July 22, 2024 • 23 mins
In this episode, we explore the incredible coaching legacies that Brooklyn has produced. Featuring interviews with sportswriter Peter Vecsey, coaches PJ Carlesimo and Bill Raftery, and many more, this episode highlights the careers of iconic coaches like Lenny Wilkens, Red Auerbach, Red Holzman, and Larry Brown. Discover how these Brooklyn-born legends shaped the game and left an indelible mark on basketball history.
Breakdown:
- 02:01 - 06:00: Lenny Wilkens' historic coaching career and influence
- 06:01 - 12:00: The early dominance of Red Auerbach and his impact on the NBA
- 12:01 - 18:00: Red Holzman's coaching philosophy and legacy with the New York Knicks
- 18:01 - 26:00: The unique journey and contributions of Larry Brown
- 26:01 - 30:00: Peter Vecsey on the greatness of Brooklyn's coaching legends
- 30:01 - 34:00: PJ Carlesimo on learning from Brooklyn’s best
- 34:01 - 38:00: The continued legacy and influence of Brooklyn coaches
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wind it up, Lenny, you are no Leonnys.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
In the NBA January sixth, nineteen ninety five, the Atlanta
Hawks beat the Washington Bullets, won twelve to ninety and
on the court at the Omni Hawks coach Lenny Wilkens
lights up a cigar. It's the nine hundred and thirty
ninth career coaching win for the hoops legend out of
(00:27):
bed Sty and Boys High, who had already been inducted
to the Hall of Fame as a player six years earlier.
A new man at the top of the NBA's wins list,
but one thing hadn't changed. The winning coaching NBA history
was from Brooklyn. That had been true since the league's
first season, when Red Alback out of Williamsburg and Eastern
(00:50):
District High School won forty nine games with the Washington Capitals.
It was true for more than sixty years until Don
Nelson passed Lenny in twenty two. Because Brooklyn wasn't just
a source for some of the greatest players of all time,
it was also the cradle of coaches. I meet you
Darko from the Fly for Zombies, and that's what we're
(01:11):
talking about this week on Basketball's Burrow. When the NBA
celebrated his seventy fifth anniversary last year, they chose fifteen
(01:33):
coaches as the greatest in NBA history. Four of them
were either born in Brooklyn or grew Uphead and graduated
from a Brooklyn high school. They're all in the Hall
of Fame. There was Red and Lenny, of course, but
also Red Holtzman and Larry Brown.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Star with all back all back became a great coach.
Bill Russell joined the team. But he was a great
coach because the way he handled Bill and the way
he handled everybody else. There were two sets to rules,
one for Bills because he made them a championship team
and kept them there, you know, until Red retired. Russell
respected him. So Russell respected him. He knew Sam Doones
(02:13):
was going to respect them, and Casey Jones and all
those guys were nine of them in the Hall of Fame.
But Sam, Sam and Casey mid God, they all love Redding.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
That sports writer Peter Vessi, who covered all of Brooklyn's
great coaches in his own Hall of Fame career our
back coach Washington to the league's best record in nineteen
forty seven and to the finals in nineteen forty nine,
but his legend began in Boston with Bob Coozy inventing
the modern point guard position. The Celtics opened up the
(02:44):
transition game and changed the sport. But the greatest move
Red ever made came off the court. Going into the
nineteen fifty six NBA draft, he made a deal with
the Saint Louis Hawks to get the second pick and
used it to draft Bill Russell. Well Russell in the
middle all back when his first championship and the Celtics
(03:06):
won eleven titles in thirteen seasons.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Once he got Russell, like I said, he understood chemistry.
He understood what it took for guys to coordinate. You hear,
you know you're a scorer, You're a score. You know
he played sach Sanders. You know he played deep.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
You know, a.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Rebaund you know he figured out the sixth man. He
had Frank Ramsey. No nobody, I guarantee you nobody today
I ever heard of Frank Ramsey. He was the original
sixth man. And when he came in off the bench,
things would happen ninety percent of the time. They'd happened
for the good and Bessent not so much. But things
would happen. So he made a sixth man, and Havelcheck
(03:44):
followed him, and you know, Michale and just went on
and on, and Walton not sixth man. So Red Red
Red was really good that way.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
He did it with style that the trophy they have
for a Coach of the Year and the statue that
they have up in Boston. It just did a pit red.
He probably rubbed it in people's face a little bit
and he lit the cigar. A lot of people didn't
care for him, but no one cared to play against him.
You say whatever you wanted, but nobody was looking forward
to sitting on that other bench and go against him.
(04:14):
So you know obviously that you know an icon of
one of, if not the best it's ever coached.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
That's PJ. Carlossimo, who was an NBA head coach for
nine seasons, including the nets first year in Brooklyn. He
won three NBA titles on the bench, with one of
the only two guys with more NBA coaching wins than
Lenny greg Popovich. Bill Raftery was broadcasting NETS games while
all Back was building another Boston dynasty as the team's
(04:43):
president in the eighties.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
I was interviewed him years ago and I said, what
about Boss winning? He said, they're winning is hard, he said,
because you've come back year in and year rout, and
you've got to get people thinking that's over. We enjoyed it.
