First of all, I have to tell you that last night, I was fortunate enough to attend a charity dinner where the guest of honor was the only man to give the city of Seattle a championship, Lenny Wilkens. The deal was that Diane’s boss is big into charities with Children’s Hospital in Seattle, and donates a lot of time – and money – to the cause. Last year he bid on and ultimately won a charity auction which was to have Lenny Wilkens come to his house for a fully-catered sushi dinner for 14 people. We were lucky enough to attend the dinner, and WOW what a dinner. I like sushi normally, but this stuff was out of this world. The head chef and founder of “Sushi man”, a man named Bobby, was there personally to cater it and it was something else.
Anyway, I digress. We walked in and immediately Lenny came up and introduced himself. Let me first say, from the moment you meet him, you understand. The man just oozes class. He also has what one could say is the “athlete’s glow”. You know what I mean by that? When you see a current or former pro athlete out in the public, and they seem to have something about them that you can’t quite put your finger on, other than some sort of glow? It’s weird. But Lenny has it. He was very relaxed, engaging, funny, you name it. It was that kind of atmosphere, too, in an unreal home overlooking Lake Washington in Kirkland on one of those fantastic, 75-degree evenings that are postcard nights, nights you don’t forget.
First we chatted breifly about the charity. If you weren’t aware, he’s really big with what’s called the Odessa Brown clinic in south Seattle. He has helped out since it opened in the 70’s. The clinic is specifically for underprivlidged children where families cannot afford decent health care. And, beyond that, they actually treat the children with DIGNITY and RESPECT, something that Lenny himself said you can’t put a price on. Lenny then went on to say how important this charity was to him because he was in these kid’s shoes when he was a youngster growing up in Brooklyn. Lenny’s father died when he was 5 years old, leaving him to be cared for by his mother, along with his 4 other siblings. Times were VERY tough, and the worst thing of all was that it wasn’t always just having food on the table or clothes to wear, they were always ok there. It was the struggle to find acceptable health care. Of course it was a different time back then, when racial segregation was still strong in the US and he said several times, their entire family would be turned away just because they were african-american. And even when they were able to get care, they were not exactly welcomed with open arms or treated well. He always said that if he’s ever in position to help, he’s going to do something about this and make sure that other families don’t have to deal with what he had to deal with. It was a very interesting and eye-opening conversation, as it made me realize how fortunate we are to have our kids fully covered by medical insurance and basically have access to some great health care, yet of course, it’s something that I know I’ve taken for granted.
So, that was about it for the initial conversation, and then dinner was served. After we all ate dinner and had some more saki post-meal, I saw Lenny finishing a conversation with someone, and I said “this is it, now or never” so I made my move. I said to him “so, you getting ready for the season?” and that started it. For the next 10 minutes, we talked pure hoops, and it was amazing. Now being that it was a small charity function, I didn’t want to attack him with NBA questions, so I somewhat held back. You know, I didn’t want to be “that guy” that just hammers him and he ends up rolling his eyes! But still, I came at him with questions and showed that I knew a little something about the Sonics and NBA in general. Here’s some things he had to say that might be of interest:
1) He’s still scratching his head over the selection of Sene in the first round. He thought immediately they should have traded down in a “terrible” draft as he put it, and tried to secure a #1 for the 2007 draft, which he has already heard from scouts that it could be one of the best drafts in recent memory. But he also said “the pick is really only worth what someone else will give you”, just like one man’s junk is another’s treasure, and he said that from what he knew, they weren’t overwhelmed with big offers. I said “yeah, but the theory is that either Swift or Petro won’t be on the team in another two years, and this kid is raw but has tremendous upside, long arms, etc” and he said “yeah, but is drafting a raw project who’s barely played and scored 3 points a game in Europe last year worth the #10 pick?” I just kind of shrugged at that. The funniest part was Diane piped up and said “3 points a game?? I could do that!” At which he laughed pretty hard, looked at her and said “you know, you probably could!” Priceless.
2) He’s looking forward to being the color guy on the FSN broadcasts. He’s going to do 72 games with Kevin Calabro, and he said that’s a thrill in itself. He said Calabro is just a warm human being, as you can probably imagine, and that his knowledge of the game is among the best in the NBA in regards to play-by-play voices. He can talk x’s and 0’s with any coach in the league and more than hold his own. Today’s play-by-play guys aren’t too knowledgable, they just look, act and talk the part. I’d be surprised how little some of them actually know, he said.
