Wilkens Re-Departed Sonics To Resume Doing What He Loved Most

The second time Lenny Wilkens left Seattle for Cleveland, it was his choice.

The first time, in the early ’70s, Wilkens led the Sonics on an upward trajectory. Regardless, ownership in 1972 asked him to choose one job after three seasons as player-coach. Wilkens reluctantly gave up coaching. Surprisingly, he was soon removed from both jobs via an August trade to the Cavaliers. What’s worse, they ignored his request to at least be traded to a Western Conference contender closer to his Seattle home.

Fortunately for the Sonics, Wilkens returned as coach early in the 1977-78 campaign. Back-to-back trips to the NBA Finals followed, with Seattle capturing the title in 1979. But the planets never quite aligned again after the championship season. As pieces of that squad variously grew past their prime, lost their hunger, held out for more money or suffered injuries, win totals wobbled from 56 to 34 to 52 to 48 to 42 to 31.

Dwindling results and reported player discontent convinced different Sonics ownership to remove Wilkens as coach (again) before the 1985-86 season. This time, Lenny was installed as general manager. “I guess I could have said I wanted to stay in coaching,” he said to the Seattle Times. “A coach gets all the blame and adverse publicity when you lose but he also gets all the credit when you win. So it’s a double-edged sword. I had a chance to run the whole operation and I wasn’t going to pass that up.”

“I’m enjoying this immensely,” Wilkens added, “more than my last two years of coaching. I go home and sleep at nights.” However, the satisfaction of front office work didn’t last, because he preferred more direct influence on the outcome of games. “I couldn’t bear to watch the ends of close games in the arena; I had to go somewhere and watch on TV,” he wrote in his 2001 autobiography, Unguarded. “I wanted to be in the huddle, trying to come up with a play to help us win.”

Return To Huddle Meant So Long To Seattle

In July, 1986, after the end of a second consecutive 31-51 season, Wilkens accepted an offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers to become their coach.

As that famous 17th century sportswriter Shakespeare wrote, to thine own self be true. “I guess, during the last quarter of the season, I decided coaching was something I’d rather do. I tried to suppress it, but I couldn’t. I don’t feel I have anything to prove as a coach. It’s just that, as a human being, you do the things that make you happy. And coaching makes me happy.”

Playing Hardball On Sikma Trade

But he had one big piece of business left as Sonics GM: facilitating Jack Sikma’s request for a move to a contender.

The story of that trade exposes the often-messy side of pro sports deal-making. When Milwaukee coach-GM Don Nelson heard Wilkens was asking for Alton Lister and two 1st round draft picks for Sikma, his bellowed response was along the lines of “That’s crazy! Never!”

Imagine Wilkens’ surprise when Nelson called two days later with a seeming change of heart. “We’ve got a deal,” he said. But for one 1st rounder, not two, because Seattle owner Barry Ackerley had supposedly agreed with Nelson to lower the asking price. Now it was Lenny’s turn to bellow. “There’s no deal!”

When questioned by Wilkens, the owner denied acquiescing to Nelson’s version of the deal. Was Ackerley backtracking? Had Nelson been trying to pull a fast one? Or did each merely hear what they wanted to hear?

Milwaukee’s Nelson decided to get HIS owner, Herb Kohl, involved, to back his GM’s version of events. “I’m sorry that happened,” Wilkens told Kohl. “But I needed two first-rounders in the deal.” And guess what – he got them; Lister and a pair of 1st round draft choices for Sikma and two Seattle 2nd rounders.

Gone But Far From Forgotten In Seattle

When Wilkens was named Cavs coach, the man who replaced him with the Sonics, Bernie Bickerstaff, was philosophical. “I look at it as a helluva opportunity for Lenny. I’m losing a friend and we’re losing a lot of integrity that Lenny represented for us. But Lenny‘s getting an opportunity to coach again, and he’s going into a good situation. How could anybody be unhappy about that?”

A glowing Times editorial concluded, “Whether as a player, coach, family man, active contributor to his community or role model for youth, he has been an exemplary public figure.”

Columnist Steve Kelley went further, calling Wilkens, “The Pied Piper who brought Seattle sports into the modern era. On-court charisma that was new to this neophyte city. He was the leader. He made all of his teammates better.

“He introduced this city to the excitement of big-league sports. He showed us how much fun we can have. He filled the seats. If the Sonics hadn’t traded for Wilkens before the 1968-69 season, they might not have survived in Seattle. There may never have been the Seattle Seahawks or the Seattle Mariners. The Final Four never may have come here.”

One more question: why would Wilkens work so hard to get Seattle the best possible deal for Sikma when he was leaving anyway? That one, Lenny could answer. “I always loved the Sonics.”