Revisiting the Career of Blazers Player-Coach Lenny Wilkens

The list of NBA players and coaches over the course of history is a long one. Thousands have suited up in the world’s best professional league, hundreds have run the show from the sidelines. Multiple leaders have managed both in their basketball lifetime, but only a select few have filled both roles at the same time, a practice now forbidden by the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement but more accepted in the wide-open 1970’s era.

Nigel Broadnax of The Ringer explored the history of the player-coach in the NBA in a recent and extensive feature. The piece focuses on Dave DeBusschere, Richie Guerin, and Lenny Wilkens, all of whom joined the rotation for the team they coached, Wilkins with the Portland Trail Blazers.

Broadnax admits that the practice was on the fringes of the league, even then, but it was not unknown.

Head coaches today are given plenty of space to commit themselves fully to the job. They have eight-figure contracts and a phalanx of iPad-toting assistants on the bench. Because of the demands of the job, coaching is more or less the only duty of the position. But for more than three decades, teams fairly often hired an active player from their roster to also serve as the head coach. Sometimes the decision was made for reasons of locker room politics, franchise economics, or because it made sense for the best player to be the coach. In total, 40 different players held the title of player-coach up until 1979.

He goes through the circus act that was DeBusschere’s turn with the Detroit Pistons and the drill sergeant routine of Guerin with the Atlanta Hawks before settling on the Blazers’ own Wilkens, who also filled that role for the Seattle Supersonics before being traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers (serving as a player only) and then ultimately to the Blazers.

Wilkens was an established veteran by then. 1974, his first year with the team, was highlighted by the Blazers drafting Bill Walton out of UCLA. Injuries would limit Walton in his rookie year, but the sophomore season under Wilkens was looking bright…until it didn’t.

In 1975, with strong input from Wilkens, the Blazers drafted Lionel Hollins and Bob Gross. Wilkens decided it was best to be a full-time coach to focus more attention on developing the younger players, but he would still participate as a player in practice from time to time.

“If somebody was hurt or something, I could fill in,” recalls Wilkens. “I knew all the plays and everything, and I was in good shape.”

Walton’s injury troubles occurred again during the season. The Blazers had a winning record in the 51 games he appeared in, but a disappointing 37-45 overall record. Walton’s health, plus the learning curve of the young roster, was difficult to overcome. Tensions arose within the organization.

“Lenny was shortchanged by all of us,” Walton said. “He did not have the power or support of management.”

The Blazers let Wilkens go, hiring Jack Ramsay, who would lead Walton and company to an NBA Title in his first season. The article gives Wilkens outsized credit for helping build the team that Ramsay piloted to glory.

The article is well worth a read for the overall history lesson as well as the Blazers-specific parts.