NBA champ, one time Tri-Cities basketball phenom in hospital needing heart transplant
Scot Pollard, a 2008 NBA championship center and one-time Kamiakin High boys basketball player, is in desperate need of a heart transplant.
The 48-year-old was admitted earlier this week to the intensive care unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. There’s he’ll await the donation of a heart large enough to pump blood through his 6-foot-11, 275-pound frame, according to media reports.
Pollard was placed on a heart transplant list after testing at the University of Chicago, reported the Kansas City Star. After further testing at Vanderbilt, medical officials decided he needed to stay at the facility.
“Yes, I’m staying here until I get a new heart,” he told The Star in a statement. “Things are worse health-wise, which is why they are keeping me. But I guess that’s better because it increases my odds of getting a heart.”
His size rules out most potential donors for a heart transplant, the Associated Press reports. His genetic condition, which apparently was triggered by a virus he contracted in 2021, has worsened the last three weeks. He has been living as Status 4, which is stable condition, but could be eligible for the second-highest priority, Status 2, if his condition worsens.
Half his siblings suffer from the same health condition, as well as his father, who died at 54 when Pollard was 16.
He was the youngest son of a basketball family living in San Diego, according to previous Tri-City Herald coverage. After his father’s 1991 passing, Pollard and his mother moved to the Tri-Cities to be closer to his brother, Alan Pollard, a member of the Tri-City Chinook, a professional minor league team beginning its first season.
Pollard enrolled as a senior at Kamiakin High School in Kennewick, and joined an already stellar Braves team that had finished second in Washington state the previous year.
Despite being ranked No. 1 in the 1992-93 season, Pollard’s Braves finished fourth with a 27-2 record.
“I love these guys. I wouldn’t trade this season for anything,” he told the Herald back then. “I left a lot of friends in San Diego, but I met a lot of new ones this year.”
Homesick, Pollard moved back to San Diego that spring. His high school career in California and Washington had attracted serious recruiting buzz. He went on to play four years for the University of Kansas, where he averaged 9.4 points and six rebounds a game.
In 1997, he was drafted by the Detroit Pistons and played 33 games for them in his inaugural pro season. He played 11 seasons in the NBA (1997-2008) for Boston, Sacramento, Cleveland, Detroit and Indiana.
His career culminated in winning the 2008 NBA Finals with the Celtics, despite a season-ending ankle injury in February.
After basketball, Pollard turned his focus to broadcasting and acting. He also competed on the 32nd season of CBS’s reality TV show “Survivor,” and was the ninth person voted out and third jury member.
Pollard and his family currently live in Carmel, Ind.
He has told reporters that doctors are “confident” he’ll get a heart in weeks, if not months.
“It’s out of my hands. It’s not even in the doctor’s hands,” he told the AP. “It’s up to the donor networks.”