The sacrifice to win again and the mental demands of it,
(05:07):
they're sort of the most important aspect of it. But
he used to say winning is hard. He didn't be
winning one year. He just spent winning all the time.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
After eight straight titles and nine and ten years, Arback
gave up his spot on the bench in nineteen sixty six.
He had nine hundred and thirty eight wins, more than
double any other coach in the league's first twenty years. Somehow,
he had only won the NBA's Coach the Year award
once since they started giving it out in nineteen sixty three.
(05:40):
So in nineteen sixty seven, the NBA did a really
small thing and just named the trophy after him. To
replace himself. Ar Back had made Chuck Cooper the first
African American drafted by an NBA team in nineteen fifty,
and in nineteen sixty four, he sent the league's first
all black starting five out for the tip off. Here's
(06:01):
Larry Brown.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
I was such a nick fan, but God, the admiration
I had Coach Aldback was incredible. But Coach Alback did
blew me away the way he included players of color.
You know how his team's played, utilizing everybody on his bench.
Russell won eleven in thirteen years, So coach Aldback Ruster
(06:25):
nine and eleven. I guess I don't know if I'm right,
but he was just a neat guy and he almost
hired me. He tried to hire me twice indirectly. I
just loved being around him and hearing them talk. He
was great for our game.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Red Holtzman played ten years of Pro Bowl, winning the
NBA Championship with the Rochester Royals in nineteen fifty one.
He even played a season on the Royals with another
Brooklyn legend we talked about a few weeks back, Dolly King.
The NBA was full of guys out of Brooklyn and
Ycing those days would like to get out of the
(07:01):
city during the summer and head towards the beach for
their games. One of those popular playgrounds was out in
Long Beach, on one of those islands between the Rockaways
Jones Beach, living right across the street from that playground
was a kid who had been born in Brooklyn, so
twenty years before he coached against them in the NBA.
(07:22):
A teenager Larry Brown will play pickup games with Red Holtzman.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
A lot like coach Ahrbach. They made the game simple.
The players played, you know, unselfishly, they tried to guard
their values were incredible. Growing up in New York. People
still talk about the seventy and seventy two teams and
how they played, what they accomplished. You know, those two
guys are two of the very best. I don't think
(07:47):
they'll ever be too like them, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Haltzman got started as a player coach with the Hawks
in the last season of his playing career and kept
the coaching job until nineteen fifty seven. The scouting for
the Knicks for ten years. They made him the head
coach midway through the nineteen sixty seven sixty eight season.
Here's Peter Vessi.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
He taught defense that Toy cared about. He didn't care
about offense. He had very very intelligent players in the
beginning that he didn't have to care about it. Fraser
will talk about it to this day. How he helped
his confidence. He recognized how good he was and he
Fraser's confidence was lagging. He talks about that bust rde
back from Philly where he just thought he sucked and
(08:30):
read built them right back up. So he was good
at that.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
I know.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
The players always respected the fact that he did not
ever take them apart to the media, never. I mean
I had a number of players tell me that he'd
be yelling at them in the locker room after a
game and he'd go out give all the credit to
the other team that was him, and they knew it
and they loved him for it.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
PJ. Carlissimo was in the city attending for them from
nineteen sixty seven to nineteen seventy one. When Holtzman's Knicks
open Madison Square. Garden won their first NBA championship in
nineteen seventy and became the coolest ticket in the city.
Red picked up the Coach of the Year award that
year two. Pj's father was the athletic director for him
(09:16):
at the time and had tickets three rolls behind the
Knicks bench. Calissimo had Holtzman and a team of Hall
of Famous right in front of him.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Red was just an incredible coach, similar to Larry Brown
in terms of student of the game. I mean any coaches,
but some guys like to just walk away from him,
give it a rest, reddit and Red Red was unbelievable.
And again, it was so nice to the young people
when I first got in the coach, and I mean
I asked to love to just bump into him in
the garden. I was lucky enough to sit there. And
(09:48):
I can't tell you how many of those games I
got to watch in person, not at TV, sit in
three rows behind Red Altzman at Madison Square Garden, and
Red Oltsman's as good as coach as we've ever had
in the NBA.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
In basketball, Haltzman won his second NBA title in nineteen
seventy three, retired in nineteen seventy seven, and then came
back in nineteen seventy eight. When he walked away for
good in nineteen eighty two, he had six hundred and
ninety six career wins at that point in NBA history,
only all back I had more. Billy Cunningham out of
(10:22):
Brooklyn's Erasmus Whole High School, was an All Star play
in Philadelphia. When Holtzman won his first title in nineteen seventy,
and then he coached against him for four seasons.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Greg Holtzman was my hero as a coach because I
would watch Red and games over win to lose here
there should train it. Do you want to have a
drink here? Or when we get you to a restaurant?
Just seemed to have the ability that I didn't have.
