Unguarded

by Lenny Wilkens

  The Rider trade was a big gamble that blew up. The front office said it took responsibility for it. But what happened? Rider was cut, and I had to resign. They kept their jobs.

  “When you’re a coach, you become a lightning rod for what happens in an organization,” Pete Babcock said at the press conference. “It doesn’t mean it’s fair or right, but it’s the reality of the situation.”

  But should it be?

  Why can’t an established coach be given a chance to bounce back after a crazy season like that one? When mistakes are made, it’s always easier to fire the coach—“even if it’s not fair or right,” to quote Pete Babcock. The coach can’t fire the general manager. It’s funny how basketball people always say, “A coach is only as good as his players.” Then, when they fail to get the coach the right kind of players, they still fire him. Is that really the best way to run a team?

  After leaving Atlanta, I still wanted to coach.

  For a while, not much happened; I talked to a couple of teams, but it didn’t seem to be a good fit. After what happened with the Hawks and Rider, I didn’t want to coach just any team. I wanted a chance to win, and I wanted to coach in a city where my family would be comfortable.

  I didn’t even think about Toronto.

  The Raptors had just won forty-five games and made the playoffs for the first time in their history. I wasn’t aware of all the problems between Coach Butch Carter and the front office, so I was a bit surprised when Carter was let go—and delighted when Toronto called. At this point, I had just told Marilyn that I probably wouldn’t be coaching in the 2000-2001 season. It would have been the first time since 1960 that I wouldn’t be involved in an NBA training camp, at least in some capacity. I had done some TV work during the NBA playoffs for Fox, and they wanted me back for the season. I had enjoyed it more than I expected to, so I thought I’d start the season as a broadcaster and see if any good coaching opportunities came along—not just any coaching opportunity, but a good one.

  I knew I wanted to coach again. Not for the money; I had $10 million left on my contract from the Hawks. And not for any sort of records; I already had won more games than any other coach in NBA history. I just like the coaching, even after all the heartache with J.R. Rider. I was going to turn sixty-three just before the start of the season, but I’ve never felt old—and being around young people energizes me.

  Which brings me to Vince Carter.

  When Toronto General Manager Glen Grunwald called, one of the first things that crossed my mind was the chance to coach Vince Carter. I’m not one to say he’s the next Michael Jordan; I know how unfair it is to put that label on any player, because I saw up close the greatness of Michael as he kept shattering our dreams in the playoffs. There is only one Michael Jordan, just like there is only one Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. These are the players who define their generations of NBA basketball.

  But Vince Carter…

  Vince Carter…

  His name ran through my mind, and I thought of all the outstanding players I’ve coached: Dennis Johnson, Gus Williams, Mark Price, Ron Harper, Brad Daugherty, Jack Sikma, and Dominique Wilkins. None of them had the pure basketball gifts and skills of Vince Carter. And making it better, Carter seemed like a good person the few times I’d talked to him.

  A chance to coach Vince Carter…

  Understand, there was more to the Toronto job that I liked. I was very impressed with the new arena and the enthusiasm of the fans when my Hawks played there. Toronto may be a hockey city, but a lot of people really care about basketball. And I liked the international flavor of the city, the friendliness of the people. Ownership seemed top-notch, and Glen Grunwald sounded like a man whom I’d want to be my general manager. Making it even better, when Kevin Willis heard I was a candidate for the job, he called and almost begged me to take it. He said the team had a lot of talent, and all they needed was a veteran coach to really become something special. I thought about a front court of Antonio Davis, Charles Oakley, and Willis. I knew all those players, and I had coached Willis in Atlanta. Three veteran big men who understood the game and would bring some real professionalism to their jobs: Who wouldn’t want to coach them?

  And there was Vince Carter…

  He averaged nearly 26 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists. He shot 47 percent from the field, 79 percent at the free throw line.

  In this era, he’s a true superstar, especially because he is so athletically blessed. He is fluid, and the game comes naturally to him; he can run and jump and has a good sense of what’s happening on the floor. And he’s only twenty-three; this would be just his third pro season.

