Unguarded

by Lenny Wilkens

  “Stan really wants to make the deal,” Babcock told me more than once.

  Stan was Stan Kasten, team president. He was Babcock’s boss and my boss. I reluctantly went along with the trade because I could tell it was going to happen anyway. So, we took the risk and made the trade, and in the end we all regretted it. The best thing for me to do was to start thinking how I could motivate Rider and make him a better player. After the trade was announced, we had trouble reaching Rider. He then told some writers that he wasn’t happy with the trade, that he didn’t think we had a very good team. He said he wanted to stay in Portland, despite all the “problems” he’d had the previous season. He seemed to have little knowledge of, and even less respect for, the Hawks. He acted as if we were 19-31 instead of 31-19.

  Portland was 35-15 that strike season and went to the Western Conference Finals in Rider’s last season there. He averaged a career-low 14 points and shot a career low 41 percent. The Blazers were weary of all his off-the-court troubles. Would he show up, or not? To them, the deal for Smith was a steal. They saw Smith as a scorer of the same caliber as Rider, only Smith was a magnificent human being, a leader in the dressing room. Rider was still a kid continually testing the boundaries of authority, driving his coaches and team-mates to distraction in the process.

  Rider eventually made his first visit to Atlanta, and we had an excellent meeting.

  “J.R., this is a great opportunity for you,” I said. “It’s a time for you to establish yourself with a new team in a new city. I don’t care what you did before, I’m just going to judge you on how you do starting today.”

  Rider said he appreciated that.

  “You can be an integral part of this team,” I said. “We need a scorer, a player of your talent. You can lead us. This can be the turning point of your career.”

  He seemed receptive to that.

  “Now, everyone is accountable,” I said. “We have team rules. We expect everyone to be on time, and to follow the rules. The rules apply to everyone.”

  “I’m anxious to get going,” he said. “Maybe this will be a good thing for me.”

  He seemed to really mean it. He was upbeat. He listened, looked me in the eye. After the meeting, I thought, “He’s reasonably intelligent, he pays attention. He generally agreed with what I had to say—hey, maybe this will work.”

  Then training camp came, and he wasn’t there.

  He said he had problems getting a flight from his home on the West Coast to Atlanta. And when he finally did get to Atlanta, he said he wouldn’t get on a small plane to Chattanooga, Tennessee, which was where we held our training camp. He said, “I ain’t gettin’ on no cropduster.”

  So there were warning signs even before his first practice. When he finally did get to camp, I went to his room.

  “J.R., let’s lay the cards on the table,” I said. “Let’s understand what this is all about. This can be a great situation for you. It can be good for us, too, but great for you. You’re a free agent at the end of the year. There is a lot of money on the line. All you have to do is play well and you can pick where you want to play next year. You can control your own destiny.”

  He said he understood that. Again, he listened, he looked me in the eye.

  “The important thing is that you’re finally here,” I said. “Let’s focus on basketball. Let’s get off to a good start.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “There were some things on my mind, but I’m OK now. I’m ready to get going.”

  Rider was not in good shape when he came to camp, but he really did work hard. I was impressed with how he caught on to what we were trying to do on offense and defense. He had a good understanding of how the game should be played. Initially, I was pleased with him. But I was concerned about our team. We had not only traded Steve Smith, we also dealt Mookie Blaylock to Golden State for Bimbo Coles and a number-one pick, which turned out to be rookie Jason Terry. Suddenly, my starting backcourt was gone, and I had to work Rider and Coles into our team concept, along with having Terry become acclimated to the NBA. Since we didn’t re-sign veteran forwards Tyrone Corbin and Grant Long, we were without four of our top seven scorers from the year before. The reason we passed on Long and Corbin was the front office wanted our team to get younger, to create more time for rookies and other kids to play. At the end of most exhibition seasons, I usually have a pretty good idea of what kind of team we’d put on the court, how I could use certain players, and how things would fit in. By the end of the first 15 regular-season games, I usually have a real handle on things.

  That never happened with the 1999-2000 Hawks.

  We started by losing, and I’ve never had a team make that many turnovers, or at least what coaches call unforced turnovers. That means passes to nowhere, a guy dribbling the ball off his foot, just careless, silly mistakes. Rider wasn’t happy, and he began to try to win games himself. He’d get the ball on offense, and it would just stop. By that I mean he’d catch a pass, then hold the ball, trying to figure out how to beat his defender one-on-one. He often could do that, but it cut the heart out of our offense. The key to any offense is movement, players moving and the ball moving. But when your teammate is a guy who just catches and ball and holds it, trying to set up his own shot, it kills your morale, your motivation for trying to move and get open. When a guy gets the ball and holds it, the result is either a shot or a turnover.

  More than once I tried to explain this to Rider. I showed him on video how he was stopping our offense, destroying the flow. I said I understood he could get a shot any time he wanted, but it wasn’t always a good shot. And he could get better, easier shots, in the flow of our offense.

