Out From The Darkness: Robert Swift's road from NBA pick to addict to...

The first thing Robert Swift remembers is the police loudspeaker. Though in his haze he wondered if he had dreamed it. Then it sounded again, and he imagined sappers and rifles and knew what awaited him.

Swift was not the target at 6 a.m. that Saturday morning in October 2014, when the SWAT team descended on a one-story house in Kirkland, a suburb northeast of Seattle. No, Trygve (Trigg) Bjorkstam was the one who dealt heroin and methamphetamine, the one who attracted junkies and hookers to the four-bedroom house on a leafy street less than a block from the elementary school. He was the one who always carried a loaded pistol in a shoulder holster, even at home; who added meth to Coca-Cola to increase the volume; who was so paranoid about being robbed that, according to court records, police discovered 26 firearms, including a grenade launcher, on the property.

But it was Swift who woke up first. He was in bad shape, having just crashed after three days without sleep, fueled by his usual mix of heroin and meth. Stumbling toward Trigg's room, past tables littered with used needles and shreds of burned film, Swift felt fear, but also relief. His job was to protect Trigg's belongings and clean up the place. In return, he got a back bedroom and a steady supply of small, clear packets of heroin, enough to ward off the dry hectares and crushing headaches of withdrawal. Swift had long since succumbed to the drug's effects. He had no phone, no money, no ambition. He hadn't seen his son in two years; he no longer spoke to his parents. A year earlier, he had been kicked out of his apartment for being held captive in his own million-dollar foreclosed home. Part of him thought he would die here, in this filthy house, and maybe that was okay.

Now, as he followed Trigg into the pre-dawn darkness with his hands raised, Swift noticed the policeman staring at him, putting two and two together. After all, there are only so many 7'1" tall tattooed redheads on the planet, and only one who was a pick for the Seattle SuperSonics, selected straight out of high school in 2004. Swift may have looked different now - bordering on skeletal, with his thick, unwashed hair stuck to his forehead - but there was no mistaking him. This was the kid once compared to Bill Walton; the guy who played against Dwight Howard in the McDonald's All-American Game; the young man whom Jack Nicholson once stopped after halftime to say, "Do me a favor and chill on my Lakers - you're killing them right now."