Urban Legend

"What round were you taken in the NBA draft?"

Raymond Lewis held up one finger.

"How many points did you score against Long Beach State?"

He held up five fingers, then three fingers.

"We're going to leave now."

He curled his fingers tightly around my fingers.

But he was too sick. The tubes and tape stuck to his chapped lips and withered body were too much. It was too late.

We left. Everyone left.

Five days after my first and last visit with the best basketball player in the history of Los Angeles, Raymond Lewis died alone.

It was a Sunday morning, bathed in sun, then angry and dark.

The 6-foot-1 guard whose legend brushed every corner of a large diverse community died, at 48, in a sterile hospital room the size of a closet.

The man who'd flown died with one leg.

The man with the rich jump shot and priceless dribble died with no car, no phone and no money.

His burial is being paid by the proceeds of a life insurance policy purchased by brother-in-law James Pilcher.

"I did it because the man is a dignitary," Pilcher said.

The ruler of a kingdom of shadows. The presider over a congress of ghosts.

Every serious basketball fan in this city, playground runners and gym rats, from Compton to Crenshaw to the corner of Central and 109th, regards Raymond Lewis as the ultimate baller.

Yet he never played one minute of professional basketball.

He played only two seasons of college.

He never held a permanent job.

He never left Watts.

In those isolated spots in the rest of the country where Raymond Lewis is remembered, it is only for his stubborn will, his poor choices, his odd behavior.

Here, it's about the jumper.

"Without exception, the best player ever to come out of L.A.," Marques Johnson said.

Here, it's about the time he scored 52 points in a summer league game against Laker rookies while in high school.

"The best high school player I have ever seen anywhere," Jerry Tarkanian said.

Here, it's about the time he took on the city's 30 best playground stars in knockout games of one-on-one and went 30-0.

"How interesting that Allen Iverson won the All-Star MVP on the day Raymond passed away," said George McQuarn, his coach at Verbum Dei High. "Because Raymond was the Allen Iverson of his day."

The legend met the truth Sunday at 11:35 a.m. at County-USC Medical Center.