LISTEN: Basketball legend Lenny Wilkens passed away on Sunday at the age of 88. Wilkens coached the Americans to gold at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996 and the Atlanta Hawks for much of the 1990s. GPB's Peter Biello and Jeff Hullinger speak on how he will be remembered in Georgia.
Basketball legend Lenny Wilkens passed away on Sunday at the age of 88.
Wilkens coached the Americans to gold at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996. He also coached Atlanta Hawks for much of the 1990s and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame three times.
For more on how he will be remembered in Georgia, we turn to GPB's Jeff Hullinger.
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**Jeff Hullinger:** It is a pleasure. Lenny Wilkens had a storied career, one of the great careers, not only in the history of the National Basketball Association, but certainly in American sport. One of the great, great, amazing careers of the 20th century, not only for his accomplishment as a player, as a coach, but also for his longevity and his relevance to basketball. It's very hard to stay relevant in professional sports or collegiate sports or any form of American pop culture and Lenny Wilkens was able to do that for decades.
**Peter Biello:** Well, what do you think made him such a good coach?
**Jeff Hullinger:** You know, great players generally are not very patient and they don't make very good head coaches. You know, whether — you know, Larry Bird was an okay head coach, I suppose, and Bill Russell did a good job, too. But for the most part, great player do not make great coaches. Lenny Wilkens was a great, great, player and a great defensive player who found himself on the all, you know, 50-year NBA team, I think in 1996 and the all-75-year team. Lenny Wilkens was famous not for his ability to light up the box scores, but he was a defensive player. The best of his generation. He was a marvel as far as leadership, as far as defense, and to be a great defensive player you have to be patient and you have focus on those — those small things that equate to things in basketball.
**Peter Biello:** Well, he won gold at the Olympics. What can you tell us about how he managed to pull that off?
**Jeff Hullinger:** Well, he had great players. Look, come on. I mean, I always look at that and go, "OK, great." You know, he also was part of the Dream Team as an assistant coach. But, you know, you put together Michael Jordan and Magic and Bird and all those guys, Isaiah Thomas, of that era. I mean, Serbia and Italy and Spain are going to have a very hard time keeping up. And that's that's sort of the defining element of that. I mean, we're overwhelmed in the Olympics.
**Peter Biello:** What about the trade of Dominique Wilkins while Lenny Wilkens, no relation, was head coach of the Hawks? I mean, that seems to have followed him throughout his career afterwards.
**Jeff Hullinger:** Yeah, that's been something that's always hung over his head, Peter, here in Atlanta. And look, in Lenny Wilkens' first year here, they win 57 games and Dominique was coming toward the end of his career. And it was a trade that looking back on it, probably the Hawks should not have made but I've never believed it to be as cataclysmic of a trade as many will have you believe. You know, at that point in his career, Wilkins, Dominique, and Danny Manning were not significantly different. Manning obviously didn't want to be here. It didn't work out. But — but 'Nique was near the end of his career. So it's not like you were getting rid of Dominique in 1988 or '89. By the time they were, they were constituting this deal, you know, things had really changed, you know, that his skills had begun to erode.
**Peter Biello:** And what about his legacy outside basketball?
**Jeff Hullinger:** He spoke to teams about the complexity of race. He had been touched by race, like many African American men and women. His father was African American who died when he was 5, and his mother was an Irish American woman. And he found himself, you know, navigating America, and it was a great challenge, and it something that he spoke eloquently about. He was an extraordinary man. He was — he was just, he was amazing. He was really an impactful man in terms of community above and beyond basketball. I mean, look, here's a guy who grew up in Brooklyn, right? And he didn't seem to have any athletic skill to begin his life. And he quit to become — working at a grocery store in Brooklyn, and he was delivering groceries to the immortal Jackie Robinson. So it's interesting how these great human beings were able to essentially connect in a very small place in Brooklyn. And I think it illustrates the life and times of Lenny Wilkens. He was a very devout Catholic, you know. We always heard about him going to mass off Peachtree at the cathedral, lived at Park Place right across the street on Peachtree Street as well. You know, he was an unforgettable figure. He truly was.
**Peter Biello:** Well, GPB's Jeff Hullinger, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on him.
**Jeff Hullinger:** My pleasure.