Dominique Wilkins is a great example for a coach to look back in time. And it is then that he realizes what a gem Dominique was.
At the time, you go through the seasons together with everybody, you may not see as clearly. The appreciation for Dominique grew so much more after the fact. He got to understand how special he was, his greatness and what he did for the franchise and the city. I don’t know if I ever saw him say no to someone who asked for an autograph.
He was great. I always kind of felt if there were 365 games in a season, he’d love to play everyday. He just loved it, had a passion for it. He would have got himself up for every one of them.
I remember when I took over in 1983, he and I had a long sit-down meeting and I asked, “What can you do more of for this team?” We talked about his ability to score and the season before, he was averaging a little over 17 points a game. We looked at everything and kind of broke it down. We talked about great scorers usually wind up being great free-throw shooters because they get to the line 10, 12 times a game. They’ve got to make 80 percent.
If you look at his career after that beginning, he never shot below 80 percent for the next 10 years. He saw the importance of getting to the line, making free throws. The clock is stopped. That’s a way for you to put points on the board for you, for yourself.
He had only been in the league for a little while, but he wanted to win the scoring title. We kind of broke categories down and if he could put it all together; it was a way of seeing what he could do. We broke his game down, talked about the areas that he needed to improve in. And he did it. He worked at it, worked at it, worked at it.
People obviously don’t know. Even those who followed him don’t understand how much work he put in to be able to do the things at the end of his career that wasn’t able to do earlier. He never would have been the 3-point shooter he became. He was such a poor perimeter shooter early on because he played his whole career in the lane, jumping over everybody and dunking the basketball.
But one of the things he understood is, “I’ve got to get better at this if I’m going to turn into an all-around NBA great.” And he did that. At the end of his career, you had to play him at that 3-point line because he was going to make a shot on you.
Unfortunately, he never played on an NBA championship team. But he’s not the only great player that hasn’t won it all. Defining greatest in players often times comes down to: Did they win one? Did they win two? Three? But Karl Malone was a great player. John Stockton was a great player. Charles Barkley was a great player. They didn’t win championships.
Sometimes, it eludes certain people. They certainly kept their city, their franchise prominent and competitive. So did Dominique. I remember that 1986-87 season, it was just a great time. That year, we won 57 games and it was such a great feeling. You go into the locker room and if you talk to each of the players, they felt like, “OK, let’s kick this team’s butt tonight and move on to the next city.” That’s what happened with that group, and Dominique was the very core of that team.
Mike Fratello coached the Hawks from 1983-90, all of them with Dominique Wilkins as his small forward. At 324-250 (.564), he is the second winningest coach in franchise history. Fratello is a television analyst for the YES Network, the Brooklyn Nets and TNT.
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