We lost the best-of-seven series in five games. The Lakers had the same kind of attitude that we had the year before, that incredible desire to win a title. Abdul-Jabbar seemed revived by the presence of Magic, who found ways not only to get him the ball, but to score enough so that Kareem knew that the entire offense didn’t rest on his skyhook.
While I didn’t admit it publicly, in my heart I had a bad feeling: I saw the future of the Western Conference, and its name was Magic Johnson. Meanwhile, I saw more problems ahead for my team.
Fans don’t like to hear this, but it’s the truth: Either you have a superstar, or you don’t.
Seattle did not have a superstar. The Lakers did, in Magic. And the Celtics did in Larry Bird. And that’s why those two teams dominated the NBA for most of the 1980s. You must have someone on your team who demands the respect of the players and has earned that respect by what he does on the court. The coach can only do so much; then it’s up to the players.
Kareem was one of the greatest players ever, but he was not that guy. He won a title with Milwaukee in 1971, when an aging Oscar Robertson came in to join him, and then he didn’t win again until Magic arrived in 1980. Kareem is a thoughtful, quiet man. He is not the kind of vocal leader who can inspire a team, despite his greatness on the court.
A great player in basketball can tilt the game in his direction because there are only five players on the court at any given moment. His impact is greater there than in football, where eleven play at a time, or in baseball, where nine play at a time and where the offense doesn’t control the ball. When he played minor league baseball, Michael Jordan talked about how frustrated he was because he couldn’t control the game; he had to wait until it was his turn to bat, or for someone to hit the ball to him in the outfield. In basketball, a great player doesn’t have to wait to get the ball. At any point, the coach can set up a play for him to receive a pass, or the player can just steal the ball, get a rebound, do something to get the ball now! The great player can impose his will on the game and affect it constantly.
In Seattle, we didn’t have that guy.
Dennis Johnson’s contract situation continued to fester until the front office felt that he had to be traded. I agreed with the decision, and we sent him to Phoenix for Paul Westphal, who was an All-Star guard—but Westphal broke his foot, and he played only 36 games for us in 1980-81. Now, I would handle this situation differently. I would have spent more time with Dennis after we were eliminated from the 1980 playoffs. I would have listened to him, talked to him, let him know that I was sympathetic—and then I would have pushed harder with ownership to try to convince them to rework Dennis’s contract. I would have been the go-between for both parties, try to get them talking again and maybe get the thing resolved. But I was still a relatively young coach, only forty-one. And Dennis was a very young twenty-five. Instead, emotions boiled over.
When we traded Dennis, I was talking with a sportswriter. He said, “One bad apple can spoil the whole barrel.” I didn’t want to use that analogy, but I just made it worse by saying, “That’s right. If a person has a cancer, you remove it, right? You don’t let it spread and affect the whole body. So if something doesn’t work, you try to address it.”
That wasn’t smart, as I realized when I saw the headline the next day reading: WILKENS CALLS JOHNSON A CANCER. It ran first in a Denver paper, because Silas had called him a cancer before I did. Then the whole thing spread, and I ended up in the middle of it. It was a mess. We lost Dennis. Westphal was hurt. Shelton continued to be distracted by personal problems. Then Gus Williams became unhappy with his contract, and he held out. He sat out the entire 1980-81 season in a dispute with the front office.
Again, money was changing everything. First, it forced us to trade Dennis; then we lost Gus for the whole year. And we went from winning 56 games in 1979-80, to a 34-48 record in 1980-81. It was hard to believe how fast everything disintegrated, but it did. We were never able to put that same chemistry together again. In 1981-82, we signed Gus to a new deal and won 52 games, which was the second-best record in franchise history. But we lost to San Antonio in the second round of the playoffs.
Another by-product of winning is low draft choices. The more you win, the lower you draft. So we didn’t have an influx of young talent to replace the aging veterans such as Silas, John Johnson, and Fred Brown. We traded for players such as Tom Chambers and drafted James Donaldson who helped us, but we were in the same Pacific Division as the Lakers, the same as Magic Johnson. And we weren’t going to beat them, period.