  J.R. answered that he didn’t know if the players were good enough to pass him the ball when he needed it. Nor did he think they were good enough to make shots. Basically, he believed he was the best player on the team, and his forcing shots still gave us the best chance to win. We talked about this often, and his opinion never changed. He just didn’t respect or trust his teammates, and they sensed it.

  When we had a team with Smith, Blaylock, Corbin, Long, Henderson, Mutombo, and Ellis—those guys trusted each other. They passed the ball. They believed in the system. They helped each other on offense and defense.

  But four of those players were gone. That bond was broken and we never could get it back. When a team is losing and the best player appears to be selfish, then the other players fall into the same bad habits. They may not always be forcing shots just to get their own points; they may think it’s up to them to make something happen, to help turn the season around. But the result is the same, the team is fractured. As a coach, you talk ball movement. You talk unselfishness. You talk about spacing on the floor, so the players aren’t standing next to each other. You talk about giving everyone room to operate. You talk about covering up for each other on defense. You walk through the concepts on the practice floor. You show it to them over and over with video. You teach and you teach and you teach. But if your best player doesn’t see it, or just refuses to see it, and plays his own way—then it just won’t happen.

  That was the case with Rider.

  Then he started showing up late for practices and games. Sometimes it was five minutes, ten minutes, three minutes. I’d fine him. I’d tell him that it was a sign of disrespect to be late, both to his coaches and his teammates. He’d say he’d try to do better, and for a week or two, he’d be on time. Then, he’d be late again.

  I told Pete Babcock, “This is it, we have to suspend him. What’s going on is not good for the team. It’s going to affect my credibility as a coach. Every team I’ve coached, the players know that I don’t stand for stuff like this. We can’t have it.”

  Babcock agreed, called Rider in, and suspended him for two games. That made him angry. His attitude was, “Hey, I pay the fines for being late, what’s the big deal? I mean, you can’t really suspend me for being ten minutes late?”

  When Rider calmed down, I met with him a few d
ays later. I said, “What are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to be a great player? Here is a real chance for you. I’m not just saying this to blow smoke up your butt and get you back on the court, I mean it. My job is to coach whether you’re on the team or not. But you’re in a situation where you can turn things around. Look, if you don’t like me or don’t like it here, you can get out at the end of the season. But only if you play well will this work. Any shooting guard can flourish in my system. Look at how well Steve Smith played, how much he scored. I’m smart enough to understand the game and take advantage of your talent.”

  “Coach,” he said, “I’m going to try this. I can do it. I really want to. I just get so emotional…”

  “If things are bothering you, you need to talk to someone,” I said. “You can’t just hold it in. Come talk to me. I’m a good listener. Whatever you say will be between you and me, and I mean that.”

  He said he’d come talk.

  “J.R.,” I said, “this is not about who is the best player. It’s about being on time, being here every day, not just showing up for the games. Everybody has to be accountable. I told you that from the first day.”

  He said he understood.

  But he never did, never saw how his actions affected his team-mates. His thinking was, “I play hard when the games come, that’s all I need to do.”

  J.R. is like some players of his generation. They really have trouble connecting themselves to something other than what they think is in their own best interest. Many of them have been “free agents” dating back to high school, when they were recruited to play not just by colleges but by other high-school coaches and summer-league coaches. Some of these kids are recruited each year by different summer-league teams, and this starts as early as when they’re twelve years old. They also are surrounded by hangers-on who tell them how great they are, and how they really don’t need to listen to the coach, that they’re above the rules. I’m not a counselor, but I really tried to work with J.R. I learned that his family meant something to him. I saw his moods, his insecurities, and heard about his broken home in Oakland. He was a great athlete, but was ineligible to play basketball in his senior year of high school because of grade problems, according to a Sports Illustrated story. He didn’t graduate, but he later earned his GED while at Allen Community College in Kansas. After a year at Allen, he transferred to Antelope Valley College. Then he spent the next two years at Nevada-Las Vegas. That makes three colleges in four years. The Hawks were his third pro team in seven years. In a sense, Rider probably felt like a hired gun, a player brought in to score, knowing that he probably won’t stick around for long. Minnesota Timberwolves general manager Kevin McHale dealt with Rider in his early NBA years; McHale told Sports Illustrated: “It got to a point where every couple of weeks, it was another incident. We just couldn’t depend on him. It’s like having a friend who’s always late to pick you up. You still want him to be a friend, but after a while, you stop asking him for a ride.”

  That exactly how it was with us.

  I had conversation after conversation with him. I explained the reasons why we did the things we did on offense and defense, and how it would only work if he would try to fit into the system.

  “Great players make their teammates better,” I’d say. “Like when you’re double-teamed, make the quick pass to the open guy. Don’t just hold the ball. You don’t always have to make a great pass.”

  Sometimes, Rider sort of agreed.

  Other times, he said, “These guys aren’t giving me enough space to operate.” He wanted us to just clear out a side of the floor, give him the ball, and watch him shoot. I explained that wasn’t a good way for any team to play. He said it was our only chance to win, because he was the only player we had who could really score.

  One game, he did nothing but pass the ball—as if to prove his point that he was the key to the offense. I mean, he hardly shot at all. He passed up wide-open shots. It was ridiculous. The next game, he was back to shooting whenever he could.