  A chance to work with a young player like that…

  It’s more than just an upgrade from J.R. Rider, it’s a coach’s dream. You take a player like Carter, surround him with a bunch of hard-working veterans who can set the tone in practice and games, and any coach has a chance to succeed—especially a coach such as myself who has been in the league for a while.

  After the initial phone call just to see if the job appealed to me, Glen Grunwald came to Seattle for a more extensive conversation. The more we talked, the more excited I became. Then I went to Toronto, met with the team owners, and I realized that I was being handed a unique opportunity, that Toronto was a wonderful job in a great city. The Raptors clearly wanted me to coach, and they proved it by offering a five-year contract. They didn’t dwell on my last year in Atlanta; they understood that a lot of things happened that were out of my control. Rather, they considered my forty years in the NBA, and they thought I could bring stability and experience to a team that is just starting to learn how to win.

  At the press conference announcing my hiring, Grunwald said, “Lenny has been dealing with twenty-year-olds for twenty-seven years now as coach. Times have changed a bit. The language changes a little, but as long as you bring in players who have good character and work ethics, they will respond to the professionalism and respect that Lenny talked about…. For the job, we had two lists—Lenny Wilkens and all the other candidates. In my wildest dreams, I wouldn’t have thought we could get a coach of Lenny’s qualities and character. Sometimes, the obvious choice is the right choice.”

  I appreciated that. It showed the front office really wanted me, which is critical for a coach. And the long-term contract demonstrated a commitment to me. Glen’s comments also told me the front office understands that a coach can’t fix everything, that character is important. That’s part of why I really liked working for Wayne Embry in Cleveland: He made a point of bringing in good people for me to coach, not just taking a guy because he has talent. You win with players who have character and talent.

  Players like Vince Carter.

  In the Toronto Star, Chris Young wrote, “Have the Raptors turned the corner? It sure looks that way. In any NBA city, the coming of Lenny Wilkens would be special…. In this city, under these circumstances, it’s nothing more than extraordinary…just the mention of his name connotes respect and rehabilitation and a life spent in basketball.”

  That was the typical media response to my hiring, and I was really excited by that. I felt the same way about the endorsements I got from players such as Oakley, Willis, Carter, and Dell Curry. I wanted to go straight from that press conference to training camp.

  I love the competition. I love close games. I love being in the huddle in the final seconds, needing to draw up a play so that we can score the winning basket. I’m a guy who wakes up and says, “Good morning, God!”—not, “Good God, it’s morning.” I’m an optimistic person by nature. One of my best attributes is that I’m consistent; I don’t say one thing and then do something else. I believe respect is a two-way street, and if you want it, you have to give it. I look at Toronto, and I’m energized. It’s an organization that cares about the little things. I’ll always appreciate how they sent Marilyn flowers after I was hired. I like how they went out and signed Mark Jackson, another solid veteran, to be our point guard. As
a coach, that tells you the front office wants to win as much as you do. And after forty years in the NBA, believe me, I still want to win.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THEY USED TO DO THESE SEGMENTS called “Red On Roundball” on NBA telecasts, in which legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach would explain some of the fine points of the game on TV. Red Auerbach didn’t just coach the Boston Celtics, it seemed as if he invented professional basketball. He puffed gloriously on that victory cigar. He coached great teams and did nothing but win championships.

  As for me, I had dreams while I was in high school and college, but none of them were about playing pro basketball. They certainly weren’t about being the first NBA coach to win more games than Red Auerbach, the first NBA coach to win 1,000 games, or to coach more NBA games than anyone else. It would have been enough to imagine a black man coaching a professional team at all, if the thought had ever occurred to me.

