Unguarded

by Lenny Wilkens

  Shelton learned a lot from playing with Silas. In many ways, he was a young Paul Silas, a burly forward who didn’t feel a need to shoot a lot. He could really defend and rebound. When we had Silas and Shelton on the court together, no team could muscle us. That’s why I was amused later in my coaching career when I had a more skilled, finesse team in Cleveland with the likes of Mark Price, Larry Nance, Brad Daugherty, and John Williams, and some critics claimed that having a “soft team” was a reflection of my personality. No, it was due to the kind of players that I had to work with. Just as this team in Seattle was a rough, physical group thanks to Silas, Shelton, and Dennis Johnson.

  John Johnson is another guy who could be ornery on the court. He would work himself into such a state before games that he absolutely despised the player he was to defend that night. He just got mad at the guy, period. But he kept that rage under control. And on offense, J.J. was unselfish. He was a small forward with the heart of a point guard, because he loved to pass, to find the open man, and to get us settled into our regular offense when the fast break wasn’t available. He was the most underrated player on the team.

  Sikma was very consistent. Almost every night, you could put 17 points and 10 rebounds next to his name. He had that strange step-back move that made him hard to guard. That move also helped him draw fouls, and he was an 80 percent shooter at the free throw line. He was a quiet guy who just came and did his job, no muss, no fuss.

  Brown was the life of our party, coming off the bench and launching those jump shots from another area code. He was the best sixth man in the league. He brought our crowd to its feet. He never hesitated to shoot. He could miss 10 in a row and still be absolutely, positively convinced that the 11th shot would go in. I loved the energy he brought into the game every time he took off his warmups and headed to the scorer’s table.

  We faced Washington again in the Finals, and I knew we’d win this time. I just knew it. Our team was, to quote Sports Illustrated, “a superb club with relentless defense, a running, guard-oriented offense and backcourt talent unequaled in the NBA…. Unlike other so-called ’defensive’ teams, the Sonics don’t slow down the game to a frustrating crawl [but stop opponents] by textbook, body-hugging defense.”

  Our team had its own blend of a balanced attack. That season, Brown was the best outside shooter in the NBA. Dennis Johnson may have been the best all-around guard. Remember, this was the year before Magic Johnson came into the NBA, and long before Michael Jordan; D.J. not only could score 20 points, but he could take the top scorer on the other team and hold him under 10. Gus Williams was mercurial, perhaps the quickest guard in the league. No forward passed the ball better than John Johnson. Sikma had developed into a very good center, while Silas and Shelton were a pair of bearlike forwards who guarded the basket as if it were their den. Strong, quick, determined, and explosive. Those were the Sonics in the 1979 playoffs, as Washington could attest.

  We lost the first game, then won the next four. Only once did the Bullets score more than 100 points against us. Gus Williams averaged 28 points in the series, while Dennis Johnson averaged 25 and “did everything but change the light bulbs in the 24-second clock,” according to Sports Illustrated. D.J. was named the MVP of the Finals. Shelton and Silas combined to hold Elvin Hayes, Washington’s star forward, to 39 percent shooting and a grand total of only 14 points in the fourth quarters of the five games.

  It’s a shame that the country really didn’t get a chance to see all the games. Some of them were tape-delayed and shown after the 11:00 P.M. news in some markets. After the first game, which was on May 20, we had to sit for four more days before playing Game Two on May 24. Why the delay? Because CBS was showing Blind Ambition, the miniseries based on the book by Watergate figure John Dean. That just shows where the NBA was in the pecking order of the TV networks in 1979.

  In Seattle, it was a different story. Our fans were wildly in love with us. Over twenty thousand of them were waiting for us at the airport when we came home from Washington, D.C. There were parades and parties and we were the toast of the town. The champagne seemed to flow for days. I can still see the parade, with over 250,000 people lining the streets of downtown Seattle. I still remember the feeling I had during the Finals, where I never worried about us losing. Even after we were beaten in the first game, I was confident that we’d win. This was our year. We were the right team in the right place at the right time.

