Hello, Hello, Lenny Wilkins. You out there.
I'm here, Kenny, I'm here. I'm hearing you.
Apologies and apologies as we start with Lenny Wilkins. We're only fifty six months behind the schedule of time, and so we appreciate your patience.
You know. Usually it's me. I'm not even blaming you. I'm just blaming.
Society for the problems we have, and it's making me as we reflect on your amazing life and career.
I kind of missed the old days, man.
I grew up south of Seattle and we had one phone with a cord. We had one TV that didn't even always work. My grandma would have to slap it to watch your programs. We have sonics, we had the newspaper. We were doing just fine.
You know.
Yeah, all this technology, all right, and that does change everything.
Hey, before we talk about all the things I want to talk about with regard to basketball, primarily obviously, and all the other good works you've done, congratulations are in order. Am I correct? Sixty years of marriage?
Did that just? Oh?
That's correct, that's correct, Kenny. Yeah, yeah, it's My wife says it's because I was on the road half of the time. But yeah, sixty years.
That's Maryland, right, yes, and that was in July, I believe. So, you know, instead of basketball, how about just life advice? How did you pull that off for sixty years? Not a lot of people have that accomplishment.
No, no, But you know, one of the most important things is communication, and it's the same and just about everything you do, and unication is so important. You've got to talk to one another. You got to know what we're thinking, you know, and how we make each other happy stuff like that. And we've been blessed with three wonderful children. Uh they turned out to be wonderful people. And I give her all the credit for that.
Uh.
So you know it's you know you and then you got to be active in something that she supports, and she supports me doing charitable things, being involved in the community, you know, stuff like that.
Yeah, so you were working a team. You were a team. Still are a team, Yes, still are a team.
Were there times this might be a better question for her, actually, but you moved around a bit, you know. You you played in a bunch of places, you coached in a bunch of places, and it was like, were there times that the call came in, you like, you know, this is the right deal for you, right, you know, you know professionally you should take this job or you should
go to that team. But then you had to secondarily break it to her or was it always with her and she would endorse it, then you'd decided.
Well, I don't think always. But once I started, she batted me. But give you for an instance, when I first got traded to Seattle and I came out here and I was here for one year, and then the general manager they fired the coach, and they talked to me about being a playing a player coach, and I told the general manager, I said, you must be crazy, you know. But then I said, let me think about it,
you know. So I went home and I talked to my wife and I mentioned to her that they want me to be a player coach and I think I'll do it. And she said, you must be stupid of crazy, And she says, I know you're not stupid. You know, you got to be crazy, you know. But anyway, we pretty much agreed on a lot of things, and you know, and it's worked out.
Am I correct? Was was the coach who got fired? Was that al Bianki or do I have my timeline messed up? Who got fired to have you be the next coach as a player coach at that time?
Yeah, it was al Biyankee, who I knew. I had played against him, and you know, but they wanted someone I don't know. You know, when I told the general manager he was crazy, he said to me, well, you run the team anyway. You know. I don't know how he got that assumption.
But you were the leader. You were the point guard, you know, right.
So on Twitter as we taped this on a Thursday in October, on Twitter, just yes, in fact it was it was Caesars, the people I do some work for. They put on Twitter they said who was your favorite player when you were age ten? And I wrote Lenny Wilkins. And I'm interviewing him tomorrow. So for the people who haven't heard this story, I've only told it a million times.
I was a little kid in South Seattle. You were this left handed running hook point guard out of Providence, and I loved your play, I loved your style.
I love about you.
And then all these years later we become friends because I got involved with you and your foundation when you would throw the gala and the golf tournament up in Seattle, and that was benefiting the Odessa Brown Clinic, helping some kids in an underserved community get healthcare. You were involved in that cause well before it even became a true national issue, this big argument over the right to healthcare in America.
What got you involved?
What did you see that made you inclined to like take that on as your mission?
Well, a number of reasons. You know, back home, my mom, it was always tough on her. It wasn't easy. My dad passed away when I was five years old. But I had some role models who besides my mother, there was a parish priest who was like a big brother. His name was Father Tom Mannion, and he was always encouraging and letting us know that we had to give back when we were in position too. And when my mother didn't like the guys or the people I was hanging out with, she would ask him to talk to me.