The game was over win to lose. I was still
my mind was going crazy and trying to figure out
(10:56):
how to correct different things that occurred during the course
of the game. Would always shit extra Red. It's the
coaches meeting, Just trying to figure out how I could
draw from him and put some of him in my
personal move. You always tell me, kid, whatever we're voting.
When we'd have a coaches association, whatever we'll vote, not
vote no. ID read supposed they could increase our perdem
(11:21):
vote no. You never get hurt. You never get hurt
voting no. That was his theory.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Just like Red Altzman, Lenny Wilkins got his coach in
Star before he even finished playing, and he still had
a lot of game left. Lenny was still playing at
an All Star level when the Seattle SuperSonics made him
the coach in nineteen sixty nine. In his second year
as the Sonics coach, he was even named the All
Star Game MVP. Lenny did double duty three seasons with
(11:51):
the Sonics and then one more with the Blazers in
his final year as a player. Here's PJ Carlissimo.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
I'm throwing coaches clee, but it fits. Was a coach
on the floor, always was as a point guard. You
always knew his teams were going to do the right
thing laden games. They were never going to do silly things.
The player who should get the shot at the end
of the game was going to get it, and Lenny
played both ends of the floor.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Now that he was coaching full time, Lenny returned to
the Sonics in nineteen seventy seven, taking over twenty two
games into the season. He led Seattle to the NBA Finals,
where they lost to Washington, but the next year they
came back and won a rematch over the Bullets. Brooklyn
had his third NBA champion coach. Here's Bill raft three.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Well, they what a child, but just smooths about him.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
You know.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
His way of playing was similar to the way he
is off the floor. Kevin been a player and been
coached by different people. I think he had just a
nice feel for what players wanted. He won the championship
up in the Seattle It's one of those things where
a lot of people knew him were so happy for him.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And Billy Cunningham, who played against Lenny in the league
and then coached against him for eight seasons.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Lenny Wilkins number one had the best reputation you could
possibly have as a man. His reputation was impeccable. He
had the ability as a coach to adjust to according
to the talent that was affording them, and I think
that's the greatest attribute you can have as a coach,
is adjust to the players.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Lenny coached the Sonics through nineteen eighty five, and he
still makes his home there today, but he had a
lot more coaching to do with long successful runs in
Cleveland and Atlanta, where he picked up his Coach of
the Year award in nineteen ninety four. He closed out
his career with the Raptors and Knicks, finishing with one
three hundred and thirty two wins, which ranked third all
(13:53):
time today, nobody in NBA history has coached more games
than Lenny Wilkins. There were only four players inducted into
the Hall of Fame as both players and coaches, and
Lenny Wilkins is one of them. But he wasn't done there.
He's in the Hall of Fame a third time as
an assistant coach for the legendary Dream Team, the nineteen
(14:16):
ninety two Olympic gold medalist, and he followed that up
by winning a gold medal as head coach of the
nineteen ninety six Olympic team. PJ. Carlissimo was an assistant
with Lenny on the Dream Team.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
You can't not like Lenny Wilkins. He's a gentleman, soft
spoken guy, yet a tough guy. He got his teams
to do what they were supposed to do. He was
an unbelievable competitor himself as a player. Guys wanted to
play for him. That respect thing is an enormous thing
in the NBA, and guys wanted to play for him
because they know he was such a great player that
(14:51):
he knew how to win an NBA championship? Did he
knew how to win gold medals? As an assistant coach
and his head coach in Atlanta, he wanted gold medal
as the head coach of the US Olympic team. So great,
great coach, still a great man.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Every one of our Brooklyn Hall of Fame coaches had
their own journey, but one thing's for sure, nobody has
ever had a coaching career quite like Larry Brown. Ten
pro teams and three college stops. He's the only coach
to win both the NBA and an NCAA championship. He's
even the only guy that coach two NBA teams in
(15:27):
the same season. Here's PJ. Carlos Simo.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
LB's as good as there is. He's the ultimate taker,
student of the game. I remember one of the years
when when I was in between jobs, which happened more
than a few times in the NBA, I redor to
training camps, and when Larry was coaching six years, I
went to his training camp. Was at Penn State that year,
and yeah, I went to learn.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Brown was already a couple of years into his coaching
career as an assistant to Dean Smith at North Carolina
when he got another shot at playing pro. It was
a few weeks back on Basketball's Burrow when he told
you the great story about Doug mo getting a call
to play in the ABA and insisting the New Orleans
Buccaneers son Larry two Well, they stuck together again when
(16:16):
they were tired from playing at the same time in
nineteen seventy two, they went right into coaching, with Larry
as the head coach of the aba Is Carolina Cougars
and Doug as his assistant.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
Carl Sheer was the GM. I guess Carl Sheer asked
a lot of people to take the job, and Doug
and I were the two guys left stand that we
both were two banged up to play, and they hired
like freakin' frack. We didn't know what the hell we
were doing, but we became the coaches of the Carolina
cud I've been blessed, you know. I probably have the
(16:48):
best background of anybody ever. And I don't mean that
in the wrong way, but my high school coach was great.
I played for Frank McGuire and Dean Smith, both in
the Hall of Fame, two of the greatest coaches ever.
