Lenny Wilkens, a three-time Basketball Hall of Fame inductee who was both a player and coach, has died, his family announced Sunday. He was 88.
The family said Wilkens was surrounded by loved ones when he died and did not immediately release a cause of death.
Wilkens was one of the best point guards of his time, who later brought his calm and savvy style of play, first as a player-coach, and then developed into one of the game's greatest coaches.
He coached 2,487 NBA games, which is still a record. He went into the Hall of Fame as a player, as a coach and again on the 1992 U.S. Olympic team, on which he was an assistant. Wilkens also helped the Americans win gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Wilkins coached the Toronto Raptors from 2000 to 2003, leading the team to two playoff appearances.
“Lenny Wilkens represented the very best in the NBA — as a Hall of Fame player, a Hall of Fame coach and one of the game's most respected ambassadors,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Sunday. “So much so that four years ago Lenny received a unique honor: he was named one of the league's 75 greatest players and 15 greatest coaches of all time.”
Today we lost a giant and a Seattle legend. Lenny Wilkens was a three-time Hall of Famer, player and coach. But more than that, he was a humanitarian who gave so much to our community. Rest in peace, Coach. pic.twitter.com/8KKwE4QFkG
Wilkens was a nine-time All-Star as a player, was the first person to reach 1,000 wins as an NBA coach, and the second person to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and coach. He coached the Seattle SuperSonics to an NBA title in 1979 and remained a cult figure in the city for the rest of his life, often considered something of a godfather of basketball in Seattle, which lost the Sonics to Oklahoma City in 2008 and has been trying to bring the team back ever since.
And he did all this with grace, which he was proud of.
“Leaders don’t shout and scream,” Wilkens told KOMO News in Seattle earlier this year.
Wilkens, the 1994 NBA Coach of the Year with Atlanta, retired with 1,332 coaching wins, a league record that was later broken by Don Nelson (who retired with 1,335 wins) and then by Gregg Popovich (who retired with 1,390 wins).
Godfather of Basketball in Seattle
Wilkens played 15 seasons with the St. Louis Hawks, SuperSonics, Cleveland Cavaliers and Portland Trail Blazers. He was a five-time All-Star with St. Louis, three with Seattle and one with Cleveland in 1973 at age 35. In June, a statue commemorating his time with the SuperSonics was erected outside Climate Pledge Arena.
“Even more impressive than Lenny’s basketball accomplishments, including two Olympic gold medals and an NBA championship, was his commitment to service, especially in his beloved Seattle area, where a statue is dedicated in his honor,” Silver said. “He impacted the lives of countless young people and generations of players and coaches who considered Lenny not only a great teammate or coach, but also an outstanding mentor who led with integrity and true class.”
Wilkens led the league in assists twice while also being a standout scorer. He scored double-digit points in every season of his career except for his final season in 1974-75 with the Trail Blazers. His best season as a scorer came in his first season with the SuperSonics in 1968–69, when he averaged 22.4 points, 8.2 assists and 6.2 rebounds.
Leonard Wilkens was born on October 28, 1937 in New York. His basketball training took place on the playgrounds of Brooklyn and at the city's Powerhouse, then an all-boys high school, where one of his teammates was major league baseball star Tommy Davis. He continued his career at Providence College and was drafted sixth overall by the Hawks in 1960.
Hall of Fame Player, Hall of Fame Coach
His resume as a player would be enough to induct Wilkens into the Hall of Fame. What he achieved as a coach – both through success and longevity – cemented his legacy.
There have also been countless other honors along the way, including election to the FIBA Hall of Fame, the US Olympic Hall of Fame, the College Basketball Hall of Fame, the Providence Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Cavaliers Wall of Honor.
His coaching stops included two seasons in Seattle (11 seasons in total), two seasons in Portland (during one of which he still played and averaged 18 minutes per game), seven seasons in Cleveland and Atlanta, three seasons in Toronto and part of two years with the Knicks.
Wilkens also has the most losses in NBA coaching history with 1,155. But his successes outweighed his failures. He led the SuperSonics to their only championship, defeating the then-Washington Bullets, a year after losing to them in the finals.
Wilkens became No. 1 on the win list on Jan. 6, 1995, while coaching the Hawks. His 939th victory surpassed Red Auerbach's record. He then became the first coach to reach 1,000 career wins, a feat that has since been matched by nine others.
Player-Coach of the Year 1969.
The possibility of playing and coaching at the same time was raised before the 1969 season, when Wilkens was at SuperSonics general manager Dick Wertlieb's house leisurely playing pool.
“I thought he was crazy,” Wilkens recalled. “I kept putting it off, but he was persistent. Finally, we were so close to training camp that I said, “What the hell, I'll give it a try.”
From that moment on, he became more and more interested in coaching.
Seattle trailed the Cincinnati Royals by four points with seconds left when Wilkens called the play that resulted in a dunk. He then ordered his players to press as the Royals ran out of timeouts. The Sonics stole an inbounds pass, scored again to tie the game, and won in overtime.
“I thought, 'Wow!' Wilkens said. “I just did something as a coach that helped us win, not as a player.”
After his coaching career ended in 2005, Wilkens returned to Seattle, where he lived every offseason. Wilkens led his foundation for decades, whose main funder was Odessa Brown Children's Hospital in Seattle's central neighborhood.
He also regained his role with the SuperSonics in 2006 as the team's vice chairman, but left that post a year later when it became clear that new owner Clay Bennett wanted to move the club out of Seattle.
Wilkens is survived by his wife, Marilyn; their children Leesha, Randy and Jamie; and seven grandchildren.
