Lenny Wilkens, NBA Hall of Famer as both player and coach, dies at 88

Lenny Wilkens during his debut as head coach of the New York Knicks against the Seattle SuperSonics on Jan. 16, 2004 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Wilkens, the All-Star NBA point guard of the 1960s and ’70s who became the league’s second-ranking coach in total victories, has died at age 88. (Barton Silverman/The New York Times)

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Lenny Wilkens, the All-Star NBA point guard of the 1960s and ’70s who became the league’s second-ranking coach in total victories, forging a Hall of Fame career through five decades in pro basketball, has died. He was 88.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver confirmed Wilkens’ death in a statement. The statement did not specify when or where Wilkens died, nor did it cite a cause.

Growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of New York’s Brooklyn borough, Wilkens began playing basketball in Catholic playground leagues, then played for Boys High School in his senior year.

He became an All-American at Providence College and was selected by the St. Louis Hawks in the first round of the 1960 NBA draft. One of the league’s leading playmakers of his time and a strong defensive presence with a nifty left-handed jump shot, he played for 15 seasons, his first eight with the Hawks, and earned All-Star honors nine times.

Wilkens passed Red Auerbach for most NBA coaching victories when his Atlanta Hawks defeated the visiting Washington Bullets in January 1995 for his 939th win. He seldom had star players, in contrast to Auerbach’s molding of a Boston Celtics dynasty with Bill Russell and a host of fellow Hall of Famers. But his insistence on team play and defensive tenacity brought him acclaim among basketball insiders, including Auerbach, who was on hand for Wilkens’ milestone victory.

Wilkens coached six teams over 32 seasons. He won 1,332 games (and lost 1,155), but his victory total was exceeded by Don Nelson’s 1,335 and Gregg Popovich’s 1,390. In his second coaching go-round with the Seattle SuperSonics (which later became the Oklahoma City Thunder), he took them to the 1979 NBA championship and won.

He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1989 as a player and again in 1998 as a coach. When the NBA celebrated its 50th season in 1996, he was cited as one of its 50 greatest players and top 10 coaches.

A soft-spoken figure, his expression betraying little emotion as he surveyed the action, Wilkens was a stark contrast to fellow coaches who paced the sidelines, barking instructions.

He might have been overshadowed at times in light of his calm demeanor, but he shrugged that off.

“My personality is not important,” he told The New York Times when his SuperSonics were on the brink of their NBA championship. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the team. I’m as effective as a raving lunatic. Who would you listen to? Yelling and screaming is not my nature. I try to get through to my players in other ways.”

Paul Silas, a Sonics forward on that championship team, described him as “a very, very low‐key guy.”

“Nothing ever seems to excite him,” Silas said. “He doesn’t intimidate players. He never points fingers at individuals, win or lose, which perhaps is his greatest quality.”

His 1979 Sonics had a solid but unspectacular lineup that featured Dennis Johnson and Gus Williams in the backcourt and Jack Sikma, John Johnson, Lonnie Shelton and Silas up front. The team was the underdog in the playoff final against a Washington team led by Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld, both Hall of Famers. The Bullets had beaten the Sonics in the previous season’s final. But in their second matchup, the Sonics captured the championship in five games.

Wilkens was voted NBA coach of the year for 1993-94 when he took the Atlanta Hawks, who were coming off a mediocre season, to a 57-25 record and a division title.

After coaching the SuperSonics for the first time, beginning in 1969, and the Portland Trail Blazers, and playing for both teams, Wilkens coached the Sonics again, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Hawks, the Toronto Raptors and the New York Knicks. He replaced Don Chaney as the Knicks’ coach in 2004 in the midst of a losing season and turned around their fortunes, but they lost in the first round of the playoffs. He resigned in January 2005 when the Knicks floundered once more.

He was an assistant coach, under Chuck Daly, for the gold medal-winning Dream Team of pro stars at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and head coach of the second Dream Team, which won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Leonard Randolph Wilkens was born Oct. 28, 1937, in Brooklyn. “My father was Black and a chauffeur, but he died when I was 5,” Wilkens told Terry Pluto in the NBA oral history “Tall Tales” (1992). “My mother was an Irish Catholic and was left with having to raise five kids. She worked at a candy factory, packing boxes. We also went through a period when we were on public assistance.”

He worked as a grocery stockman when he wasn’t in school and remembered how his mother, Henrietta, “was a strong presence” who kept her family together.

She enrolled him in a Catholic elementary school. The Rev. Thomas Mannion, who had coached him as a youngster, kept in touch and recommended him to Providence, a Roman Catholic college, after his graduation from Boys High (now Boys and Girls High School).

Wilkens, at 6-foot-1, played for three seasons at Providence under coach Joe Mullaney, averaging nearly 15 points a game, and was named MVP of the 1960 National Invitation Tournament at Madison Square Garden. He led the Friars to the championship game, where they were beaten by Bradley University. He graduated with a degree in economics.