I played for great AAU coach named Hank Vaughan on
the Olympic team. I had John McClendon, who maybe is
(17:09):
the greatest coach of color of all time. In mister
IBA and the ABA I played for Alex Hannah and
Dave McCarthy Albiankee. So I think when Doug and I
went into the ABA, neither one of us knew the
hell what the hell we were doing. To be honest
with you, I mean every trill, everything I ever learned,
(17:30):
I copied. You know, I wouldn't have neither ovator, I
don't think in any way, but the people that coached
me and the people I played with growing up playing
in the playground, all those people influenced me and how
I thought the game should be played. And I think
Doug and I kind of felt the same way about it.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Doug was a little different kind of.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
Personality, but I think our values were so much the same,
and all we tried to do is get him play hard,
play on selfishly, defend reba on, share the ball, and
have fun. As time went on, I think we both
learned and evolved and became better.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Larry and Doug went from Carolina to Denver, with Larry
winning three ABA Coach of the Year awards. They went
to the last ABA Championship Series in nineteen seventy six,
but came up short against Doctor J and the Nets.
After taking UCLA to the Final Four in nineteen eighty,
he jumped back into pro ball with the New Jersey Nets.
(18:29):
In nineteen eighty one. Bill rafthree got his start calling
Nets games while Larry Brown was the coach.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
This is from players that that I got to know
nobody better the last two minutes of the game. He
knew what you were gonna run or what he had
or run.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
When Brown took over the Nets, they were coming off
a twenty four win season. They added all NBA shooting
guard Otis bird Song and drafted both Rookie of the
Year Buck Williams and brooked Zone Albert King. They improved
by twenty wins and went to the playoffs. Here's the
oldest bird Song on playing for Larry Brown.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
It was fun and it was tough. Larry was very demanding.
In fact, he made us stayed thirty minutes out the practice.
Every player had to stay thirty minutes outter practice to
work on a certain part of the game. And this
was after he killed us for the previous two hours.
I learned a lot from Larry. He was a perfectionist.
(19:30):
No one wanted to win as much as Larry. It
just devastated when you lost.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
And Buck Williams the greatest rebounder and second leading scorer
in That's history.
Speaker 8 (19:41):
Then think about Larry. He loved basketball. I mean he
would coach all the players off Larry. You would give
Larry just six or seven guys and they were probably
come into videocre players and he would coach them up.
Next thing you know, they're are very good players. I
mean he would come in practice every day and say,
you know, hum Diddy, Diddy, I got it, you need it.
I ain't know what the world has meant. I mean,
(20:01):
to this day, I've figured out what that meant. Pum
did it. I got it, you need it. And then
they would pull you aside out the coach and y'all, fella,
we're gonna need to get together today. We need to
work on your game. So keep you out in practice
and work on your game from pour two. But I
owe so much Hilaria because he prepared me for the
NBA exceptional coach, good dude, and old ise Learry.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
After winning the National Championship at Kansas in nineteen eighty eight,
Brown went back to the NBA with the Spurs. He
took the Sixes to the finals and was Coach of
the Year in two thousand and one, then made history
when he won his NBA title with the Pistons in
two thousand and four. In twenty twenty one, he received
the Chuck Daily Lifetime Achievement Award and honor Lenny Wilkins
(20:47):
had also gotten ten years earlier.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
Coach has always had a tremendous simpful in sum me
and I wanted to be like those guys, But I
always felt that the most important thing a coach could
do is to gain the players trust, to make sure
every day you come to practice, you know you're trying
to make them better. And I never took for granted
anything anybody knew. I always felt strongly about teaching them
(21:12):
the right way to play. You know. I was the
first one ever say that, to be honest with you,
And now everybody's saying it, play the right way. And
everybody asked me what it means when you say play
the right way, And I think basketball, when it's played
the right way, is the greatest team game ever. And
I always told our guys, your job every day is
to make your teammates better, because that's the way I
(21:35):
was taught. And then when you're not playing. Your job
is to try to improve every single day. So I
thought as a coach, that was my challenge to gain
their trust, to let them know I cared about them,
and to try every day to make sure that they
got the opportunity to be the best they could be. Now,
I always do it the right way. I look back,
(21:56):
and you know, there's some people I'm disappointed, you know
that I didn't do enough to help them. But for
the most thought, I don't think I ever stopped trying
to do the right thing. And that was basically because
the people that touched my life.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That's what coaches do. And even though we put the
focus on these four Hall of Famers this week, Brooklyn's
roster goes a lot deeper than that. Really, it's just
the start of the list. There's three more NBA Coaches
of the Year who came out of Brooklyn, Doug mow,
Frank Layden, and Mike Dunleavy. Then there's Billy Cunningham, who
(22:33):
has the second highest winning percentage of all time and
coach the Sixers to the NBA title in nineteen eighty three.
Jack McMahon coached the Cincinnati Royals and San Diego Rockets,
then was with Billy c as an assistant during his
entire run in Philly. Almond Hill won a title on
the bench with the Celtics in two thousand and eight.