  After the season, I again wasn’t voted NBA Coach of the Year. This time, the award went to Cotton Fitzsimmons, who had coached Kansas City into the playoffs. But CBS gave me a “Coach of the Year” award, which I believe embarrassed the NBA; the network never gave another Coach of the Year award after that. The Congressional Black Congress also gave me a special Coach of the Year award, and had an incredible presentation for me with a lot of U.S. senators and representatives there. They thought it was unfair that I was slighted by the NBA for the award. I wasn’t thrilled either, but I was starting to get used to it.

  The season we won the title, I was forty years old. I was proud of our team and what we’d accomplished, but I was in no danger of letting my ego run away with me. I had too many people in my life who warned me about fame being fleeting. I had stayed in contact with Father Mannion, calling him several times a year, visiting when I was in New York. He kept me spiritually grounded and also gave me great confidence because he believed in me. Both my wife and Father Mannion were quite capable of telling me if I was becoming too full of myself.

  Besides, I had been in the NBA for nineteen years when I got my first championship; I knew how hard it was to win, and I knew that I was very fortunate as a coach to have this group of players, and that they had stayed relatively healthy, especially in the playoffs. What I didn’t know was how hard it would be to try to win the next season.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THEY DON’T TELL YOU what happens after you win a championship.

  The champagne bubbles hadn’t even gone flat before the problems started: Some guys retired. A couple got hung up on money. A few lost their focus and dedication. Everyone got a year older, and some of our players just didn’t have any mileage left in their legs.

  For our team to win the title, virtually everything had to go right. Each player had to be committed to his role, to be willing to put the team first. Our guys did that and it paid off. So I was surprised when some of them weren’t willing to do it again the next season. To a coach, the game plan is obvious: Let’s just do everything the same way, and we’ll win again. This is the formula. We found the secret. Let’s not change it.

  But winning a title inevitably shakes things up—especially in the modern era of pro sports, where the money is so big, the distractions so overpowering, and the feelings of some of the athletes so delicate.

  Our team was hit with what I call “Championship Fallout.” Pat Riley called it “The Disease of Me.” No matter the label, the point is that winning suddenly isn’t enough. The players hug each other, hold up the championship trophy together, share the champagne—and suddenly ask, “Where’s mine?”

  “Mine” could be more money, more playing time, more public recognition. All of those things can be like worms eating away at the heart of a team, especially a team like ours that wasn’t carried by a superstar. The teams that became NBA dynasties all had at least one great player who was the constant, who set the tone, demanded respect from the other players, and was willing to serve as a policeman in the dressing room. In Boston, the great player was Bill Russell. Later, it was Larry Bird. In Los Angeles, it was Magic Johnson. In Chicago, Michael Jordan. When Detroit won their back-to-back titles, the great player was Isiah Thomas.

  Those guys were obsessed with winning. To them, winning meant more than money, more than fame, more than life itself. They not only drove themselves, they powered the entire team. They were like Supermen, and their teammates knew they had to grab on to that cape or they’d be left behind.

  We didn’t have that player
. When I took over the Sonics, they’d never had a Rookie of the Year, an MVP, a scoring champion, or a Coach of the Year. When we won the title, the whole was far greater than the collection of the parts. In our title season, we had no one in the top ten in scoring. Sikma was fifth in rebounding, Fred Brown third in free throw percentage; those were our only players among the league leaders. Our top scorer was Gus Williams at 18.1, but we had seven players scoring at least 11 points per game. We were a true share-the-ball, share-the-wealth team.

  Dennis Johnson was the MVP of the Finals, deservedly so. Dennis had a great, great series, especially on the defensive end. He led both teams with 11 blocked shots, an amazing feat for a guard. During the entire playoffs, he averaged 20 points and came up with 6.1 rebounds per game—from the guard position! In that 1978-79 season, Dennis made his first All-Star team. When we won the title, he was twenty-five years old, a tough-as-rusty-nails six-foot-four, two-hundred-pounder. It was the kind of season that Dennis had later in his career with the Boston Celtics, a season in which Larry Bird was inspired to say, “Dennis Johnson is the best guy I’ve ever played with.”