And we used to call them iron hands because when he grabbed you by the shoulder, you couldn't get away. And he used to always have an expression that he said to me was like, you know, who promised you? Did someone promise you life was going to be easy? And so that was always on my mind that yeah, it's not easy, but you can make it if you try. And so with him encouraging me, and then I met Jackie Robinson who and I was a big baseball fan at that time. Uh and Dodgers, the Brooklyn Dodgers were
huge in our community. And I got to meet Jackie Robinson who was a fierce competitor, played with great intelligence, you know, and he was always encouraging. So those were two guys that I looked up to. And uh and then when I got traded to Seattle, I had well I was in Saint Louis first, and I used to work with a program called Shoes for Kids. We provided around Christmas time little things that these kids couldn't afford
or didn't have. And uh, so when I came to Seattle, I met two ladies who sort of adopted me and my wife. One was her name was Freddie May Gautier, and there was Toby Burton, and they were very active in the community. And they introduced me to the Ojesseah Brown Children's Clinic and the medical director was a gal by the name of Blanche Lavinzio, who when I saw how she worked with young people, showing them a lot of encouragement, treating them with great dignity no matter who
they were or where they came from. You know, that wasn't an issue. It was the healthcare that she wanted to provide. And that became my charity after that. When I saw that, and I saw that they were treating Native Americans, African American, white, didn't make any difference. You know, they were afforded the care irregardless of their ability to pay.
So that became my charity. And we started out with a roast, and then we did the colf tournament and then my wife suggested we had a dinner, and it just grew and grew and grew.
Yeah, I got to meet Tommy Davis, National League batting champion a couple of times, played for the Seattle Pilots briefly nineteen sixty nine, the one year we had the Pilots, And he was your good friend growing up in Brooklyn, and if I have the story right, he was very influential in you sticking with basketball and believing in yourself to go and make the effort take us through your high school years. And how Tommy Davis impacted you.
There well, Tommy and I were We were good friends. We lived near each other. We used to you know. He taught me into coming out for the high school team, which I did, and Tommy was all American everything, but he was a starter on the basketball team. And when I came out for the team, I was like number fifteen. They had fifteen guys. I was number fifteen, and I didn't play much, you know, And so I dropped off the team because I had a little job on the side.
But I started going to the playgrounds more and I started to play the pal the Police Athletic League, the CYO, and I started to get better and better, and by my junior year, I had improved a lot, and Tommy was persistent. So I went out for the team my junior year and made the starting five, and wow, you know, I mean, but we had a great coach, and he was very encouraging, you know, even though I hadn't played much.
He said I had great court vision. I didn't know what he was talking about at the time, but later on I began to understand, and so I kind of slipped away from the ball and went more to basketball, although I still watched baseball. In fact, I didn't see my first pro basketball until my senior year in college, but I had seen a lot of baseball games.
Well, it's both amazing to hear, you know, you tell it that way, and also I think instructive for people doing anything, doesn't matter what walk of life, whether it's athletics or business or relationship. How perseverance is almost a greater key than whatever talent, right, Like you have to
not give up on yourself. But it's just funny to see that you way back when you're sixteen, seventeen, whatever you were, kind of had a crossroads and with the encouragement of somebody and the improvement, and then you end up being, you know, three time Hall of Fame basketball guy some years later. And do you ever reflect on that, like it could have gone a different way?
Not much. No, I never thought about it other than, you know, I other than baseball. I always thought that I was probably going to be a school teacher. So, you know, I was always impressed with the teachers I had, especially one in high school who was a history teacher, and he made you feel like you were right there when things were happening. And that's a gift, you know. And I always thought Wow. I mean, you know, so
I thought possibly I might be a school teacher. But you know, in many ways, being involved in sports and being a coach, you're teaching.
Yeah, No, you absolutely were and continued to be a teacher, just in a different ways maybe than you had predicted. How did you get from there in Brooklyn to Providence and how was the choice made the Providence would be the best choice for you?
