eat. He ate too much for his own good. He seemed, to those who knew him well, to be unable to control his appetite or his habits, back when he started with the Wildcats in 1980 or when he wrapped up in the NBA at 13.9 minutes a game with Washington in 1989-90. Turpin struggled with his weight, which sapped his stamina, thwarted his skills and tried the patience of his coaches. Ultimately, it ended his days as a professional athlete.

Suppose Turpin's demon had been alcohol or drugs. How differently might things have played out for him and, just as important, for those dealing with him? He might not have had more chances -- Cleveland, Utah and Washington all gave him opportunities, more than most people get -- but the sort of attention and treatment he got in that time probably would have been different. Different enough, maybe, to lengthen his stay, mine more of his potential, give him more options and provide him with better tales to tell and answers to give when folks invariably asked about his too-quick exit from the NBA.

Except that battling excess pounds isn't as sympathetic, as politically correct as alcoholism or drug addiction. Weight is one of the last places where public derision still is tolerated. The Biggest Loser has helped a little, in some folks' view, but there's an undeniable carnival-midway element to that reality-slash-game show.

Childhood obesity is fertile ground for the First Lady, but too many people still attribute extra pounds to a character flaw, the lack of will power, rather than considering the factors that lead to those pounds. How different are they, really, from those afflicting drinkers and drug users? Yet when a teenaged passenger on Southwest Airlines is so overweight that another traveler has to be put off the flight, because one seat wasn't big enough, it's a story that gets treated by TV news as a "bright" at the end of the newscast, something to amuse the masses.

In Turpin's case, his tendency to gain weight was treated like a goofy subplot to his basketball endeavors. This was a kid who, growing up, had mistakenly been diverted into a remedial school program -- given up on, educationally -- before the error was caught and he was able to star at Bryan Station high school in Lexington, eventually joining the nation's most envied college recruiting class at Kentucky in 1980.

But as a freshman, the word around town was that coach Joe B. Hall assigned a student manager to police Turpin's off-campus eating. The joke was that his picture was taped behind the counter of every McDonald's with instructions, "Do not serve this man." No one was bothered when SEC fans, across Turpin's four years at UK, rode him about his weight or teasingly waved hamburgers in his direction.

Turpin did enough at Kentucky -- a 96-27 record in his time there, with a trip to the 1984 Final Four and, on a special night, 42 points in a 65-63 loss at Tennessee -- that he was chosen sixth in the 1984 Draft. Four spots after Bowie, three after Michael Jordan, right behind another wide-body from his conference, Auburn's Charles Barkley, and ahead of future stars such as Kevin Willis, Otis Thorpe and John Stockton.

In the NBA, amid all the sleek bodies and finely tuned athletes, Turpin's difficulty staying in shape brought trouble. A guy who used to hear the call of "Turpin Time!" from fans in Lexington got dubbed "Dinner Bell Mel" as his weight rose beyond 300 pounds. Cleveland, where Turpin averaged 13.7 points and seven rebounds in his second season, levied a series of fines when he failed to make his specified playing weight. Longtime Cavaliers' beat writer Burt Graeff told the Lexington Herald-Leader this month: "It reached a point where he did not go near the scale -- he just paid the fines."

Said former Kentucky and Cleveland teammate Dirk Minniefield after his friend's passing: "Turp didn't like being called, 'Dinner Bell Mel.' Who would? He was sensitive to it."

From George Karl to Frank Layden, Turpin's NBA coaches were tough on him, while occasionally joking publicly about his pounds. They were probably more frustrated than Turpin himself at the skills blunted by all that flesh.

"He definitely had issues there with his eating, and Frank got on him unmercifully a few times about his conditioning," said NBA assistant coach Scott Roth, a rookie forward then. "There were just a lot of different stories about room-service bills and all kinds of things. Being in the NBA -- and back then it was a little different than it is now -- and you're making that kind of money and you're getting food served here and there ...

"Mel battled that and it was one of his downfalls as far as getting out of the league. He couldn't maintain any sort of conditioning and never got a chance to play a lot of consecutive minutes, at least when he was in Utah. When he did get in, he'd have moments where you were like, 'Holy smokes, this guy's the real deal!' But then he just couldn't do it again."

The league has had plenty of big guys who, for various reasons, struggled similarly: Stanley Roberts, Oliver Miller, Geoff Crompton, Michael Sweetney, 2010 rookies DeMarcus Cousins and Dexter Pittman. Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal, at the elite end, dealt with extra pounds through their careers and heard about it constantly. Most fans treated it like an easy target, though, and thought about the millions the players could or would earn, and never felt very sympathetic -- though mirrors surely would have encouraged empathy from many.

Now, of course, with Turpin gone, we hear about thoughts and prayers. Restraint and compassion would have been better, a lot sooner. Hopefully, it will be there for the next big guy who carries a demon around his waist.

Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA for 25 years. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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