(22:55):
Johnny Bach had a thirty year college career at for
them and pens Day then coach Chris Mullen as an
NBA rookie in Golden State. He won three titles as
an assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls, and Michael Jordan
called him one of the greatest basketball minds of all time.
What else would you expect when you're talking about Basketball's Borough.
(23:19):
Next week, on Basketball's Borough, Brooklyn gets a team of
its own, half a century after the Dodgers departed. The
Nets and Barclay Center arrive at the intersection of Flatbush
in Atlantic
Wind it up, Lenny, you are no Leonnys.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
In the NBA January sixth, nineteen ninety five, the Atlanta
Hawks beat the Washington Bullets, won twelve to ninety and
on the court at the Omni Hawks coach Lenny Wilkens
lights up a cigar. It's the nine hundred and thirty
ninth career coaching win for the hoops legend out of
(00:27):
bed Sty and Boys High, who had already been inducted
to the Hall of Fame as a player six years earlier.
A new man at the top of the NBA's wins list,
but one thing hadn't changed. The winning coaching NBA history
was from Brooklyn. That had been true since the league's
first season, when Red Alback out of Williamsburg and Eastern
(00:50):
District High School won forty nine games with the Washington Capitals.
It was true for more than sixty years until Don
Nelson passed Lenny in twenty two. Because Brooklyn wasn't just
a source for some of the greatest players of all time,
it was also the cradle of coaches. I meet you
Darko from the Fly for Zombies, and that's what we're
(01:11):
talking about this week on Basketball's Burrow. When the NBA
celebrated his seventy fifth anniversary last year, they chose fifteen
(01:33):
coaches as the greatest in NBA history. Four of them
were either born in Brooklyn or grew Uphead and graduated
from a Brooklyn high school. They're all in the Hall
of Fame. There was Red and Lenny, of course, but
also Red Holtzman and Larry Brown.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Star with all back all back became a great coach.
Bill Russell joined the team. But he was a great
coach because the way he handled Bill and the way
he handled everybody else. There were two sets to rules,
one for Bills because he made them a championship team
and kept them there, you know, until Red retired. Russell
respected him. So Russell respected him. He knew Sam Doones
(02:13):
was going to respect them, and Casey Jones and all
those guys were nine of them in the Hall of Fame.
But Sam, Sam and Casey mid God, they all love Redding.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
That sports writer Peter Vessi, who covered all of Brooklyn's
great coaches in his own Hall of Fame career our
back coach Washington to the league's best record in nineteen
forty seven and to the finals in nineteen forty nine,
but his legend began in Boston with Bob Coozy inventing
the modern point guard position. The Celtics opened up the
(02:44):
transition game and changed the sport. But the greatest move
Red ever made came off the court. Going into the
nineteen fifty six NBA draft, he made a deal with
the Saint Louis Hawks to get the second pick and
used it to draft Bill Russell. Well Russell in the
middle all back when his first championship and the Celtics
(03:06):
won eleven titles in thirteen seasons.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Once he got Russell, like I said, he understood chemistry.
He understood what it took for guys to coordinate. You hear,
you know you're a scorer, You're a score. You know
he played sach Sanders. You know he played deep.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
You know, a.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Rebaund you know he figured out the sixth man. He
had Frank Ramsey. No nobody, I guarantee you nobody today
I ever heard of Frank Ramsey. He was the original
sixth man. And when he came in off the bench,
things would happen ninety percent of the time. They'd happened
for the good and Bessent not so much. But things
would happen. So he made a sixth man, and Havelcheck
(03:44):
followed him, and you know, Michale and just went on
and on, and Walton not sixth man. So Red Red
Red was really good that way.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
He did it with style that the trophy they have
for a Coach of the Year and the statue that
they have up in Boston. It just did a pit red.
He probably rubbed it in people's face a little bit
and he lit the cigar. A lot of people didn't
care for him, but no one cared to play against him.
You say whatever you wanted, but nobody was looking forward
to sitting on that other bench and go against him.
(04:14):
So you know obviously that you know an icon of
one of, if not the best it's ever coached.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
That's PJ. Carlossimo, who was an NBA head coach for
nine seasons, including the nets first year in Brooklyn. He
won three NBA titles on the bench, with one of
the only two guys with more NBA coaching wins than
Lenny greg Popovich. Bill Raftery was broadcasting NETS games while
all Back was building another Boston dynasty as the team's
(04:43):
president in the eighties.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
I was interviewed him years ago and I said, what
about Boss winning? He said, they're winning is hard, he said,
because you've come back year in and year rout, and
you've got to get people thinking that's over. We enjoyed it.
The sacrifice to win again and the mental demands of it,
(05:07):
they're sort of the most important aspect of it. But
he used to say winning is hard. He didn't be
winning one year. He just spent winning all the time.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
After eight straight titles and nine and ten years, Arback
gave up his spot on the bench in nineteen sixty six.
He had nine hundred and thirty eight wins, more than
double any other coach in the league's first twenty years. Somehow,
he had only won the NBA's Coach the Year award
once since they started giving it out in nineteen sixty three.