  Red Auerbach was like a basketball god when I played at Providence College. He went on to win 938 games and nine titles in twenty years of coaching. To pro coaches, the Number 938 was magic, untouchable. I never even thought about reaching that total. I remember what I went through just to win 500 games, 600 games, then 700 games. That 700th game came in Minnesota while I was coaching the Cavs. We were on a four-game losing streak, and Minnesota was an expansion team, really struggling. They must have had four good shots at the basket in the final thirty seconds, and two of those shots went in and out. We were hanging on to an 85-84 lead, and I can still see the ball bouncing all over the rim, before Larry Nance soared and came down with the rebound as the buzzer blared. Winning that 700th game was agony. It seemed to take weeks to happen. When it was over, someone asked me about Red Auerbach’s record. I smiled and didn’t say much, but inside I was thinking, “If all the rest of the games are like the last two weeks, they’ll bury me before I get to 750.”

  But it was around this point—somewhere in the early 1990s—that I began to be asked about beating Red’s record, about scaling that seemingly insurmountable mountain of 938 victories. The more I heard about it, the more I wanted it. He was the Godfather of NBA coaching because of his use of scouting, strategy, and other innovations. Red was consistently ahead of the curve. Even the coaches who hated him—and there were more than a few—admired his accomplishments. Yes, all of us would have loved to coach Bill Russell. As much as any man, Bill Russell changed the course of pro basketball with his defense, shot-blocking ability, mental toughness, and intelligence. He just shut down the middle. He allowed his teammates to take off on the fast break because they knew Russell would get the rebound, then throw an outlet pass. Russell’s general lack of offense was partly a product of his willingness not to focus on scoring, and it was more of an asset than a problem for the Celtics, who had more than enough guys capable of putting the ball in the basket. It meant more shots for Sam Jones, Tom Heinsohn, Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones, Frank Ramsey, and John Havlicek and all their other great players. And the Celtics had great, great players. One of their teams had six Hall of Famers.

  That’s why I wanted the record, why it was so special to me.

  Yes, I coached longer than Red Auerbach to win those 938 games, but I didn’t have anywhere near the players that Red had. I say this not to compare myself with Red. That’s impossible. We come from two different eras, coaching much different teams in totally different circumstances. For example, much of the time when Red coached the Celtics, there were only eight teams in the NBA. That meant you could win a title and still have the number-eight and number-sixteen and number-twenty-four pick in the drafts—all three would be considered first-rounders today. Now, the NBA champion won’t draft until the twenty-ninth pick because there are twenty-nine teams. That’s a huge difference.

  Auerbach was way ahead of most NBA teams in terms of scouting. He did more of it himself and had more contacts than most coaches in the 1950s and 1960s, so he was more likely to make shrewd draft picks. Today, you can have the best scouting in the world, but if you don’t draft until the number-twenty-ninth pick year after year, you just aren’t going to get many good players. If you draft number-eight every year—as the Celtics often did in the Russell Era—you’ll still find some excellent players. But give Red credit for drafting the right players, then convincing them to fit into the Celtics and play unselfishly. Red had a way of coaxing the most out of his players, especially from veterans he’d sign when they were at the end of their careers. Everyone in the NBA would say that a guy was finished, and suddenly Red would bring him to Boston, and players such as Clyde Lovellette, Wayne Embry, or Gene Conley would play an important role off the bench.

  That’s why I wanted the record as I got closer and closer to it. There was no coach whom I admired more than Red Auerbach, no coach whose name I’d rather be associated with than Red Auerbach. I was amazed that I had been able to survive the NBA storm to win as many games as Red, especially since I never had a player the caliber of Russell or some of his other stars.

  I want you to take this the right way, to understand it is not meant as a putdown of anyone. But guess who played the most games for Red Auerbach?

  Bob Cousy.

  And who played the most games for me?

  Craig Ehlo.

  That’s why it’s impossible to compare Red and myself. We coached different teams in different eras with an entirely different caliber of players. The fact is that Red had far more athletes like Cousy on his roster, while more of my players were like Ehlo—hard-working role players. It’s also why I was upset when one columnist wrote that my winning more games than Auerbach was simply nothing more than a matter of longevity, that I was able to stand on the sidelines for a long time without offending anyone. That my teams were seldom bad, but seldom great; they were just OK. Of course, my wife and friends were outraged when they heard that from more than one place. Marilyn told one reporter, “My husband doesn’t get the credit he deserves because he’s not a self-promoter. He’s not a tyrant. He’s not a big windbag. He doesn’t kick chairs and run all over the court. Those guys get all the publicity.”

