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Lenny Wilkens
Lenny Wilkens
Personal information
Born Leonard Randolph Wilkens
October 28, 1937 (1937-10-28) (age 86)
Brooklyn, New York
Nationality American
Physical stats
Listed height 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Listed weight 180 lbs (82 kg)
Career information
High school Boys (Brooklyn, New York)
College Providence (1957–1960)
NBA Draft 1960 / Round: 1 / Pick: 6th overall
Selected by the St. Louis Hawks
Playing career 1960–1975 (15 years)
Position Guard
Career history
As player:
19601968 St. Louis Hawks
19681972 Seattle SuperSonics
19721974 Cleveland Cavaliers
1974–1975 Portland Trail Blazers
As coach:
1969–1972 Seattle SuperSonics
1974–1976 Portland Trail Blazers
19771985 Seattle SuperSonics
19861993 Cleveland Cavaliers
19932000 Atlanta Hawks
20002003 Toronto Raptors
20042005 New York Knicks
Career highlights and awards
As player:
  • 9× NBA All-Star (1963–1965, 1967–1971, 1973)
  • NBA All-Star Game MVP (1971)
  • NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team
  • No. 19 retired by Seattle SuperSonics
  • Consensus second-team All-American (1960)
As coach:
  • NBA champion (1979)
  • NBA Coach of the Year (1994)
  • 4× NBA All-Star Game head coach (1979, 1980, 1989, 1994)
  • Top 10 Coaches in NBA History
  • Gold medal winner at the Olympic Games (1996)


Leonard Randolph "Lenny" Wilkens (born October 28, 1937) is an American retired basketball player and coach in the NBA. He has been inducted three times into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (as player, coach and as the 1992 United States Olympic "Dream Team" assistant coach) and also is a 2006 inductee into the College Basketball Hall of Fame.


Early life[]

Wilkens grew up in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. His father was African American and his mother was Irish American. Wilkens was raised in the Catholic faith.

At Boys High School, Wilkens was a basketball teammate of longtime Major League Baseball star Tommy Davis, and played for coach Mickey Fisher.

NBA career[]

Wilkens was drafted sixth overall by the St. Louis Hawks in the 1960 NBA Draft. He began his career with eight seasons with the St. Louis Hawks, who lost the finals to the Boston Celtics in his rookie season.

Wilkens was traded to the Seattle SuperSonics for Walt Hazzard and spent four seasons there. He was an All-Star in three of his seasons with the team and was named the 1971 NBA All-Star Game MVP. In the 1969–70 season he led the league in assists, being the then second most behind Oscar Robertson. He was named head coach in his second season with the team. Although the SuperSonics did not reach the playoffs while Wilkens simultaneously coached and started at point guard, their record improved each season.

Wilkens spent two seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers and one with the Portland Trail Blazers, ending his career there.

Coaching career[]

Wilkens coached Seattle from 1969 to 1972, and in his one season as a player in the 1974-75 season with Portland, as player-coach. After his retirement from playing in 1975 he was the full-time coach of the Trail Blazers for one more season. After a season off from coaching, he again became a coach for the SuperSonics when he replaced Bob Hopkins who was fired 22 games into the 1977–78 season after a dismal 5–17 start. The SuperSonics won eleven consecutive of twelve games under Wilkens and made the playoffs in two consecutive seasons, losing in seven games to the Washington Bullets in the 1978 NBA Finals. The SuperSonics returned to the NBA Finals in 1979, defeating the Washington Bullets in five games to achieve their first and only NBA title.

He went on to coach the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1986 to 1993, Atlanta Hawks from 1993 to 2000, Toronto Raptors from 2000 to 2003 and New York Knicks from 2004 to 2005.

Later years[]

On November 29, 2006, he was hired as vice chairman of the Seattle SuperSonics' ownership group, and was later named the Sonics' President of Basketball Operations on April 27, 2007. On July 6, 2007, Wilkens resigned from the Sonics organization.

Wilkens later worked at Northwest FSN Studio as a college basketball analyst and occasionally appears on College Hoops Northwest at game nights.

NBA career statistics[]

Legend
  GP Games played   GS  Games started  MPG  Minutes per game
 FG%  Field goal percentage  3P%  3-point field-goal percentage  FT%  Free-throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game  APG  Assists per game  SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game  PPG  Points per game  Bold  Career high

Regular season[]

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1960–61 St. Louis 74 25.3 .425 .713 4.5 2.8 11.7
1961–62 St. Louis 20 43.5 .385 .764 6.6 5.8 18.2
1962–63 St. Louis 75 34.3 .399 .696 5.4 5.1 11.8
1963–64 St. Louis 78 32.4 .413 .740 4.3 4.6 12.0
1964–65 St. Louis 78 36.6 .414 .746 4.7 5.5 16.5
1965–66 St. Louis 69 39.0 .431 .793 4.7 6.2 18.0
1966–67 St. Louis 78 38.1 .432 .787 5.3 5.7 17.4
1967–68 St. Louis 82 38.6 .438 .768 5.3 8.3 20.0
1968–69 Seattle 82 42.2 .440 .770 6.2 8.2 22.4
1969–70 Seattle 75 37.4 .420 .788 5.0 9.1* 17.8
1970–71 Seattle 71 37.2 .419 .803 4.5 9.2 19.8
1971–72 Seattle 80 37.4 .466 .774 4.2 9.6 18.0
1972–73 Cleveland 75 39.6 .449 .828 4.6 8.4 20.5
1973–74 Cleveland 74 33.6 .465 .801 3.7 7.1 1.3 0.2 16.4
1974–75 Portland 65 17.9 .439 .768 1.8 3.6 1.2 0.1 6.5
Career 1,077 35.3 .432 .774 4.7 6.7 1.3 0.2 16.5
All-Star 9 3 20.2 .400 .781 2.4 2.9 9.4

Playoffs[]

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1961 St. Louis 12 36.4 .380 .759 6.0 3.5 14.2
1963 St. Louis 11 36.4 .370 .755 6.3 6.3 13.7
1964 St. Louis 12 34.4 .448 .759 5.0 5.3 14.3
1965 St. Louis 4 36.8 .351 .828 3.0 3.8 16.0
1966 St. Louis 10 39.1 .399 .687 5.4 7.0 17.1
1967 St. Louis 9 42.0 .400 .856 7.6 7.2 21.4
1968 St. Louis 6 39.5 .440 .750 6.3 7.8 16.1
Career 64 37.5 .399 .769 5.8 5.8 16.1
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