One Time When Sonics Fans Didn’t Root For The Sonics

Quotes are from the archives of the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

“Tonite! 7 p.m. Lenny Wilkens.” That’s how the newspaper ad placed by the Seattle Sonics read on Nov. 12, 1972. Nothing unusual about that; Wilkens as player-coach had led Seattle to its best seasons.

Only that wasn’t the entirety of the advertisement. “Lenny Wilkens… and the Cleveland Cavaliers.” Wilkens had been unceremoniously dumped as both point guard and coach a few months earlier, and against his wishes, sent to the NBA outpost of Siberia Cleveland.

Don Fair in the Seattle P-I wondered if Sonics fans would stage a “vendetta” against the home team at the Coliseum. “Strong emotions were stirred when the Sonics traded Wilkens to the Cavaliers in late August, and the heat still lingers.” For his part, Lenny dismissed hard feelings. “There is no vendetta on my part. I play to win. I don’t care who the opposition is.”

(He would add after the game, in response to a question about the Sonics’ 4-11 record, “I feel compassion for the team. I wish they would play well. It’s hard to feel compassion for people [in management] who don’t feel compassion for you. I’m not a vindictive man, but I do not like to be stepped on.”)

‘Nice To Be Home’

Wilkens still owned a home in Seattle – his Cleveland residence was a motel – so returning to the Pacific Northwest also meant a reunion with wife Marilyn. “It’s nice to be home,” Wilkens said, revealing he’d packed very little for his relocation to Ohio. “Some stuff to knock around in and a couple suits. I’m there to play ball.”

His playing drew raves from Cavs coach Bill Fitch. “Lenny has done everything we thought he would. Lenny added a lot of leadership and confidence to our team.”

A sellout of 13,174 – second-largest NBA crowd in the history of Seattle Coliseum – came ready to cheer for their favorite son. Signs plastered around the upper walls of the arena carried messages like, “Lenny, They Goofed,” “Sonics Fear Lenny’s Here,” “Show ‘Em, Lenny,” and “This Is Lenny’s Country.”

Wilkens received a three-minute standing ovation before tipoff. If the P.A. man hadn’t interrupted to give the Sonics starting lineup, it would have lasted longer. Fitch called the scene “a spectacle.” Wilkens said it gave him “goose pimples.” He remembered it as just the second “standing O” of his career, and the first since college.

Wilkens Didn’t Disappoint Coliseum Sellout

It took less than two minutes for fans to cheer Wilkens again, on his layup plus a made free throw. He’d finish with 22 points, nine assists, nine rebounds and four steals in Cleveland’s 113-107 victory. Virtually every addition to his stat line was accompanied by raucous cheers. Even so, the 35-year-old veteran said nerves combined with adrenaline negatively impacted his (7-19) shooting. “There was a lot of pressure I felt out there. I never did get the touch on my outside shot.”

Much of the abuse foisted on the hometown team was directed at Tom Nissalke, the coach who replaced Wilkens. “We Want Lenny,” went one chant, while another asserted, “Trade Nissalke.” Adding to the verbal onslaught, one fan-created sign/invective read, “Bomb Tom. Come home Lenny.”

The Seattle coach conceded, “It was tough to sit there. But if you take the good things people write and say about you, you have to be able to take the bad things, too.” The bad things included the Sonics’ seventh consecutive defeat, further angering already agitated spectators. A fan with a bugle, near the end of the game, played “Taps.”

The Coliseum overlords were gracious enough to pump Bob Blackburn’s postgame Sonics radio interview with Wilkens over the arena loudspeakers. Several thousand stuck around to listen.

It wasn’t hard to find Wilkens afterward in the winners’ locker room. He was the one flashing the biggest smile. “I love coming back here,” he said. “The fan support for me was unbelievable. I had a hint something like that would happen because of the sellout. It’s great to know that many people care that much.”