Over the next three years we slipped to 48 wins, then 42, then 31; we couldn’t get past the first round of the playoffs in 1982-83 or 1983-84, and then missed out on them altogether in my last season coaching the Sonics, 1984-85. I spent the next year strictly as a general manager, but I found I missed being a coach. I couldn’t bear to watch the ends of close games in the arena; I had to go somewhere and watch on TV. I wanted to be in the huddle, trying to come up with a play to help us win. In some respects, it was good for me to have a year away from coaching. It recharged my batteries and allowed me to fully concentrate on my job as a general manager. For most of my time in Seattle, I was doing both jobs—although Les Habegger had that position in my final year as coach. Owner Barry Ackerley asked me to be the GM, and I knew I needed a break from coaching. I made some good deals that year, shipping Al Wood to Dallas for Dale Ellis and drafting Nate McMillan in the second round. Our number one pick, Xavier McDaniel, had a strong rookie season and became a very good NBA player. But we were working on a limited budget in Seattle. I wanted us to re-sign Fred Brown for one more year, to offer him about $100,000 to come back and play if he wanted, even though Fred was at the end of his career. It was the respectful thing to do. But the front office refused, and that became a media fiasco because it looked as if we were kicking Fred Brown out the door.
As I spent that year as general manager, people kept asking me if I wanted to coach again. A number of them, like my friend Dick Helm, said I really should coach. I ran into Wayne Embry, who had just taken over as the Cleveland Cavaliers general manager, and he asked me if I was interested in coaching. I had hired Bernie Bicker-staff to replace me in Seattle; his record was 31-51, but it wouldn’t have been fair or made any sense for me to come down and replace Bernie after only one season. We were rebuilding, and Bernie deserved a chance to put things together his own way.
The last thing I did before leaving Seattle was to trade Jack Sikma. I didn’t want to do it, but Jack wanted to play for a contender; Milwaukee was interested in him because the Bucks had been searching for a center for years.
The Bucks orginally offered a first-round pick and a player for Sikma. I talked to Bickerstaff about that, and he said he needed someone to play center if Sikma was traded.
“How about Alton Lister?” I asked.
Bernie liked that idea. Lister wasn’t great, but he was serviceable, about six-foot-eleven, with long arms, and he liked to block shots.
I told Don Nelson we wanted Lister. Nelson was both coach and general manager.
“That’s a possibility,” he said.
“I want two first-round picks and Lister for Sikma,” I said.
“That’s crazy!!!” he screamed.
“Nelly,” I said, “I’ve got to get two first-rounders in this deal.”
“I’ll never trade two first-rounders!” he screamed again.
“That’s the way it is,” I said. “Sikma is an All-Star-caliber player. If you want him, that’s what it will cost you.”
Nelson still refused. The conversation ended, and the next day I went to Cleveland to interview for the Cavaliers coaching job.
I came back the next day, and Nelson called.
“We’ve got a deal,” he said.
“What do you mean, we have a deal?” I asked. “We didn’t when I left.”
“We do now,” he said. “I just talked to [Seattle owner] Barry Ackerley and he said he’d do it for Lister and a f
irst-rounder.”
“That’s crap,” I said. “You know that Barry doesn’t make the deals, I do.”
“I’m telling you that Barry said—”
“I don’t care what he said,” I roared. “There’s no deal.”
Then I hung up the phone and went to Ackerley. He said he didn’t agree to any trade with Nelson; he said Nelson pressured him, but he didn’t say it was a deal.
I called Nelson back and said, “Ackerley told me that he never agreed to anything.”
Nelson was naturally upset. Then he got Bucks owner Herb Kohl on the line. Kohl also was a U.S. senator from Wisconsin.
“Lenny,” he said, “I know you are an honorable person. I know what you wanted in the deal. But I’m telling you, this guy said he’d make the trade for Lister and a first-round pick. I just want you to know that. But I also know what you wanted in the deal.”
