There has never been a better basketball player-and-coach combination in the NBA than Lenny Wilkens. Period. No one even close. The Hall of Famer was a nine-time All-Star, scored 17,772 points and dished out 7,211 assists while winning 1,332 games as a coach; a record when he retired in 2005 and since passed by Don Nelson at 1,335. Amazingly, between coaching and playing, Wilkens participated in 3,515 regular-season and playoff games.
It started in Brooklyn, where Wilkens grew up a big baseball fan and spent a lot of his afternoons at Ebbets Field in the 1950s watching the Dodgers. He was a huge Jackie Robinson fan and played baseball with major league star Tommy Davis. Wilkens played at Boys High School, but made his name on the playgrounds. He had little interest from colleges until a priest in his neighborhood wrote to the Providence basketball program, telling them about Wilkens and leading to a full scholarship.
In 1959, he led the Friars to their first appearance in the NIT and the finals the next season, losing to Bradley after having to leave the game with an injury. He scored 1,193 points at Providence and would have his jersey (No. 14) retired by the school in 1996, the first alumnus to receive that honor.
In the 1960 draft, which saw Oscar Robertson drafted No. 1 and Jerry West No. 2, Wilkens went sixth to the St. Louis Hawks. During his rookie season alongside the great Bob Pettit, the Hawks went to the finals and lost to the Boston Celtics. In his nine seasons in St. Louis, they made the playoffs seven times, and in his last season, Wilkens averaged 20 points and 8.3 assists per game and finished second in the MVP race to Wilt Chamberlin of the Lakers.
The Hawks didn’t want to pay Wilkens what he wanted, and he was subsequently traded to Seattle, where he had perhaps his greatest season, averaging 22.4 points per game in 1968-69. He also was a player-coach in Seattle before being traded to Cleveland in 1972.
Wilkens was with the Cavaliers for two seasons before going to Portland for one and retiring as a player and remaining as the head coach for one season. He then worked for a season at CBS as an analyst before getting back into coaching and going back to Seattle, where he won what still is their only championship in 1979.
He went back to Cleveland in 1986, staying there for seven seasons, winning 57 and 54 games in his last two seasons and coaching Georgia Tech great Mark Price.
In 1992, he was an assistant for the first “Dream Team’’ at the Barcelona Olympics, but soon after he tangled with Cavs management and was hired by the Hawks in 1993 and led them to a 57-25 record in his first season, winning the Central Division. He coached seven seasons here, and on Jan. 6, 1995, he became the winningest coach in NBA history, collecting his 939th coaching victory to move ahead of Boston Celtics legend Red Auerbach, who was on hand at The Omni for the win over Washington.
Wilkens also was the head coach for the gold-medal winning team at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. But in 2000, Wilkens and the Hawks parted ways, and he finished his career with a three-year stint in Toronto and two seasons with the Knicks.
After retiring from coaching, Wilkens, as a consultant, was instrumental in making the South Korean national team competitive. He also went back to Seattle for a short time, as president of basketball operations in 2007.
Where he lives: Wilkens, now 77, has been married to his wife, Marilyn, for 52 years and has three children (Leesha, Randy and Jamee) and seven grandchildren. He lives outside Seattle.
What he does now: He runs the Lenny Wilkens Foundation, which "funds organizations that deliver healthcare and education services to young people while honoring their dignity and sense of self-respect.'' The foundation hosts a huge golf tournament every year and the primary recipient of the funds is the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic in Seattle.
On growing up in Brooklyn: "My first sport was baseball. The Dodgers were the thing, and I loved Jackie Robinson. I knew Gil Hodges and Pee Wee Reese and Duke Snider. We used to go sit in the bleachers and they would say hello to us. We played a lot of baseball and as far as basketball, you had to make your name on the playground. I remember I did that one day against Vinnie Cohen, who was a great player at Syracuse. I was able to stay with him, and I had made it.''
On Oscar Robertson going ahead of him in the 1960 draft: "He was unbelievable. We played a doubleheader at Madison Square Garden, and we played St. John's and they (Cincinnati) played NYU. He outscored the entire NYU team.''
On playing with the great Bob Pettit in St. Louis: "Bob and Cliff Hagan were very friendly to me. There were not a lot of minorities playing for teams back then. The thing about Bob was he knew his limitations. He couldn't dribble real well, so when he got the ball he was typically in position to shoot.''
On playing against the great Celtics teams: "For me it was a challenge, but I knew I could score on them. It was a thrill. I could guard (Bob) Cousy, and Tommy Heinsohn could shoot from anywhere, and he did.''
On his '79 championship with Seattle: "Actually I was the guy that made some of those trades for the team before I left and in '78 they got off to a terrible start at 5-17. But I came in and we turned it around and went to the finals (losing to Washington), but people thought it was a fluke, but we proved that it wasn't in '79. We had some really good players, ones like Fred Brown who came off the bench made us a very good team.''
On his years in Atlanta: "The Clippers came after me at the same time, but I didn't think (owner) Donald Sterling was serious about winning. So I came to Atlanta and we had some good teams, but they didn't want to pay Dominique Wilkins, which was a mistake. Fans identify with players like him. Then we traded Steve Smith, I was unhappy with that and we got J.R. Rider, who wasn't focused at all, but we had some success in Atlanta, and passing the coaching record was huge and a really big night for me.''
On LeBron James and Cleveland's chance to win its first NBA title: "I am really pulling hard for that. I had the opportunity to meet LeBron through a nun who was tutoring him. I felt like his decision to go to Miami was a good one because he wanted to win, but then his decision to come back was also a great one. He wants to give back to Cleveland and they have great fans. When I was there we were playing out in Richfield (Coliseum) in the snow belt and getting 20,000 to comes to those games.''
On his legacy: "I am very blessed. I lost my dad when I was 5, and my mother made a big difference in my life, and I have had a great wife. There was also a priest who made a big difference when I was young. What it comes down to is when I was growing up my mother always told me that I had to be accountable. I feel real good about what I have done."
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