  Winning the championship and the MVP award in the Finals meant a lot to Dennis. It was a sign of respect to a player who craved it desperately. He was one of sixteen children from Compton, California. His father was a cement mason, his mother a social worker. Because there were so many kids, they often spent time at a grandmother’s house. Dennis said he was blessed to have two parents at home, even if they weren’t wealthy.

  The amazing part of Dennis’s story is his basketball career. He was cut from the teams in seventh and eighth grade. When he was a senior in high school, he made the team but sat on the bench. He was only five-foot-nine.

  He graduated from high school and went to work, first as a stockboy at a liquor store, then driving a forklift in a warehouse. But the year after high school, he grew to six-foot-three.

  Suddenly, basketball became a much easier game for him. He was quick, tall, and strong, especially for a guard. He was spotted in a pickup game by Jim White, who was the coach at Harbor Junior College. Dennis struggled with the discipline of organized basketball; according to his old coach, he was nearly kicked off the team on three different occasions, mostly because he would miss practice and not call in to explain. But in his sophomore season, Dennis averaged 20 points and a stunning 13 rebounds per game as Harbor won the California Junior College title. That earned him a scholarship to Pepperdine, where coach Gary Colson recruited him after seeing Dennis score 30 points, grab 15 rebounds, and out-jump a seven-foot-two center for a jump ball in a playoff game. Back then, his nickname was “Airplane,” and for good reason.

  Pepperdine was 22-6 in Dennis’s first year. He decided to enter the NBA draft early, and Bill Russell picked him in the second round of the 1976 draft. He signed for a bonus of $27,500, which was very small—and he’d considered himself underpaid ever since.

  Dennis was one of our lower-paid players during the championship season. That’s because he wasn’t a high draft pick, so he didn’t command a big contract out of college. I admit that based on his performance, Dennis was underpaid. Sports Illustrated called him the “best all-around guard to come into the NBA since Jerry West.” But he also had signed a long-term contract, and ownership did not want to renegotiate the deal. Sam Schulman was one of those guys who believed that since you signed your contract of your own free will, it was your obligation to live up to it. Sam thought, “If Dennis got hurt and couldn’t play any more, I still had to pay him. That was my risk when I signed him to a long-term deal. Dennis took the risk that he might end up a better player and be worth more than he was being paid.”

  All of that is good business sense, but this went from business to personal with Dennis. He became angry, sullen, withdrawn from the rest of the team. He thought the front office had taken advantage of him. I talked to Dennis. I listened to Dennis. I knew what the problem was and I was sympathetic, but I didn’t write the checks. And Dennis was unable to separate his anger toward ownership from his feelings toward the rest of the team.

  Sometimes, he was obsessive about not making as much as certain other players. He’d see a guy whom he considered half as good as he was, yet who was making twice as much—this would eat up Dennis inside, wreck his morale. And Dennis had the misfortune to have as a teammate the brilliant but one-dimensional Fred Brown.

  The Seattle fans loved Downtown Fred Brown. He was fun to watch, because when Fred Brown was hot, few shooting guards could compare to him. He also played the game with a smile, with pure joy, and the fans related to that. Meanwhile, Dennis played with a controlled rage. He scowled. He gritted his teeth. He played as if someone were trying to take away his last meal. The fans respected Dennis for his effort, but they didn’t warm to him as they did to Fred Brown.

  And that bothered Dennis, who knew he was a better all-around player than Brown, but thought the fans preferred Brown. The lack of appreciation from the fans then became tied in Dennis’s mind to the front office’s refusal to give him a new contract. Gus Williams was also making twice as much as his backcourt mate, and that gnawed away at Dennis, because he considered himself to be the best player on the team. When a player is unhappy, it’s easy for him to start playing for himself. He thinks, “Well, the team won’t take care of me, so I better take care of me.” Furthermore, his griping tells the other players that selfishness is creeping into his mind-set. The pure magic of the game is five guys playing as one, five players fitting together like five fingers of one hand. For the hand to work right, all the fingers have to be operating for the same purpose.