Well, I you know, like I said, I only played a half a year high school ball. I had gotten skipped once and skipped the grade, and so I graduated a half a year in the middle of this school year, I had graduated my and so no one really saw me play. But the priest's friend, who was like a big brother, wrote to Providence College and talked to the coach, wrote him a letter and recommended that they watched me
play or come see me. And because they knew that I couldn't afford to go to pay for college, but he felt I deserve a scholarship. So Joe Mulaney, who was the coach of Providence, came down to see boys high play the high school I went to. But I wasn't playing because my class had graduated. But he gave me a brochure, so I filled it out and nailed it in, and that summer I was eligible to play
in some of the high school tournaments. So I played for a team called a Flushing Y MCA and we played against all the other teams that were in the league were mostly you know, high school all Americans, and we won the tournament. I was the MVP of the tournament. And Joe mulaney, who was the coach of Providence, his dad was at the game and he said, this can't be the same kid that wants to go to Providence. So after that I got a They called me and talked to me and said that my grades were good
and I would get a full scholarship. So I went to Profets and we had a hell of a freshman team, Kenny. We were undefeated. We were twenty three in.
All h man But I mean that's you know, things quickly accelerated, because not too long after that, you know, you get drafted into the NBA, and everybody who knows your basketball playing and your coaching think the other guy had it easy, you know, because you had such great success. Not everybody knows the backstory where there was this one school, you had to fill out a pamphlet, somebody had to
notice you over a summer game or two. That's a pretty quick ascendency to end up accomplishing what you ultimately did.
Well, it wasn't easy. And you know, they sent a scout up to Providence to talk to me about, you know, because I was drafted by the Saint Louis Hawks, who I had never seen a pro game. You know, I didn't watch I watched baseball, I didn't watch basketball. And so one of the friends, one of my friends on my teammate who lived in Boston, the Celtics were playing the Hawks for the championship, and he said, well, why don't you see if you can get tickets to the game.
So I asked the scout about it, and he took us to the Boston Celtic Saint Louis Hawk game. And so I watched, and I watched the Hawk players, the Saint Louis Hawks players, their guards, and I thought I was as good as they were, you know, And so I decided that I would try to play in the pro level. So we agreed to a contract and I went out to Saint Louis.
You know, well, well, eventually you came out to Seattle. I heard you speak in Seattle just a few weeks ago. You and I were both at a fundraiser and you were saying, you know, kind of came, you know, kicking and screaming, then quickly like, oh, I kind of like
this place. And you've you never left right other than when you went and coached elsewhere, but Seattle was called kind of your home base, and is now I remember because I'm now, you know, I think maybe grade school in the junior high when you're starting to really become a star and a star for the Sonics, and they traded you to Cleveland for Butcher Beard.
And I can't tell you how as.
A little in so many of my friends, because we know we revered these Sonic players, and you in particular, how much and how hard that hit us. You You at the time had just started to like get comfortable in Seattle, right, and then all of a sudden you get traded. How did that trade hit you at the time? And if I have the story right, tell me if I'm wrong. You were I think golfing heard it from somebody at the golf course. You didn't even get approached directly by the team.
Right well, the train the team. At that time, they hired a new general manager and so, and he had talked to me. He said that I should play all coach. He didn't want me to do both, and and I said, well, you don't pay me enough to coach, so I just assumed be a player. And then and then I started hearing rumors that they were going to trade me, and because they were afraid the players would want to listen
to me and not the new coach. And so I was out playing golf with Marv Harshman, who was the coach of the UW Huskies, who was a good friend, and we were about to tee off when I got a call from my wife saying that the Sonic office had just called to say I was traded. And so I didn't play golf that day. I left, I apologized
and went home. And then when I got to my house, the media was all in our front yard, and I was very disappointed, because, yeah, we did we loved it here, and we didn't at first, but when we first got there, after being here for a while, we got to meet people. Our kids were comfortable. You know, we had two kids at the time and so I was very disappointed, and I threatened that I wouldn't go. You know, I said I wasn't going to go, and I was being offered
lots of jobs. But then the owner of the Cleveland team where I was traded to, he and the coach flew out here to talk to me about coming to Cleveland. And after meeting them and listening and whatnot, I decided that I would go because I felt I had some good years left that I could play. So that's how
I decided to go to Cleveland, you know. But after being there a couple of years, when I was offered to come back here by Herman Sarkowski, who own part of the Portland Trailblazers, and so I, you know, we still had a home in Seattle, and I decided I would take that job. So I retired from Cleveland. And when I got to Portland, I thought I was just going to be their coach, and they had gotten my acquired my playing rights, and I became a player coach again. You know, rot.
