Lenny Wilkens

Infobox NBA Player


nickname =
caption =
position = Point guard
height_ft = 6
height_in = 1
weight_lb = 180
nationality = USA
birth_date = birth date and age|mf=yes|1937|10|28
birth_place = Brooklyn, New York City
college = Providence
draft = 1st Round, 6th overall
draft_year = 1960
draft_team = St. Louis Hawks
career_start = 1960
career_end = 1975
former_teams =Player and Coach
Hawks (1960−1968)
Sonics (1968−1972)
Cavaliers (1972−1974)
Blazers (1974−1975)

Coach Sonics 1969-1972, 1977-1985
Blazers 1974-1976
Cavaliers 1986-1993
Hawks 1993-2000
Raptors 2000-2003
Knicks 2004-2005
awards = Nine-time All-Star
All-Star Game MVP (1972)
NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team
halloffame = 1989 (as player)
1998 (as coach)

Leonard Randolph "Lenny" Wilkens (born October 28, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.) is an American former National Basketball Association player and coach, as well as the NBA's career leader in coaching win-loss totals. He was inducted twice into the Basketball Hall of Fame, first in 1989 as a player and then later as a coach in 1998.

On November 29, 2006 he was hired as vice chairman of the Seattle SuperSonics' ownership group, [ [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sonics/2003456119_soni01.html The Seattle Times: Sonics: Wilkens a Sonic again — as vice chairman ] ] and was later named the Sonics' President of Basketball Operations on April 27, 2007. [ [http://www.nba.com/sonics/news/wilkens070427.html SONICS: Lenny Wilkens Confirmed as President of Basketball Operations ] ] On July 6, 2007 Wilkens resigned from the Sonics organization.

Early life

Wilkens grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. [Beck, Howard. [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/sports/basketball/28knicks.html "PRO BASKETBALL; Wilkens Denies He Was Asked to Go"] , "The New York Times", September 28, 2005. Accessed November 20, 2007. "A native of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Wilkens had added motivation to succeed in New York, which made leaving so quickly that much tougher."] His father was African American and his mother was Irish.cite web|url=http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1006042/2/index.htm|title=He Has Overcome|publisher="Sports Illustrated"|author=Smith, Gary|authorlink=Gary Smith (sportswriter)|date=1994-12-05|accessdate=2008-07-31] Wilkens was raised in the Roman Catholic faith.

At Boys High School, Wilkens was a basketball teammate of longtime Major League Baseball star Tommy Davis.

Playing career

Wilkens was a two-time All-American (1959 and 1960) at Providence College. He led the team to their first NIT appearance in 1959, and to the NIT finals in 1960. When he graduated, Wilkens was, with 1,193 points, the second-ranked scorer in Friar history (he has since dropped to twentieth as of 2005). In 1996, Wilkens' #14 jersey was retired by the college, the first alumnus to receive such an honor.

Wilkens was drafted sixth overall by the St. Louis Hawks in the 1960 NBA Draft. He played for the Hawks (1960-1968), Seattle SuperSonics (1968-1972), Cleveland Cavaliers (1972-1974) and Portland Trail Blazers (1974-1975).

Wilkens placed second to Wilt Chamberlain in the 1967-1968 MVP balloting. Wilkens was a nine-time NBA All-Star, and was named the 1971 NBA All-Star Game MVP in 1971. He led the league in assists in the 1969-70 season, and at the time of his retirement, Wilkens was the NBA's second all-time leading playmaker, behind only Oscar Robertson.

Coaching career

From 1969–1972 with Seattle, and in his one season as a player with Portland, he was a player-coach.

He retired from playing in 1975 and was the full-time coach of the Trail Blazers for one more season. After a season off, in 1977 he again became coach of the SuperSonics, where he coached for eight seasons (1977-1985), winning his (and Seattle's) only NBA Championship in 1979. He would go on to coach Cleveland (1987–1993), Atlanta (1993–2000), Toronto (2000–2003) and New York (2004–2005).

The Hall of Famer was named head coach of the New York Knicks on January 15, 2004. After the Knicks' slow start to the 2004-2005 season, Wilkens resigned from the team on January 22, 2005.

Accomplishments

He retired with 1,332 wins, the most in NBA history (he passed Red Auerbach on January 6, 1995 with a win against the Washington Bullets), and 1,155 losses, also the most in NBA history (he passed Bill Fitch in 2001). This comes from his 35 years of coaching in the NBA, among the longest tenure in the league.

He coached the Olympic Champion Men's Basketball team in 1996 and was assistant coach's on the 1992 USA Olympic Dream Team.

Wilkens is one of three players to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach (the other two being John Wooden and Bill Sharman), joining the Hall in 1989 as a player and 1998 as a coach. He is also a member of the Providence College Athletic Hall of Fame.

Wilkens is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.

Quotes

*"I learned my basketball on the playgrounds of Brooklyn. Today, being a playground player is an insult. It means all you want to do is go one-on-one, it means your fundamentals stink and you don't understand the game. But the playgrounds I knew were tremendous training grounds."
*"Show people how to have success and then you can push their expectations up."

Coaching record

Source: [http://www.basketball-reference.com/coaches/wilkele01c.html Lenny Wilkens Coaching Record] – Basketball-Reference.com

References

External links

* [http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/wilkele01.html Basketball-Reference.com: Lenny Wilkens (as player)]
* [http://www.basketball-reference.com/coaches/wilkele01c.html Basketball-Reference.com: Lenny Wilkens (as coach)]
* [http://hoopedia.nba.com/index.php/Lenny_Wilkens Hoopedia bio]

Persondata
NAME = Wilkens, Lenny
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = American basketball player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH = October 28, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH = Brooklyn, N.Y.C., New York
DATE OF DEATH =
PLACE OF DEATH =