Lenny Wilkens, the legendary NBA player, head coach and broadcaster, died Sunday, according to The Seattle Times.
He was 88.
One of four Hall of Famers ever to be inducted both as an NBA player and coach, Wilkens made nine All-Star appearances for the St. Louis Hawks, Seattle SuperSonics and Cleveland Cavaliers during a 15-year playing career. He coached the SuperSonics to a championship in 1979 and retired as the league’s winningest head coach in history, amassing 1,332 victories over a 32-year tenure for six different franchises.
“He influenced the lives of countless young people as well as generations of players and coaches who consider Lenny not only a great teammate or coach but also an extraordinary mentor who led with integrity and true class,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement Sunday.
A Brooklyn native and two-time All-American at Providence College, Wilkens spent his first eight seasons with the Hawks. As a rookie point guard playing alongside Hall of Fame teammates Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan and Clyde Lovellette, Wilkens stewarded the Hawks to the 1961 NBA Finals, losing to Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics. He finished second to Wilt Chamberlain in the 1968 MVP race during his final season in St. Louis.
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Wilkens spent the 1961-62 season as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army stationed at Virginia’s Fort Lee. He participated in USO tours in Vietnam and played weekends for the Hawks. He was among the players who threatened to boycott the NBA’s first televised All-Star Game in 1964 and established the National Basketball Players Association as the first union recognized by a major American sports league.
A 6-foot-1, 180-pound soft-spoken leader dubbed “Sweety Cakes” by Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor, Wilkens called Jackie Robinson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama acquaintances during a lifetime spent promoting racial justice everywhere from the suburbs of St. Louis to both coasts.
“[King] believed in inclusion,” Wilkens told the crowd at a lecture series honoring MLK in 2018. “He wanted everyone to be included, and he wanted us to be the country that we are capable of being — the greatest on Earth. I think Dr. King would tell us, ‘Hey, the dream hasn’t been fulfilled.’ It’s better, because I’ve been all around the world and we are fortunate to have the country that we have. But it can still get better.”
The Hawks traded a 30-year-old Wilkens to Seattle, where he was named player-coach in his second season and earned 1971 All-Star Game MVP honors in three appearances over four years on the Sonics.
“I love Lenny,” Tommy Davis, a three-time All-Star with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Wilkens’ high school teammate, told Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford in 1969, when the Sonics made Wilkens the NBA’s only Black head coach. “He is a man and a true friend who can be depended upon, but it is not only that he is steadfast and honorable. I love Lenny for what he has achieved. He went in there with all those big guys and proved to them that he could do it — for nine years — on quickness and guts and dedication.
“We used to say of him that he was like the man who wasn’t there — he wasn’t there till you read the box score. He has improved since his silent days in high school. Oh, he’s still not going to win any filibuster, but he will say the right things at the right time and he will gain the respect of every player on the squad because he’s a good man.”
Wilkens played until age 37, making his final All-Star appearance with the Cavaliers in 1973 and retiring as player-coach of the Portland Trail Blazers in 1975. He retired second to Oscar Robertson in career assists.
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Wilkens returned to Seattle as a coach midway through the 1977-78 season and led the Sonics to consecutive Finals appearances, avenging a seven-game loss to the Washington Bullets in 1978 with a 4-1 victory in the 1979 championship series. Those Seattle teams, boasting Hall of Famers Dennis Johnson and Jack Sikma, along with Gus Williams, are arguably the greatest team never to boast a genuine superstar.
Wilkens coached the Sonics until 1985, before a pair of seven-year stints with the Cavaliers and Hawks. He led Cleveland to three 50-win seasons and lost four playoff series to the Chicago Bulls, two of which ended on buzzer-beating shots by Michael Jordan. Wilkens also coached Atlanta to a trio of 50-win campaigns.
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During his time in Cleveland and Atlanta, Wilkens won two Olympic gold medals, first as an assistant on Chuck Daly’s staff for the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona and then as Team USA’s head coach in 1996.
Wilkens split his final five seasons as a coach between the Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks, falling an errant Vince Carter Game 7 buzzer beater short of reaching the 2001 Eastern Conference finals in Toronto.
Only Gregg Popovich and Don Nelson have since surpassed the 1,332 wins Wilkens compiled as a coach from 1969-2005. Russell, Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Sharman join Wilkens as the sole people ever inducted to the Hall of Fame as both an NBA player and coach. Wilkens was the only person in the 2021-22 season named to the NBA’s 75th anniversary lists of 76 greatest players and 15 greatest coaches in league history.
The NBA Coaches Association honored Wilkens with its Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. He spent his retirement from the bench as a part-time broadcaster at the college and professional levels. His Lenny Wilkens Foundation has raised millions of dollars for Seattle’s Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic.
“I tell young people all the time, once you secure yourself, if you have an opportunity to give back to the community to make it better, then think about it,” he once told The Seattle Times. “I’ve really been blessed. Having had the opportunity to do a lot of things that have touched people’s lives has been wonderful.”