Well retired from playing. You know, we know about the coaching that would come soon up in Seattle. So go backwards a little bit. I've told you the story a couple of times. You came as a Cleveland player to play back in Seattle. You know, this is your return game. The place I got sold out. I'm only like twelve years old, and we didn't enough money to buy from
the scalpers. The game was sold out and we only had ten or twenty bucks on us and the tickets were too high, so we just like messed around the Seattle Center. I went on the space needle. I think threw a T shirt off the Space needl in protest, thinking people would understand that. I don't know if I conveyed my protest the way right way, But the crowd cheered for you the whole game, and I think did
Cleveland win the game? I think you did, but I can't swear to it, but I know the crowd was totally on your side, giving you the appreciation you deserved as you came back for a different team.
Kenny, it was incredible. If you talk about memorable moments, that was incredible because my wife didn't want to come to the game, and so our friends talked her in to come to the game and they would sit with her. You know. But when we got there, right from the beginning, there were signs everywhere saying this is Lenny's country, and they cheered, and when I was introduced, they had to
stop the ovation so we could start the game. It was incredible, and they cheered the whole game, law and that was the first time Cleveland ever beat Seattle and we won the game. It was just an incredible highlight. I've never experienced anything like that. It was unbelievable and it was just amazing.
Good news is you eventually did come back to Seattle as the head coach. First were you the assistant, then you took over for Hopkins.
Is that what it was?
Where we had a slow start and you elevated up to be the head coach the year we would eventually lose to the Bullets now the Wizards in seventy eight.
Correct, Yeah, correct. What happened was that that summer when I was in Seattle, I was at dinner and the owner of the Sonics kept following me around all night long, wanting me to come back to Seattle. And I had you know, I had worked for CBS that year doing color commentating. Of course, after a year or two with Portland, I left. Uh and uh, but my home was in Seattle. So the owner talked to me. So I came back.
I was in the front office. I was, you know, assistant general manager, director of player personnel, and they had a trade going on when I accepted the job, and I blocked the trade. They wanted to trade Fred Brown, and I said it was a bad trade, you know, because I they were trying to trade him to the Lakers for a player. I can't remember the player's name. He wasn't He was okay, but he wasn't. Fred could really shoot the ball. And I said, we can't give up on Fred. I said no, so I they listened.
I blocked the trade, and then I made a trade. I traded Tom Burleson to Denver for Paul Silas and Marvin Webster. And then I also traded that There was a free agent, Gus Williams with Golden State, and all we had to do was pay his deferred income because they didn't want to re sign. And when I found him out, it was only seventy thousand dollars his deferred income. I said, I told Sam I was going to do it. He said, okay, if you feel it's right, and I
said yeah. I said, we'll never get another player like that. So I got Gus Williams, and now I got Silas and Marvin Western, Fred Brown and you know, and Slick was on that team and everybody but I was in the front office, and I promised Sam I would not interfere with the coaching going on. And well, they got off to a terrible start, you know. They I was at a restaurant opening one evening. I didn't go to the game, and they lost that game, and they were
the signs were five and fifteen. And so when I got home, the babysitter said that the owner had called three times, and the deral manager called three times. So I finally called the general manager and he said the owner wanted to change right now. And the team had already left town because they went to Denver, and so I said that we can talk in the morning. And the next morning I talked with them, and that night they lost to Denver and the Denver general manager said
they were the worst team in the league. Call she had made that quote, And now Sam really wanted he was fired up. He wanted to make a change right now. So I said, well, I you know, I can get to Kansas City. So Zally Voltchok the general manager, and I fly to Kansas City and we get there and Zally relieves Bob Hopkins of his job of the coaching job, and he seemed relieved to me, but I didn't say
a word. And after the change was made, I had called the meeting of the team and I told them that I thought we could be better take a little time, but that it would be important to go out tonight and play as hard as we could against Kansas City, and then we would have two three days off in Boston where we could tweak a few things. And the players seemed happy and relieve, you know, because by now they were five and seventeen. And I we win that game by one point. And then we go to Boston
and I changed the starting lineup. I tell the guys why I'm changing the starting lineup, that I thought we would be better using guys in different positions, and they all seemed to be okay, you know. And because they were starting Fred Brown and Slick as the two guards, and Fred was fine with coming off the bench. Slick wasn't real happy, but he put up with it, you know. And so we win ten straight after that, and uh, and we turned it around and we got to the
to the playoffs. You know, we got to the finals and we lost that game. Uh. And the next year I felt real good about it and we won the championship.