  Meanwhile, he was late and late and late some more.

  And we fined him and fined him and fined him some more.

  “J.R., aren’t you tired of paying all this money?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you rather just keep it for yourself, or give it to your family or charity?”

  Most of the time, he’d just shrug when I mentioned that he had been fined something like $200,000.

  Other times, I’d remind him about his contract situation, how he was a free agent and other teams were watching how he acted this season.

  Again, he sort of shrugged it off. He didn’t seem very worried about it. He was making $4.5 million and just assumed there always will be another team to take him and pay him, regardless of his tardiness and other problems.

  This tore our team apart. The other players resented Rider’s selfishness, both on and off the court. We didn’t have enough veteran players to bring pressure on him and to create the kind of order we had on the court in the past. The front office was just as frustrated with Rider as the rest of us, but nothing we did could reach Rider.

  Toward the end of the season, there was a game we lost. Afterward, the rest of the team went into the dressing room, but J.R. just sat on the floor. After I talked to the team, I went out to meet the media. Then J.R. came in and went ballistic. He ripped the players, calling them a bunch of losers, cussing everyone out. We realized he was getting out of control.

  Pete Babcock had a meeting with Rider and said we planned to suspended him for three games.

  “You just want my money,” Rider said, meaning the three-game suspension would cost him $180,000.

  “It’s not about money, it’s about your behavior,” Babcock said.

  “No, you want my money,” he said.

  Babcock explained what Rider had done wrong, the lateness and other problems.

  “You just want my money,” he insisted.

  “OK,” said Babcock. “We’ll give you a choice. You can take the suspension, or we’ll put you on waivers and let you go.”

  Rider said, go ahead, cut him.

  With 18 games left, the Hawks waived J. R. Rider. He was not picked up by another team, at least partly because we released him too late for him to be eligible for the playoffs with a new team. I was sad to see it end that way. I had tried everything. I listened to his problems. I gave him fatherly advice. I spoke to him like a coach. I gave him more latitude than any player I’ve ever coached, hoping my patience would pay off. I suspended him. I fined him. In his last few games, I even jerked him from the starting lineup. Nothing worked. I’ve never had a player of his talent whom I couldn’t reach in some way. Part of me wishes that I’d had him as a rookie; maybe I could have shaped him. The other part says that he’s had some good coaches, and no one seemed able to help him. I don’t think he’s an awful guy; he’s just not interested in playing by anyone’s rules but his own.

  This was my toughest year in the NBA. We finished with a 28-54 record, my worst record in twenty-seven seasons. I played a lot of our young guys, trying to develop the talent for the future once it became obvious we weren’t going to make the playoffs.

  Rumors about me leaving the Hawks started at the All-Star break. That made no sense, at least the part about me resigning, which appeared in the Atlanta newspaper and on some talk shows. I had two more years at $5 million annually on my contract; I was not about to resign and walk away from that money. I also wanted to coach the Hawks again next season, to start over with the young players I’d been working with. I had no indication that I was in any trouble with the front office until the final few weeks of the season. Yes, I had been hearing from some coaching friends and scouts that the Hawks were going to fire me, but nothing seemed different when I dealt with the front office.

  With a couple of days left in the season, my agent, Lonnie Cooper, met with Stan Kasten. He came away with the impression that Stan wanted to change coaches. Stan was talking about doing something to spark interest in the
new building, to bring in more fans after such a bad year. I was disappointed when I heard that from Lonnie, because a lot of the moves made by the front office were why we’d had such a long, dreadful season.

  Before the last game of the season, I saw Pete Babcock. He was nervous, really fidgety. His color was pasty white. He just didn’t look good. We went into my office, and Pete said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I really enjoyed working with you…”

  It sounded as if he was giving me a coaching eulogy, and that really bothered me. We still had a game to go, and he was giving me the kiss of death.

  I told him that I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen, since Lonnie Cooper had met with Stan Kasten. Pete acted as if he didn’t know anything about the meeting.

  “Fine,” I said. “As soon as the season is over, let’s meet with Stan and get this resolved.”

  A few days later, we did.

  I sat there with Lonnie Cooper. Stan had Pete with him.

  I opened by saying, “Listen, I’m a grownup. Based on what you told Lonnie…I don’t want to be in a place where I’m not wanted, OK? If you want to do something, then pay me to resign.”

  They immediately agreed to that, saying they’d honor the last two years of my contract. They asked me to attend the press conference announcing my resignation, but I thought they should handle it and I’d just issue a statement.

  I watched the press conference on TV. I thought Stan did his part well. I was annoyed when Pete said, “People asked me if Lenny was tired or burned out, but that wasn’t the case.”

  Why even say that? No one asked Pete, he just brought it up. Later, he said he was against the Rider deal, that Stan and I wanted to pull the trigger. That just wasn’t true, and Pete knew it. That’s why I went on ESPN to clear the record about all that, and let everyone know that I still intended to coach. I’m sixty-two, in great health, and I love the game. I’d like a chance to develop one more team, and I’m proud of what I did in Atlanta.