"In a 15-year playing career, Wilkens was an All-Star nine times and twice led the league in assists. Gifted with extraordinary court sense, Wilkens was a player-coach for four seasons, three with the Seattle SuperSonics and one with the Portland Trail Blazers, before moving fulltime into coaching. He led the Sonics to the 1979 NBA title and was Coach of the Year in 1994."
""Lenny Wilkens represented the very best of the NBA -- as a Hall of Fame player, Hall of Fame coach, and one of the game's most respected ambassadors," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement Sunday. "So much so that, four years ago, Lenny received the unique distinction of being named one of the league's 75 greatest players and 15 greatest coaches of all time.""
"A slight lefthander, barely 6 feet tall, Wilkens grew up in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in New York. His father was a chauffeur who died when he was 5; his mother worked in a candy factory. Wilkins didn't play for his high school team until his senior season. His parish priest wrote to the athletic director at Providence College asking that Wilkens be considered for a scholarship despite his limited play. Wilkens ended up being the Friars' first big star, a two-time All-American at Providence."
Lenny Wilkens was a nine-time All-Star and two-time league assists leader during a 15-year playing career. He served as a player-coach for four seasons before becoming a full-time coach and led the Seattle SuperSonics to the 1979 NBA title. Wilkens accumulated 1,332 coaching wins—third-most all time—and coached a record 2,487 games across six NBA franchises. He coached the 1996 U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal and was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1994. Wilkens is one of five men inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as both player and coach.
Read at ESPN.com
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