Yeah no, I mean now, but now I'm in college. So I saw we lost to the Bullets in the seventy eight finals.
I was in JC.
Then down at UNLV the next year, will we win the whole thing? We left out a couple of good names we're appealing through. Remember there's John Johnson, the small forward, Dennis Johnson, of course, you know, standout guard. You have the amazing reeguard offense cuts and DJ and Fred Brown coming off the bench to shoot the ball. Sigma was fairly new, right, jacksonth coming in, you know, up and down and they and they played such a defensive game, right.
You had a great assistant coach who was who was helping run the defense. You know, it was instrumental in what you guys did to come back and and get back into the title.
Yeah, less Harburger, Yeah my, Uh. You know, JJ and I had played together in Cleveland, so I got him for a second round pick from Portland. And uh, I used to tell Gus and Dennis and then I said, if JJ gets the ball, you guys take off. Of course, he was like a point forward. I mean, he could handle the ball. And I said, he'll find you, so just take off and go and and they did. Uh and uh, it was I mean, it was a lot
of moves we made. Uh. You know, Sam allowed me to, you know, make the trade for Gus to acquire JJ for a second round pick, you know, to trade uh for Marvin Webster, you know. And then of course we didn't have Marvin that next year because he was such a valuable talent. The New York Knicks signed him for a big chunk of money, and but at that time they had to sort of give you compensation. And so I took Lonnie Shelton because I had seen him play
at Oregon. And so we got Lonnie Shelton. And then Jack was The Sonics had scouted Jack, but then they were changing their mind and I talked them out of it because I had seen Jack play in the Naia and you know, he rebounded, he could score, his free throws were good, and I kept telling them that he was going to be a good player. So when I drafted him, the headlines in the Seattle Times was Jack who you know, And and then we didn't get him signed until late in the summer, and he came to
the Summer League and his first game was against Moses Malone. Well, Moses ate everybody up, I mean, you know, and he scored like forty on jacks in that game. And Sam the owner said, who picked him? And everybody pointed to me, and I said, yep, that's why I did. I said, but give him a chance. I said, you know, he hadn't played basketball all summer. He was playing golf. So and as it turned out, he's in the Hall of Fame. Now he's in the Hall of Fame. Now that's right.
Yeah, I mean, was it of all the coaching you did, and you know, you kept coaching a long time after that, to see a team go from five to seventeen and they ended up making the title series and then winning it the next year. Obviously winning the title is the biggest thing you can do, but just to see the learning process and the gain of confidence and the way players learned new roles and all that was one had to be one of, like, you know, the most pleasing things you did as a.
Coach, satisfying and you know it reaffirmed that I was doing the right things, that I was on the right track. And so I always felt every time I went to a team, I helped them to be better than they were. And I loved that part of the game because the guys were responsive, they saw that I was going to help make them better, and so it was fun in
that respect. You know, I feel that every team I coached, they were very competitive and they competed when they stepped on that floor, and that's what I wanted.
The next year is when the Lakers, Right, the Lakers kind of come into their own down there, and you're.
Still a rival with them, you know, still playing them tough.