(05:40):
So in nineteen sixty seven, the NBA did a really
small thing and just named the trophy after him. To
replace himself. Ar Back had made Chuck Cooper the first
African American drafted by an NBA team in nineteen fifty,
and in nineteen sixty four, he sent the league's first
all black starting five out for the tip off. Here's
(06:01):
Larry Brown.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
I was such a nick fan, but God, the admiration
I had Coach Aldback was incredible. But Coach Alback did
blew me away the way he included players of color.
You know how his team's played, utilizing everybody on his bench.
Russell won eleven in thirteen years, So coach Aldback Ruster
(06:25):
nine and eleven. I guess I don't know if I'm right,
but he was just a neat guy and he almost
hired me. He tried to hire me twice indirectly. I
just loved being around him and hearing them talk. He
was great for our game.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Red Holtzman played ten years of Pro Bowl, winning the
NBA Championship with the Rochester Royals in nineteen fifty one.
He even played a season on the Royals with another
Brooklyn legend we talked about a few weeks back, Dolly King.
The NBA was full of guys out of Brooklyn and
Ycing those days would like to get out of the
(07:01):
city during the summer and head towards the beach for
their games. One of those popular playgrounds was out in
Long Beach, on one of those islands between the Rockaways
Jones Beach, living right across the street from that playground
was a kid who had been born in Brooklyn, so
twenty years before he coached against them in the NBA.
(07:22):
A teenager Larry Brown will play pickup games with Red Holtzman.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
A lot like coach Ahrbach. They made the game simple.
The players played, you know, unselfishly, they tried to guard
their values were incredible. Growing up in New York. People
still talk about the seventy and seventy two teams and
how they played, what they accomplished. You know, those two
guys are two of the very best. I don't think
(07:47):
they'll ever be too like them, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Haltzman got started as a player coach with the Hawks
in the last season of his playing career and kept
the coaching job until nineteen fifty seven. The scouting for
the Knicks for ten years. They made him the head
coach midway through the nineteen sixty seven sixty eight season.
Here's Peter Vessi.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
He taught defense that Toy cared about. He didn't care
about offense. He had very very intelligent players in the
beginning that he didn't have to care about it. Fraser
will talk about it to this day. How he helped
his confidence. He recognized how good he was and he
Fraser's confidence was lagging. He talks about that bust rde
back from Philly where he just thought he sucked and
(08:30):
read built them right back up. So he was good
at that.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
I know.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
The players always respected the fact that he did not
ever take them apart to the media, never. I mean
I had a number of players tell me that he'd
be yelling at them in the locker room after a
game and he'd go out give all the credit to
the other team that was him, and they knew it
and they loved him for it.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
PJ. Carlissimo was in the city attending for them from
nineteen sixty seven to nineteen seventy one. When Holtzman's Knicks
open Madison Square. Garden won their first NBA championship in
nineteen seventy and became the coolest ticket in the city.
Red picked up the Coach of the Year award that
year two. Pj's father was the athletic director for him
(09:16):
at the time and had tickets three rolls behind the
Knicks bench. Calissimo had Holtzman and a team of Hall
of Famous right in front of him.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Red was just an incredible coach, similar to Larry Brown
in terms of student of the game. I mean any coaches,
but some guys like to just walk away from him,
give it a rest, reddit and Red Red was unbelievable.
And again, it was so nice to the young people
when I first got in the coach, and I mean
I asked to love to just bump into him in
the garden. I was lucky enough to sit there. And
(09:48):
I can't tell you how many of those games I
got to watch in person, not at TV, sit in
three rows behind Red Altzman at Madison Square Garden, and
Red Oltsman's as good as coach as we've ever had
in the NBA.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
In basketball, Haltzman won his second NBA title in nineteen
seventy three, retired in nineteen seventy seven, and then came
back in nineteen seventy eight. When he walked away for
good in nineteen eighty two, he had six hundred and
ninety six career wins at that point in NBA history,
only all back I had more. Billy Cunningham out of
(10:22):
Brooklyn's Erasmus Whole High School, was an All Star play
in Philadelphia. When Holtzman won his first title in nineteen seventy,
and then he coached against him for four seasons.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Greg Holtzman was my hero as a coach because I
would watch Red and games over win to lose here
there should train it. Do you want to have a
drink here? Or when we get you to a restaurant?
Just seemed to have the ability that I didn't have.
The game was over win to lose. I was still
my mind was going crazy and trying to figure out
(10:56):
how to correct different things that occurred during the course
of the game. Would always shit extra Red. It's the
coaches meeting, Just trying to figure out how I could
draw from him and put some of him in my
personal move. You always tell me, kid, whatever we're voting.