“I’m sorry that happened,” I said. “But I told both you and Nelly that I needed two first-rounders in the deal.”
Finally, we agreed to Milwaukee sending us Lister and first-round picks in 1987 and 1989 for Sikma and two future second-round picks.
That gave Seattle five first-round picks in the next three drafts. I could have said that I was probably leaving the Sonics anyway, that it looked as if I had the Cleveland job wrapped up, so why fight for that last draft pick? But I always loved the Sonics, and I felt I owed it to the fans to leave the team in the best possible shape to become a contender again, which I felt I did.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ONE OF THE BEST THINGS that ever happened to me was the chance to coach the Cleveland Cavaliers. It came at a perfect time in my career, when I needed a change of scenery and some good players to coach. Even better, I had a chance to work for a wonderful owner in Gordon Gund and a good general manager in Wayne Embry.
For that, I’ll always be thankful.
When I remember my seven years in Cleveland, I’m filled with pride. We won a lot of games. We won with excellent people. We won for fans who appreciated our players and our style of play. Yet I still think about what could have been, and I have a feeling of incompleteness. In my heart, I believe we could have won a title in Cleveland—even in the era of Michael Jordan.
In the summer of 1986, the Cavaliers were looking for a new coach. Then again, it seemed the Cavs were always looking for a new coach. In the first six seasons of that decade, the Cavs changed coaches eight times! Some of them like Bill Musselman did two tours of duty. Here’s a list of men who coached the Cavs from January 1980 until I was hired in July 1986: Gene Littles, George Karl, Tom Nissalke, Chuck Daly, Don Delaney, Bob Kloppenburg, Stan Albeck, and two courses of Musselman.
Why would I even want a job in a place like that?
Because things were changing. Gordon Gund bought the Cavs from Ted Stepien in 1983. The Stepien regime was a constant swirl of coaches and players, coming and going. The trades were so questionable that for a while, the NBA office stepped in and said it had to approve all deals—a way of protecting the Cavs from themselves. During the early 1980s, Stepien’s Cavs were called “The Cadavers,” for obvious reasons having to do with their dismal records and their horrible attendance. At times, the twenty-thousand-seat Richfield Coliseum seemed like the world’s largest tomb. You could hear the ball echo all over the building as it was dribbled up the court.
By the summer of 1986, Wayne Embry had just been hired as general manager. I didn’t know Wayne well, but I had played against him. Wayne was a huge center, about six-foot-eight and 270 pounds. He set bone-rattling picks for Oscar Robertson in Cincinnati. He later backed up Bill Russell for two years in Boston, then finished his career with the Milwaukee Bucks. He also was general manager of the Bucks for six years, turning them into a contender and a consistent winner. Too many people automatically assume Wayne and I are great friends, because we’re black. And they assume Wayne hired me in Cleveland because of that friendship, which supposedly was based on race. That’s insulting to both of us. I played against Wayne for many years, but never had any in-depth conversations with him. In fact, the man who was the Cavs general manager before Wayne, Harry Weltman, was the first to ask me about coaching the Cavs. Weltman has since told friends he fully intended to hire me—only he was fired in May 1986. Then Wayne was hired, and he talked to me about the job. I was interested not only because I trusted Wayne, but because I saw the moves he and the rest of the front office made in the 1986 draft. They picked Brad Daugherty, Ron Harper, Mark Price, and Johnny Newman. John “Hot Rod” Williams had been drafted in 1985 by Weltman, but had to sit out a season because he was indicted in a point-shaving case from his days at Tulane; in June 1986, Hot Rod was cleared of all charges and allowed to play.
