(Pictured: Maurice Lucas, left, with Brandon Roy. Photo courtesy of Portland Trail Blazers.)

Here's a sneak peek at one of our January Street Edition stories. Read on and enjoy.

Driving home from the Rose Garden on a rainy Tuesday night in late December, Nate McMillan wondered where his life would be without Maurice Lucas, his longtime friend and Portland Trail Blazers assistant coach.

McMillan knew one thing. He wouldn’t be in Portland.

“Seriously, if Luke would have said ‘I’m not interested,’ I don’t know if I would have taken the job,” McMillan said about being hired as the Blazers’ head coach in August 2005.

“Part of me having the opportunity to get the organization going in the right direction was knowing Luke was going to be beside me when I made that attempt.”

Four years later, Lucas is fighting his own challenge: cancer. 

Known as “The Enforcer” — a 6-9, 215-pound All-Star power forward — on Portland’s 1977 NBA Championship team, Lucas underwent surgery in April after being diagnosed with bladder cancer. He suffered weight loss and fatigue but still returned to the team in September. Seven weeks later, the cancer returned.

Today, Lucas, 57, remains hospitalized at Providence St. Vincent Hospital, where he’s currently undergoing treatment.

“Sometimes you can hear when he’s a little tired,” McMillan said of their weekly phone calls.

While pausing to consider Lucas’ condition, Nate recalls their first days together with the Seattle SuperSonics, and a time when Maurice protected McMillan.

It was the 1986-87 season: McMillan was a 22-year-old rookie point guard, and Lucas was a 12-year veteran a year away from retirement.

“One day, another veteran tried to take advantage,” McMillan began. “And Luke wasn’t standing for it."

As McMillan busily stretched before practice, the vet repeatedly told Nate to “get off the floor and get him a Coke” from a nearby vending machine.

“I said, ‘Man, you are sitting right there next to the machine. You get it.’ He got up and was coming to reach for me when Luke walked in. Luke said to leave me alone and they squared off. [The other player] backed off, and I became ‘Luke’s rookie.’ After that, the vets didn’t mess with me.”

McMillan has spent his life studying basketball. Along the way, sadly, he’s learned more than he cares to about cancer.

His college coach at North Carolina State, the legendary Jim Valvano, died from bone cancer in 1993 at 47 years old. McMillan has also lost a couple uncles to the disease, and now sees both Lucas and team owner Paul Allen fighting cancer within the Blazer family.

Allen was diagnosed in mid-November with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and has been enduring chemotherapy ever since. This is the second time Allen has fought the disease, which he successfully beat after being diagnosed in 1983. McMillan finds comfort knowing Allen and Lucas are “two strong men.”

“You really reflect on life when you think of situations like that,” McMillan explained. “It’s a difficult situation to put yourself in those guys’ shoes. We’ve tried to give them privacy as far as them dealing with it.”  

For Nate, Maurice Lucas means more to him than being a protective teammate or a mentoring assistant coach who eased his move to Portland.

“It’s like a family member as far as me and Luke,” said McMillan.

“It’s basically in God’s hands.”