But they went on a good long run with Kareem and Irvan Johnson and James Worthy and all that. And you traded and kind of the you'll know the dates better than I. You traded away Dennis Johnson for Paul Westfall. Why did you do that?
Well, Dennis wanted out. I couldn't get Sam to redo his contract. Sam just refused, and Dennis was very unhappy and he almost caused us to lose in a playoff game because he just was an unhappy camper. And you know, and I knew why, you know, because he had gotten the MVP award in the playoffs and he deserved a better contract. But but Sam just refused, and so he
wanted out. So the only the trade that we could make that we thought was going to be a good trade was Paul west Fall, and we traded him to Phoenix for Paul west Fall. Well, Paul came and he got hurt, and you know, and he had some issues himself, but he was hurt most of the year. And now Dennis with Phoenix, they were going downhill as well. And so I get a call from Boston from Red Orback, who I knew real well, and coach Casey Jones, and
they asked me about Dennis. So I said, hey, listen, I said, this guy is a great player if you can get him. I said, you're going to have to take care of his contract. No, because he won't come. Other than that, I said, but if you take care of his contract, you guys with your veteran team, he'll be a great player. And sure enough he was. But
I have to tell you this, Kenny. A year or two later, Dennis came to me and apologized for being upset at the time, but it was more because of his contract, and I said, hey, fine, I said, just be the player I thought you could be, okay, and he was. You know, he was a great player.
You talked about having your own children, but in a sense, don't you feel like you have several hundred children at this point right? I'm sure you're still in contact with many or they come to you advice and explain that relationship through the years and the loyalties that you you get, you know, you receive towards you and also that you have toward them.
Well, they listen. They helped me enjoy my job because they were responsive, They listened, they grew, and I was happy about that because I told them that when basketball is over, they're going to have to do other things, and so they responded to me. And the nice thing is that when I was doing my event, the doc tournament and the big dinner to raise funds for the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic, when I would ask them to come, they all came. I got pictures of Magic of Barkley,
of you know, Lonnie, of Jack Sigma, of Gus. They all would come to the dinner and the tournament, and I was so pleased by it. Because they showed so much respect they had and we stayed in touch, you know when I went on trips or when I coached All Star games. They responded extremely well.
Yeah, I was looking up, not that I don't know your career fairly well off top of my head. I think I missed one or two points. But your three time Hall of Fame member, correct, player, coach and Olympian.
Yes, yeah, I'm the only one in three times.
Yeah.
I think the Internet hasn't cut up to that, because I saw so many sites that would talk about two time player.
There was also was it nty two Olympics to I have that right?
Ninety two Dream Teams? Yes? Right?
Did you get to go make a new speech each time? Like how does that work?
Well, they asked you to come, and certainly it's a highlight, and I would go, I'm very thankful for that, you know, and to be the only one in three times. And then I you know, I was the head coach in ninety six Dream Team and we won the goal and and that was fun, you know because that time the Olympics were held in Atlanta, and so it was wonderful to have it in our country before it was in Barcelona, Spain, which was a great experience.
Are you one of those guys who looks at basketball and says it was better at a certain period of time, or do you just accept the basketball is what it is at the time that it's in. Right, it's a different game today than it was ten years ago and twenty years ago, and certainly when I was a little kid watching it.
Yeah, well I do, Kenny. And you know, the hard thing is that the players in each era are great. They're allowed to do more things in different eras. You know, back then we had to pass, we had to play defense, we had to rebound, you had to do all those things. And today it's more scoring than anything. But they're still great athletes and it's no easy thing to win a championship, so you've got to give them credit.
Yeah.
I mean it's hard because you could grab player from the nineteen sixties and like, oh, how would he possibly compete? It's like, well, maybe he would, maybe, we just don't know because you can never do the control test, right. I mean, I think Wilt Chamberlain would do just fine today. Right, Like, there's all sorts of players through the decades that would transfer over to any.
Decade exactly, exactly, Yes, that's for sure.
Would you have developed your three point shot by now? Where you know you were the you were more passer and a little left handed running hook. You had a good jump shot, for sure, But would you want to would you have wanted to back out and be launching, you know, like Steph Curry does?