When we'd have a coaches association, whatever we'll vote, not
vote no. ID read supposed they could increase our perdem
(11:21):
vote no. You never get hurt. You never get hurt
voting no. That was his theory.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Just like Red Altzman, Lenny Wilkins got his coach in
Star before he even finished playing, and he still had
a lot of game left. Lenny was still playing at
an All Star level when the Seattle SuperSonics made him
the coach in nineteen sixty nine. In his second year
as the Sonics coach, he was even named the All
Star Game MVP. Lenny did double duty three seasons with
(11:51):
the Sonics and then one more with the Blazers in
his final year as a player. Here's PJ Carlissimo.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
I'm throwing coaches clee, but it fits. Was a coach
on the floor, always was as a point guard. You
always knew his teams were going to do the right
thing laden games. They were never going to do silly things.
The player who should get the shot at the end
of the game was going to get it, and Lenny
played both ends of the floor.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Now that he was coaching full time, Lenny returned to
the Sonics in nineteen seventy seven, taking over twenty two
games into the season. He led Seattle to the NBA Finals,
where they lost to Washington, but the next year they
came back and won a rematch over the Bullets. Brooklyn
had his third NBA champion coach. Here's Bill raft three.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Well, they what a child, but just smooths about him.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
You know.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
His way of playing was similar to the way he
is off the floor. Kevin been a player and been
coached by different people. I think he had just a
nice feel for what players wanted. He won the championship
up in the Seattle It's one of those things where
a lot of people knew him were so happy for him.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And Billy Cunningham, who played against Lenny in the league
and then coached against him for eight seasons.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Lenny Wilkins number one had the best reputation you could
possibly have as a man. His reputation was impeccable. He
had the ability as a coach to adjust to according
to the talent that was affording them, and I think
that's the greatest attribute you can have as a coach,
is adjust to the players.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Lenny coached the Sonics through nineteen eighty five, and he
still makes his home there today, but he had a
lot more coaching to do with long successful runs in
Cleveland and Atlanta, where he picked up his Coach of
the Year award in nineteen ninety four. He closed out
his career with the Raptors and Knicks, finishing with one
three hundred and thirty two wins, which ranked third all
(13:53):
time today, nobody in NBA history has coached more games
than Lenny Wilkins. There were only four players inducted into
the Hall of Fame as both players and coaches, and
Lenny Wilkins is one of them. But he wasn't done there.
He's in the Hall of Fame a third time as
an assistant coach for the legendary Dream Team, the nineteen
(14:16):
ninety two Olympic gold medalist, and he followed that up
by winning a gold medal as head coach of the
nineteen ninety six Olympic team. PJ. Carlissimo was an assistant
with Lenny on the Dream Team.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
You can't not like Lenny Wilkins. He's a gentleman, soft
spoken guy, yet a tough guy. He got his teams
to do what they were supposed to do. He was
an unbelievable competitor himself as a player. Guys wanted to
play for him. That respect thing is an enormous thing
in the NBA, and guys wanted to play for him
because they know he was such a great player that
(14:51):
he knew how to win an NBA championship? Did he
knew how to win gold medals? As an assistant coach
and his head coach in Atlanta, he wanted gold medal
as the head coach of the US Olympic team. So great,
great coach, still a great man.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Every one of our Brooklyn Hall of Fame coaches had
their own journey, but one thing's for sure, nobody has
ever had a coaching career quite like Larry Brown. Ten
pro teams and three college stops. He's the only coach
to win both the NBA and an NCAA championship. He's
even the only guy that coach two NBA teams in
(15:27):
the same season. Here's PJ. Carlos Simo.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
LB's as good as there is. He's the ultimate taker,
student of the game. I remember one of the years
when when I was in between jobs, which happened more
than a few times in the NBA, I redor to
training camps, and when Larry was coaching six years, I
went to his training camp. Was at Penn State that year,
and yeah, I went to learn.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Brown was already a couple of years into his coaching
career as an assistant to Dean Smith at North Carolina
when he got another shot at playing pro. It was
a few weeks back on Basketball's Burrow when he told
you the great story about Doug mo getting a call
to play in the ABA and insisting the New Orleans
Buccaneers son Larry two Well, they stuck together again when
(16:16):
they were tired from playing at the same time in
nineteen seventy two, they went right into coaching, with Larry
as the head coach of the aba Is Carolina Cougars
and Doug as his assistant.
Speaker 6 (16:27):
Carl Sheer was the GM. I guess Carl Sheer asked
a lot of people to take the job, and Doug
and I were the two guys left stand that we
both were two banged up to play, and they hired
like freakin' frack. We didn't know what the hell we
were doing, but we became the coaches of the Carolina
cud I've been blessed, you know. I probably have the
(16:48):
best background of anybody ever. And I don't mean that
in the wrong way, but my high school coach was great.
I played for Frank McGuire and Dean Smith, both in
the Hall of Fame, two of the greatest coaches ever.