3) He said one of the hard parts about the FSN job is replacing Craig Ehlo. Ehlo loved doing the job, but told Lenny several times that it’s 100 times harder than it looks, and that he knew deep down he wasn’t very good at it. Ehlo still lives in Spokane, actually, don’t know if you were aware of that (I wasn’t). He said that Ehlo is one of his most favorite players who ever played for him in his entire career. Just a pure class act and handled himself so well, and was a fantastic presence in the locker room. He of course had him back in Cleveland and also Atlanta. He said a lot of times, he was the true glue that held those Cleveland teams back in the 80’s together. We laughed about the new Gatorade commercial that shows Jordan actually missing vs. Cleveland, and how the guy playing Ehlo in that clip celebrates instead of collapsing on the floor in real life. He sighed and said “if ONLY he missed.” Pretty funny moment. He said that still to this day kills him, because he thought that Cleveland team had a real chance at a title during their run with Price and Daugherty. What I had forgot about was that Ehlo actually hit the shot the possession before to give the Cavs the lead with 3 seconds left! So it was a double-killer on him. Anyway, the other part to Ehlo is that his wife wants him home with the kids and everything, so he’s looking forward to being an at-home father. Quick side-note, Ehlo’s wife was actually a student-teacher when I was in 7th grade and she taught my english class. I remember him showing up at school once up from Pullman to see her, and he was just a rock star, the whole school literally fainted!
4) He’s concerned about Wilcox and thinks they are in a very dangerous spot with him. He’s like everyone else, in that you just don’t know what you’ve got with him. Is he the guy that looks like a possible double-double every night as he looked the last couple of months of the season? Or is he the up-and-down guy he showed the first 3 years of his career? What about a 1-year deal where he’s disappointed about not getting a bigger deal? It’s dangerous.
5) He’s heard good things about Gelabale. Explosive athlete and a lot of potential. Could be ideal backup to Ray or even Rashard at the 3, it remains to be seen. But he still has to click in the exhibition season and really show something. Basically Sund is betting on him to come through based on what they did in the draft. Likes Denham Brown, too, big-time shooting ability.
6) Finally, he’s got some high expectations for this year, certainly expecting a playoff spot. He likes Bob Hill and thinks that for this specific group of players, they need someone who will kick their behinds (Nate, Bob Hill) instead of rolling the ball rack out to center court and kicking back with a mai-tai (Bob Weiss). He liked Weiss, and he said that like a lot of NBA teams, the match has to be right or else it’ll fail. I asked him about what it’s going to be like in regards to the difference between being in the studio and being the color guy, and he said that it’ll be easier for him because there isn’t a script or a shot sheet of highlight packages to break down. It’s easier because it’s quicker, it’s happening right in front of you and you just break down what you just saw. He said doing the highlights in the studio is actually harder because you rehearse it on the spot, and you can think too much about what to say and you end up stumbling over your words. It’s a lot harder than you might think.
The last thing? He PROMISED me that he will be hard on the Sonics and he will criticize them! He said it a couple of times, “I’m employed by FSN, not the Sonics, so I will tell the truth on the air!”
That was about it in regards to hoops. I wanted to ask him about many other things, like what will they do with Rashard, why don’t they play defense and why is it that some NBA teams are great at it, yet others are horrible? Is it all coaching, effort, desire, what is it?? But I didn’t get the chance.
He talked at length about how much he loves the pacific NW, not just the beauty of the region and all the activities you can do, or the climate, but the people are very philanthropic here moreso than a lot of other areas in the country, and that’s always been the case since the 1970’s. Even more now though, as wealth has risen up here so has the charity activity and he’s always respected that. The one other place he though about was settling in the New England area, as he played at Providence, but he said that the winters were far too harsh compared to Seattle! He said he’ll take 40 degress and a little drizzle vs. ZERO degrees and snow for 4+ months in a heartbeat! 🙂
That’s about everything I can remember. Really an amazing guy with what you can tell, a heart of gold in regards to children. Very friendly and approachable, and I hope to meet him again one day.
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