  There is a lot of truth to that.

  A lot of people don’t understand the nature of coaching in the NBA. The measure of any coach is not his final victory total; it’s how his players performed compared to their talent. Did the team improve from the year before? Did the players improve? Was the team healthy or crushed by injuries? There are so many factors.

  The reason Red remains a legendary coach is that yes, he had great players, but they also attained greatness playing together. They did it year after year after year. He won titles in each of his last eight seasons, an amazing accomplishment no matter how star-studded the roster. Red had those guys ready to play in big games. He fought off complacency. This was before free agency and big contracts, so players were married to their original teams and usually on one-year deals, making it easier to keep a team together and playing hard. But give Red credit for motivating his players and keeping them striving for excellence as well as any coach has ever done. But it also must be said that Red’s career looked much like mine before Bill Russell came to the Celtics in 1956-57. For the first ten years of his coaching career, Red was with three different teams. He won two division titles, but never an NBA championship. Did that make him a lousy coach? Not at all. Red was still a great coach. He got the most out of the talent he had, won a lot of games, but the talent wasn’t championship caliber. He didn’t have a Bill Russell. Only once in those ten years without Russell did Red even lead a team to the NBA Finals—and he lost.

  It’s remarkable to look at Red’s career and realize what it says about coaching: In his first ten years without Russell, he won no titles. In his next ten years with Russell, he won nine titles.

  Great players make great coaches. Of course, lousy coaches can mess up great players, something that many people in the media don’t realize. That’s why I thought K.C. Jones never received his due when he coached the Larry
Bird Celtics. Yes, he had Bird, Kevin McHale, Dennis Johnson, and Robert Parish. But he also had to keep them interested, keep them together. But K.C.’s personality is much like mine—unassuming. We give credit to our players, because we’re former players and realize the real impact they have on the game. But it also must be said that our players respect us for that approach, for not hogging the headlines or trying to set ourselves up as geniuses. I’ve had a lot of good players in my career, and that’s why I’ve won as many games as I have. But to last as many years as I have in the NBA and to win as many games as I have without any players named Russell, Bird, Magic, Jordan, Chamberlain, or Abdul-Jabbar is something that makes me very proud.

  My career has been much different from Red’s because I coached with five different teams (including Seattle twice). None of them were in major media markets, none of them had what you’d call “franchise players.” I’m proud of the fact that when I came to new jobs in Cleveland, Atlanta, and Seattle (both times), my teams either set or tied franchise records for the most victories in a season. That’s an indication that the team improved while I was there, which is the real job of any coach.

  But our society is tilting more and more each year to a “champion or nothing” mentality. The thinking is that if you don’t win a title, then you failed. That’s ridiculous. In any given NBA season, only three or four teams are capable of winning a title. Very few NBA people will admit it, but they know it in their hearts. The league has always been dominated by superstars, starting with the George Mikan Era in Minnesota back in the early 1950s. There are only brief windows of opportunity for a team to win a championship without a truly great player. That happened for us in Seattle in 1979, the year before Magic and Bird came into the league; when they did, the power centers became Los Angeles and Boston, and the rest of us were not going to beat them, period. But a lot of teams that don’t win a title play entertaining basketball. They are worthy of their fans’ attention. Talk to the Cavs fans during our best years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and they’ll still tell you how much they enjoyed those teams, and how they wished they could see Larry Nance, Brad Daugherty, John Williams, Mark Price, Ron Harper, and Craig Ehlo play one more time. Sure, it was frustrating not to be able to get past Michael Jordan, but that didn’t make us failures. Smart fans and media members understand that, even though I’ve won only one NBA title. I don’t think the teams I’ve coached were good enough to win any more than that one title, and a lot of those teams played far better than most people expected.