Book description
For forty years, he has been the Quiet Man of the NBA. As a rookie, he
was overshadowed by two pretty fair guards who entered the league
at the same time: Jerry West and Oscar Robertson. As a veteran, he
was -- both figuratively and literally -- a coach on the floor, but he
had the misfortune to play for several struggling teams. As a general
manager, he won a championship and made back-to-back Finals
appearances -- but he did it without superstars, a year before Magic
Johnson and Larry Bird revitalized the league. And as a coach, he has
won more games than anyone in NBA history -- but spent his best years
locked in the same division as Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls.
Basketball connoisseurs have long appreciated the style and
intelligence with which Lenny Wilkens played and the unflappability
and class he's brought to coaching. The respect he has earned resulted
in his joining the legendary John Wooden as the only men to be
inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame twice -- first as a
player, and then as a coach.
Now, in Unguarded, Lenny Wilkens steps out from behind his
placid demeanor to speak plainly and unequivocally on the enormous
social and athletic changes he's seen in his career.
Wilkens sounds off about the challenges he had to overcome in the
course of his journey: the racism that left him off the 1960 Olympic
basketball team and kept him from being chosen as head coach of the
first Dream Team; the fatal miscalculation that kept his Cleveland
Cavaliers from getting past Michael Jordan to the NBA Finals; the
painful, frustrating task of coaching a troubled and troublesome J. R.
Rider, a player who contributed to his departure from Atlanta. And he
credits those who went out of their way to help him: the priests and
nuns who taught him the value of discipline and reinforced his faith;
the coaches who pushed him to develop his talents to the fullest; the
selfless players such as John Johnson, Hot Rod Williams, Larry Nance,
Steve Smith, and many others who sacrificed individual glory for the
good of their teams; his mother, Henrietta, and his wife, Marilyn, who
stood beside him in many trying times.
Unguarded reveals the Lenny Wilkens we have never seen
before, the tough, strong, thoughtful, and analytical man who has
spent a life in basketball making his teammates and players better
than they knew they could be. Thought-provoking, candid, always
honest, Wilkens shares all the secrets he's learned in his four
decades surviving in the NBA storm.
Terry Pluto is an award-winning sportswriter who
writes primarily for The Plain Dealer. He was a sportswriter
for the Akron Beacon Journal from 1985-2007. He has twice been
nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and twice been honored by the
Associated Press Sports Editors as the nation's top sports columnist
for medium-sized newspapers. He is an eight-time winner of the Ohio
Sports Writer of the Year award and has received more than fifty state
and local writing awards. He is the author of twenty-one books,
including The Curse of Rocky Colavito, Unguarded, and
Loose Balls. He lives in Akron, Ohio.
