The NBA has lost one of its great superstars-turned-coaches.
Per Tim Booth of The Seattle Times, longtime NBA point guard and head coach Lenny Wilkens has passed away at age 88.
Wilkens numbers among just five people in league history to have been inducted into the Hall of Fame as both a player (in 1989) and a head coach (in 1998). A member of the league’s 75th Anniversary Team as a player in 2022, Wilkens also spent 32 seasons as an NBA head coach.
Loading twitter content…
Born in Brooklyn on Oct. 28, 1937, Wilkens was a prep school star en route to becoming a two-time All-American at Providence. He was selected with the sixth overall pick by the then-St. Louis Hawks in the 1960 NBA Draft. That year’s decorated class included five eventual All-Stars and three future Hall of Famers. Beyond Wilkens, the group of Springfield honorees in his draft class was rounded out by two other transcendent guards in Oscar Robertson (the No. 1 pick out of Cincinnati) and Jerry West (No. 2 out of West Virginia). Not bad company to keep.
Wilkens was named to nine All-Star squads while with St. Louis, the Seattle SuperSonics, and Cleveland Cavaliers. He closed out his career with a stint on the Portland Trail Blazers in 1974-75. Across those 15 pro seasons, Wilkens boasted averages of 16.5 points on 43.2 percent field goal shooting and 77.4 percent free throw shooting, 6.7 assists, 4.7 boards and 1.3 swipes per. He led the league in assists during his 1969-70 season with Seattle.
“Even more impressive than Lenny’s basketball accomplishments, which included two Olympic gold medals and an NBA championship, was his commitment to service — especially in his beloved community of Seattle where a statue stands in his honor,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said after his passing. “He influenced the lives of countless young people as well as generations of players and coaches who considered Lenny not only a great teammates or coach but an extraordinary mentor who led with integrity and true class.”
As a player, Wilkens was one of the premiere point guards during his era, once finishing second in MVP voting behind then-Philadelphia 76ers superstar center Wilt Chamberlain in 1967-68.
More news: NBA Insider Names Grizzlies, Pelicans as Teams That Could Relocate
During the final portion of his playing career, Wilkens graduated to a player-coach role (such things were officially permitted back then), first during his 1969-72 tenure in Seattle and later with Portland as he closed out his career. After his playing career wrapped up with Portland, Wilkens stayed on as a coach for an additional season of the club’s Bill Walton era. He took the 1976-77 season off, then returned to Seattle midway through 1977-78, helping the club recover from a brutal 5-17 season start under dismissed head coach Bob Hopkins.
The SuperSonics ultimately closed the season on a legendary 42-18 tear under Wilkens, and advanced all the way to the NBA Finals. He brought the SuperSonics to a pair of consecutive appearances at that level, in 1978 and ’79 clashes against the then-Washington Bullets, winning the latter season. He remained with Seattle through 1984-85.
Wilkens still boasts the all-time record for NBA regular season games coached, at 2,487. He is third in all-time regular season 1,332 (a .536 win percentage), behind only former San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich and Don Nelson. Across his 32 seasons as a head coach for the SuperSonics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks, he guided his clubs to 20 playoff berths.
Wilkens is a beloved figure in Seattle. Last year, he was given a bronze statue outside of the city’s Climate Pledge Arena, home to the mighty Seattle Storm.
“I’m just overwhelmed,” Wilkens said at the time. “It’s not something I ever thought much about or anything like that. This has been a great community. I got to know people here.”
Wilkens eventually became a massive fixture in Seattle, a folk hero thanks to his achievements both on the hardwood proper and patrolling the sidelines. After the SuperSonics were cruelly relocated and rebranded as the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008, Wilkens was a staunch advocate for the return of NBA basketball to the city.
“This is basketball country,” Wilkens told The Seattle Times in 2022. “We should have never lost our team and I hope that this helps in some way get another team back. Everywhere I go, people talk about the Sonics and about that time when we won a championship. I don’t think that team gets the credit that it deserves. Gus (Williams), Fred (Brown), Jack (Sikma) and all of those guys became a part of this community and most of them still live here. It was a wonderful time.”
More news: 76ers’ Joel Embiid Slammed By NBA Hall of Famers
For all the latest NBA news and rumors, head over to Newsweek Sports.