Well? I you know, it's hard to say. I mean, I knew that I could get to the basket. I don't care who was guarding me. I could get by there. And I felt that by doing so, I was able to score or get my teammate in an easy shot. So I you know, to me, it's you know, it's whatever makes you effective, and so I think that probably would have shot more threes. But I liked what I was doing at the time, and I could do it well, and so I did it.
How disappointed were you when you saw the Sonics depart and head to Oklahoma City? From my perspective, I was way out in Connecticut, you know, working in ESPN, watching them from a distance, and I kept thinking, Oh, somebody is gonna come in, and you know it's not gonna happen. There's no way that's gonna happen, and then sure enough, you know, they sold it to people who don't live in Seattle. They gave it a couple of years, they didn't get the gym they wanted, and they took off.
But it was just stunning. It still is in a way. They almost unbelievable that we don't have an NBA team there.
Well, you know, I was in the front office for a little bit during that time. I had come back, I stopped coaching bat ease, and I was in the front office and I could see what was happening, and I was I didn't think it should happen. I didn't think we marketed the way we should have the team,
and they but they didn't want to listen to me. Now, the only time they listened to me is when I was asked to go back to New York for the draft a lot of the pick and I got the second pick, and I knew that Portland was taking the kid from Ohio State they had the first pick. So I told our people in Seattle that we were going to get the best pick in the draft, and that was Kevin Durant. I said he could play two three positions right now. And so when they had the draft.
They wouldn't let me or the team doctors sit in the room with the owner, you know, I mean they you know it was I could and he was upset, and I was upset too because I knew he wanted to move the franchise and I was not a part of it. I wasn't going and I wasn't going to Kansas to Oklahoma City. So when they after that, I just resigned. I said, I don't want to be part of that because that's not fear. I said, We've got a legacy in Seattle. If done right, we can make
this a better franchise. It has a legacy. And the little they did a little rebuild job. All they did was add some seats. They did a very poor job of redoing the coliseum. And so I resigned and didn't want ain't part of it, and they moved, and I think it was to the detriment. You know, Oklahoma City hasn't done anything. I mean, they competed, but they haven't done anything. And I think that with our legacy, the son, it should have never been sold.
Yeah.
Well, now you talked about the rebuild. For those who don't follow, we had the coliseum, which was built for the World's Fair way back in sixty two, I think it was, and then they threw some seats in and maybe threw in a couple of luxury boxes. But now the new joint, the Climate Pledge Arena on the same grounds, is absolutely world class. Right, we have the Storm, they're doing great, We've got the Kraken, they throw concerts. I mean, it's ready for an NBA team. What do you think
it's going to take to actually make that happen? Because I keep hearing the hints. I thought Silver the commissioner a couple of years ago kind of more than strongly hinted. Then all of a sudden there's a bit of a pullback. So I don't really know why there's any more delay when clearly there's enough players. The international game is so good, we could throw together a couple more teams and not dilute the league.
I think, yeah, there's no excuse. Now, the Tideline Wiki and his group, they we did the arena. It's called Climate Plage Arena. It's beautiful. I've been there to see the Crack and play. I saw the Storm play, and I was there for an exhibition game between Portland and the Clippers and it had well over eighteen thousand people and they were going nuts. So I, hey, it's ready, there's no excuse, and I'm hoping that it happens soon.
And can we get you to come back and coach, would you be willing to tick that you don't have to player?
Coach? Just would you want to roll? How about that? Would you like to be a part in some fashion?
Definitely? Definitely.
Yeah, that's a good way to end this conversation with some Hope we didn't get into politics. We always talked that on the side when we see each other. And I hope you keep living your best life in Seattle, and I hope to see you out there one day soon.
Okay, Kenny, And it's always pleasure to talk to you.
Man.
I enjoy it. Thank you so much, and you stay safe.
Hey Maine is a production of Me Kenny Maine and Odyssey. Our senior producer is Paul Aspen, our executive producer Jody Ebergan, and our executive producer for Odyssey is Lina Glazer. If you like our show, please rate us, leave a review, and don't forget to subscribe.