Lenny Wilkens Takes All-Time Victory Record.

Lenny Wilkens Takes All-Time Victory Record. It took 29 years for a coach to break the National Basketball Association (NBA) record of 938 regular-season victories set by Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach in 1966, but Lenny Wilkens coached the Atlanta Hawks to his 939th career victory in 1995. This report recounts the games leading up to Wilkens's record-breaking win. . The Winningest Coach As quietly as Lenny Wilkens became a nine-time All-Star guard and eventual member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, he crept up on Arnold "Red" Auerbach's all-time record for coaching victories. No tirades. No gimmicks. No fashion consultants. The keys to Wilkens's ability to stay out of the headlines were also the keys to his ability to stay in a pressurepacked job: humility, accountability, stability, and, probably above all, brains, brains, brains. Hardly the stuff of legend, particularly in a sport in which substance is sometimes less important than style. The 1994-1995 season opened with Wilkens needing 13 wins to surpass the legendary Auerbach, who had coached the Boston Celtics to nine National Basketball Association (NBA) titles from 1950 to 1966. It was Wilkens's second season in Atlanta and his 22nd as a head coach. Since steering the Seattle SuperSonics to the league championship in 1979--in his third season as a full-time coach--Wilkens waged a deliberate if undramatic assault on Auerbach's standard. He didn't return to the NBA finals. He didn't coach a team in a major television market. And he didn't earn a coach of the year award until 1994. It wasn't until 1989, in fact, that Wilkens began to be recognized as one of the NBA's all-time great tacticians. Within the span of three seasons, 1986-1987 to 19881989, Wilkens transformed the once-lowly Cleveland Cavaliers into a contender. The team's 28-game turnaround in that period was among the most noteworthy in league annals. Wilkens officially entered the pantheon of great coaches on March 15, 1992, when he became the fifth coach in NBA history to win at least 800 regular-season games. He joined Auerbach, Bill Fitch, Dick Motta, and Jack Ramsay. During the following season, 1992-1993, Wilkens jumped from number five to number two on the all-time wins ledger. His 869 victories left him 69 shy of Auerbach's mark. In 1993 Wilkens took over an Atlanta Hawks club that was long on selfishness and short on discipline. Sportswriters gave the team little chance of placing near the top of the Central Division. Instituting a ball-hawking defense and pass-oriented offense, Wilkens stunned the league by delivering the Hawks' first division title since 1987. Their 57 wins tied a franchise record and earned Wilkens his first NBA Coach of the Year award. Atlanta advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in six seasons. Midway through that season, against the Orlando Magic on February 2, 1994, Wilkens became the second NBA coach to reach the 900-win plateau. By season's end he had participated, as a player or a coach, in more games than anyone in league history--2,975. As the following season unfolded, Wilkens's near-record seemed to distract his team. The club got off to a sluggish start, winning just 11 of its first 27 contests. It wasn't until late December that Wilkens registered his record-tying 938th victory, in an overtime triumph over the San Antonio Spurs. Breaking the record proved equally problematic. On December 30 the Hawks lost a 2-point decision against the Cavaliers at Cleveland's Gund Arena. A big box of baseball caps emblazoned with the number "939" sat unopened. Security guards wound up eating a huge cake that had been ordered. Although Wilkens was denied the record at his old stomping grounds, he was honored in a column by Bill Livingston of Cleveland's Plain Dealer: "Lenny Wilkens heightened your appreciation of basketball. He could be like a brilliant professor, suddenly making a text come alive with all its subtleties and hidden meanings. Wilkens showed us that loyalty to one's work is necessary, that it never stops, and that only when such a commitment is made can something good come out of it. There are worse lessons to learn from a public figure." Four days later Wilkens was denied again when the Hawks lost to the Portland Trail Blazers by 5 points before a relatively small crowd of 8,477 at the Omni. Atlanta's rally from a 17-point deficit in the third quarter fell just short. A cake--the second one--remained in its box. The next day it was the New York Knicks who kept Wilkens in limbo, muscling their way to a 9-point win at Madison Square Garden. The cake from the Portland game, flown in that morning, went stale. "This is the hardest 13 games I've ever had to win," said Wilkens, who was asked whether his quest had begun to weigh heavily around his neck. "No, [the record] would never be an albatross. Believe me, it's too prestigious to be an albatross." A third cake was ordered just before the Hawks' home game against the Washington Bullets on Friday, January 6. Victory seemed certain. With top Washington scorers Rex Chapman, Don McLean, and Chris Webber nursing injuries, the Bullets had dropped 12 of their previous 13 outings. Plus, guard Craig Ehlo guaranteed a win. "We've got to get it done for Lenny and for ourselves," he said. "We can't drift like this. [The record] follows us everywhere." Wilkens and the Hawks eased to a 112-90 victory, upping Atlanta's season mark to 13-19. As the final seconds ticked away, referee Jake O'Donnell remarked to Wilkens, "Red didn't coach as many bad teams as you did." (Wilkens later relayed the line to the crowd, to which good-humored center Jon Koncak responded, "I don't think he was talking about us.") After directing his Atlanta Hawks to his record-breaking 939th career victory on January 6, 1995, Wilkens relaxed long enough to light up a Cuban cigar in front of 12,000 fans at Atlanta's Omni Arena in a tribute to the stogie-chomping Auerbach. "Red is a legend, so this is a huge achievement," Wilkens told the crowd. "When I started coaching, all of us looked at Red and thought his record was something that would stand forever. The satisfaction is that only one person can be number one at the time. Only one guy can be at the top. It's nice to be there, for however long. I got there, and no one can take that from me." Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.