  There was a game where Paul Silas thought Dennis was holding the ball too long, that he was forcing shots instead of passing to open teammates. He said something to Dennis, and Dennis snapped back at Silas. This happened in the middle of the game. In the past, when Silas or another veteran said something, it was taken the right way—Silas just wanted what was best for the team and was not trying to attack Dennis personally. But Dennis was taking everything personally.

  As a coach, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Dennis wanted more money. The owner wouldn’t give him more money. Dennis wanted more attention from the fans, but the fans liked Fred Brown best. Intellectually, Dennis didn’t blame me or his team-mates for this, but emotionally, he was wounded and couldn’t stop the anger from gushing to the surface. Players are the first to know when a teammate is no longer on the same page with them. And it’s easy for them to say, “Screw it; if that guy is going to shoot all the time, so am I.”

  As a coach, you try to head that off the best you can—and if the problem is just one guy, you stand a chance.

  But there was also Lonnie Shelton.

  All of the Sonic players were made to feel as if they owned Seattle after we won the title. They were invited to restaurants, parties, and bars. They never had to pay for anything. Men, women, everyone wanted to get close to them. Shelton’s lifestyle changed. He got caught up in the nightlife. He put on weight. He lost some of the agility that made him such an impressive inside force on both ends of the floor. He also lost some of his desire. He just wasn’t the same guy.

  Dick Snyder, who came off the bench for us and could really make jump shots, decided to retire. So did Dennis Awtrey, who was very effective for us in spot duty guarding great centers such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Paul Silas came back, but he was thirty-six and just not the same player. Age was taking its toll. The same was true of John Johnson, who was thirty-two and seemed to be battling one minor injury after another. He played, but he was hurting. As if that wasn’t enough, John Johnson injured his Achilles tendon. So it wasn’t just one thing that brought us down, it was a lot of things.

  But we still won 56 games, which was a franchise record. It was four more victories than our title season the year before. But suddenly it wasn’t as much fun. We won more but enjoyed it less because of all the internal problems: Every day, I was reminded how fragile it was, how just
the slightest little thing could throw an entire team off course. Fred Brown told the truth in a Sports Illustrated article that season when he said, “We’re not as hungry. Last year, we were building a mountain, and when you’re working that hard, you can’t help but be hungry. This season has been different.”

  It’s the old story of how much harder it is to stay on top than to get there. When we tried to repeat in 1980, no NBA team had done it since Bill Russell’s Celtics of 1968-69. In the previous two years, we’d played defense as well as any NBA team ever had. By that, I mean all the guys worked together and trusted each other on the court. That was why we became champions, even without having a shot blocker in the middle. But it’s hard for a team to do that after a title. The temptation is for the players to think they can relax during the season and just turn up the defensive intensity in the playoffs. But that doesn’t work. Sometimes a team gets better in time for the playoffs, but that only happens when you’re coming together for the first time, when you’ve been playing hard all along and then you suddenly understand how to play effectively, too. You can’t turn the effort on and off. A coach can talk about this, can stress the need to play with the same urgency every night, but in the end, the players have to do it. And we didn’t.

  Despite all this, we still could have repeated as NBA champions, except for one thing—Magic Johnson.

  He joined the Lakers as a rookie that year, and his leadership changed that team—and the entire Western Conference. He took a Laker team that had won 47 games without him, and they jumped to 60 wins with Magic as a rookie. We knew we’d have to get past the Lakers to return to the Finals.

  We beat Portland in the first round of the playoffs. Then we won a tough seven-game series against Milwaukee. Then something crazy happened: We had the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, but we lost our home court again. For some reason, they booked the circus or something at the Seattle Coliseum. How dumb was that? Two years before, it was a surprise when we went to the NBA Finals, so it was almost understandable. But this time? When we were defending champions? How does that happen? With our regular home court, I still don’t know if we could have beaten the Lakers that year. But to not even have it? It was ridiculous. These are the kinds of things that really bother players, because they wonder what the front office is doing: Are they paying attention, doing everything they can to help us win? It’s a distraction no team needs, especially after the rather rocky season we’d just endured. Anyway, our home games were moved to the University of Washington’s court, and we lost the edge that comes from playing in a place that feels like your backyard.