So it didn’t matter to me that the Cavs hadn’t had a winning season in eight years. Nor did the small crowds bother me: I knew that Cleveland was a rabid sports town if the team was a winner. When I played with the Cavs in the early 1970s our crowds were small, but the fans who did come were very vocal and loyal. We just needed more of them. Also, that old Cleveland Arena on East Thirtieth and Euclid Avenue was a dump. The Richfield Coliseum was way out between Cleveland and Akron; one writer nicknamed it “The Big House on the Prairie,” but it was a sparkling palace near several interstates that made it easy for the fans from the Cleveland suburbs and Akron area to come to our games. They just had to have a reason to show up. The building also had a practice court and a weight room, which meant a lot to me because I never had that situation in Seattle. It allowed us to use the locker rooms and all the equipment every day, not just for games. That’s standard in many arenas today, but it was rare back in the middle 1980s. I sensed with Wayne Embry and Gordon Gund running the team, combined with the attractive building and the young players they had acquired, that something very special could happen in Cleveland—and I wanted to be a part of it.
When I interviewed with the Cavs, I knew they were as excited about me as I was about coaching their team. I met with Gordon Gund, who has been blind since the age of thirty because of a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. It’s interesting that this white man who hired a black general manager/coach combination is blind. Of course, Wayne recommended me to Gordon, but in the end Gordon had to approve. Race was never an issue in my interviews with the Cavs. Gordon hired both Wayne and me for all the right reasons—we were the best men available, period. In a sense, this was the American Dream, Martin Luther King’s dream. The world had changed. When I broke in with St. Louis in the early 1960s I couldn’t eat or buy a house in some areas. Now I was being hired to coach an NBA team, and to work for an African-American general manager. And the best part was that no one dwelt on the racial aspect, we were all just there to try to do a job, to make the franchise into a winner.
The only concern Gordon had was that I remember Wayne was the general manager: I reported to Wayne, and Wayne reported to Gordon. That was a point Gordon made several times to me. He was worried because I had been a general manager in Seattle, but I assured Gordon that I wasn’t interested in running the front office. I was forty-eight years old and in excellent health, and the year in Seattle’s front office had left me eager to coach again, especially in a brand-new situation with a young team. Besides, the business side of the NBA had evolved and become more complicated because of salary caps, free agency, and other issues to the point where you need a full-time GM. I was glad I didn’t have to worry about making trades or draft picks, nor was I in constant contact with the owner. A good general manager is a real shield between the coach and the owner, keeping both informed while not making the coach feel any more pressure than the enormous amount that already comes with the job. Wayne Embry was the ideal general manager when it came to juggling all those things, and I’m happiest when I can just focus on coaching.
At the time, the Cavs had a guy running their business operation who wanted me to take a psychological exam, which was something they gave to people they were considering for key positions in their
organization.
I said, “Listen, I’m the coach. I’ll be the one who gives the tests.”
Gordon caught my humor and laughed, but the others around the table sat there stone-faced.
“No, I do the testing,” I insisted.
Gordon said that was fine with him, and I was able to skip the test. I really liked Gordon. He came from a very wealthy family; his father was the man who discovered the formula for what became decaffeinated coffee. Then the family ventured into the banking business, and Gordon also owned a company that bought ailing corporations, put them back on their financial feet, then sold them. In fact, they purchased the Richfield Coliseum from some banks that had taken over the building because of financial troubles. With my interest in business and economics, Gordon and I had more than basketball to talk about. He is just an amazing guy. Yes, he is blind, but when he greets you, he shakes your hand and says, “Good to see you.” I think he intentionally uses those words to put people at ease about his blindness. He could be sitting at a table with seven different people, and after everyone has said hello, he memorizes where you are and looks right at you as he speaks—even though he has no way of seeing you. He just remembers where he heard your voice. He’d sit at the games and cheer, listening to the broadcast on his headphones. The Cavs’ radio voice is Joe Tait, one of the best broadcasters in NBA history, and a very good friend dating back to when I played for the Cavs. He was Gordon’s eyes at the games. Gordon listened very intently to everything Joe said on the air. In meetings with Gordon, he’d ask probing, intelligent questions. I respected him for how he dealt with his blindness, how he refused to just take his family’s money and sit on the sidelines of life. Instead, he pressed on, attacking life with a passion that impresses virtually everyone who meets him.
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