I played for great AAU coach named Hank Vaughan on
the Olympic team. I had John McClendon, who maybe is
(17:09):
the greatest coach of color of all time. In mister
IBA and the ABA I played for Alex Hannah and
Dave McCarthy Albiankee. So I think when Doug and I
went into the ABA, neither one of us knew the
hell what the hell we were doing. To be honest
with you, I mean every trill, everything I ever learned,
(17:30):
I copied. You know, I wouldn't have neither ovator, I
don't think in any way, but the people that coached
me and the people I played with growing up playing
in the playground, all those people influenced me and how
I thought the game should be played. And I think
Doug and I kind of felt the same way about it.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Doug was a little different kind of.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
Personality, but I think our values were so much the same,
and all we tried to do is get him play hard,
play on selfishly, defend reba on, share the ball, and
have fun. As time went on, I think we both
learned and evolved and became better.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Larry and Doug went from Carolina to Denver, with Larry
winning three ABA Coach of the Year awards. They went
to the last ABA Championship Series in nineteen seventy six,
but came up short against Doctor J and the Nets.
After taking UCLA to the Final Four in nineteen eighty,
he jumped back into pro ball with the New Jersey Nets.
(18:29):
In nineteen eighty one. Bill rafthree got his start calling
Nets games while Larry Brown was the coach.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
This is from players that that I got to know
nobody better the last two minutes of the game. He
knew what you were gonna run or what he had
or run.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
When Brown took over the Nets, they were coming off
a twenty four win season. They added all NBA shooting
guard Otis bird Song and drafted both Rookie of the
Year Buck Williams and brooked Zone Albert King. They improved
by twenty wins and went to the playoffs. Here's the
oldest bird Song on playing for Larry Brown.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
It was fun and it was tough. Larry was very demanding.
In fact, he made us stayed thirty minutes out the practice.
Every player had to stay thirty minutes outter practice to
work on a certain part of the game. And this
was after he killed us for the previous two hours.
I learned a lot from Larry. He was a perfectionist.
(19:30):
No one wanted to win as much as Larry. It
just devastated when you lost.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
And Buck Williams the greatest rebounder and second leading scorer
in That's history.
Speaker 8 (19:41):
Then think about Larry. He loved basketball. I mean he
would coach all the players off Larry. You would give
Larry just six or seven guys and they were probably
come into videocre players and he would coach them up.
Next thing you know, they're are very good players. I
mean he would come in practice every day and say,
you know, hum Diddy, Diddy, I got it, you need it.
I ain't know what the world has meant. I mean,
(20:01):
to this day, I've figured out what that meant. Pum
did it. I got it, you need it. And then
they would pull you aside out the coach and y'all, fella,
we're gonna need to get together today. We need to
work on your game. So keep you out in practice
and work on your game from pour two. But I
owe so much Hilaria because he prepared me for the
NBA exceptional coach, good dude, and old ise Learry.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
After winning the National Championship at Kansas in nineteen eighty eight,
Brown went back to the NBA with the Spurs. He
took the Sixes to the finals and was Coach of
the Year in two thousand and one, then made history
when he won his NBA title with the Pistons in
two thousand and four. In twenty twenty one, he received
the Chuck Daily Lifetime Achievement Award and honor Lenny Wilkins
(20:47):
had also gotten ten years earlier.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
Coach has always had a tremendous simpful in sum me
and I wanted to be like those guys, But I
always felt that the most important thing a coach could
do is to gain the players trust, to make sure
every day you come to practice, you know you're trying
to make them better. And I never took for granted
anything anybody knew. I always felt strongly about teaching them
(21:12):
the right way to play. You know. I was the
first one ever say that, to be honest with you,
And now everybody's saying it, play the right way. And
everybody asked me what it means when you say play
the right way, And I think basketball, when it's played
the right way, is the greatest team game ever. And
I always told our guys, your job every day is
to make your teammates better, because that's the way I
(21:35):
was taught. And then when you're not playing. Your job
is to try to improve every single day. So I
thought as a coach, that was my challenge to gain
their trust, to let them know I cared about them,
and to try every day to make sure that they
got the opportunity to be the best they could be. Now,
I always do it the right way. I look back,
(21:56):
and you know, there's some people I'm disappointed, you know
that I didn't do enough to help them. But for
the most thought, I don't think I ever stopped trying
to do the right thing. And that was basically because
the people that touched my life.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That's what coaches do. And even though we put the
focus on these four Hall of Famers this week, Brooklyn's
roster goes a lot deeper than that. Really, it's just
the start of the list. There's three more NBA Coaches
of the Year who came out of Brooklyn, Doug mow,
Frank Layden, and Mike Dunleavy. Then there's Billy Cunningham, who
(22:33):
has the second highest winning percentage of all time and
coach the Sixers to the NBA title in nineteen eighty three.
Jack McMahon coached the Cincinnati Royals and San Diego Rockets,
then was with Billy c as an assistant during his
entire run in Philly. Almond Hill won a title on
the bench with the Celtics in two thousand and eight.
(22:55):
Johnny Bach had a thirty year college career at for
them and pens Day then coach Chris Mullen as an
NBA rookie in Golden State. He won three titles as
an assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls, and Michael Jordan
called him one of the greatest basketball minds of all time.
What else would you expect when you're talking about Basketball's Borough.
(23:19):
Next week, on Basketball's Borough, Brooklyn gets a team of
its own, half a century after the Dodgers departed. The
Nets and Barclay Center arrive at the intersection of Flatbush
in Atlantic
Host
Meechy Darko
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