The ups and downs of LeRoy Ellis

LeRoy Ellis once blocked Wilt Chamberlain's shot.

"I was sorry I did and would never do it again," the former Lakers center says, laughing. "He must have dunked on me the next five times down. He just went bang, bang, bang.

"I said to myself, 'Dang, you should have let a sleeping giant lie,' because he just went to town on me."

For the affable Ellis, this qualifies as a sweet memory.

Cancer has ravaged his body.

"It's kind of a terminal deal," the father of five says from his home in Columbia City, Ore., about 30 miles north of Portland. "The doctor is very candid. He said the only thing I really have to look forward to is getting worse."

But Ellis is hardly morose.

At 69 -- "And looking for 70," he says, eyeing the milestone he would reach in March -- the former first-round draft pick from St. John's looks back on a life full of highs and lows.

A high: Ellis played on four Lakers teams that reached the NBA Finals, finally earning a championship ring as a backup to Chamberlain on the 1971-72 team that strung together a 33-game winning streak and compiled a then-NBA record mark of 69-13.

A low: Six months after dousing himself in champagne, Ellis was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, whose 9-73 record in the 1972-73 season is the worst in NBA history.

A high: His son LeRon, a former Santa Ana Mater Dei High and Kentucky star, was a first-round NBA draft pick.

A low: His son Lee was shot to death on a Los Angeles street.

Ellis, a 6-foot-10 veteran of 14 NBA seasons, was sufficiently fit and motivated to continue playing organized basketball in adult leagues and masters championships into his 60s, then got waylaid by cancer, which spread from his prostate into his bones.

"I don't think my life is any different than anybody else's," Ellis says. "I think we all have ups and downs.

"It's just the nature of living."

Ellis, who averaged career highs of 15.9 points and 12.3 rebounds for the Portland Trail Blazers during their inaugural 1970-71 season, moved back to Oregon from Los Angeles after Lee, the youngest of his three sons, was slain 11 years ago.

His wife, Vera, says a positive outlook keeps him engaged.

"He's the most awesome person I've ever met or known," she says. "He's very thankful for everything and every day, so he's been an inspiration to me. At first, this devastating news was like somebody trying to knock me down, but LeRoy handles it so well that you've got to hang in there and keep going."