Unguarded:
My 40 years surviving in the NBA
by Lenny Wilkens
Lenny Wilkens doesn't care if he sounds corny.
The Toronto Raptors' coach lays it on the line in Unguarded,
his reflections on pounding barriers 40 years in the NBA.
His take on life and basketball is no frills, straight ahead, relentless:
* Industrial strength family ties
* Firm rooting in religion
* Massive work ethic
* An unflinching belief in the power of the individual to triumph over adversity.
He's driven win. Contrary to the nagging rap that
he's stoic and too laid back, here Wilkens comes clean on
the racism spat at him -as a school kid, as a college boy,
as a man at large and yes, in the NBA. But he's not stuck
there, lost in those bitter travails.
This memoir is a grassroots low-down on changes in
the game and a living narrative of shifts in societal mores.
Nothing and everything changes in the span of this read.
Players squawk over cash and playing time, owners often can't be
trusted and the fans simply don't love a loser team.
With a lucid candor, Wilkens chronicles his journey. From his beginnings on the welfare rolls in Bedford Stuyvesant of the 40’s, he relates what molded him into a college economics grad and onward into the NBA in 1960.
Ultimately he blazes a trail as on of the firs African-American head coaches in any sport.
His legacy includes numerous all-star selections, a championship, induction into the NBA Hall of Fame as both player and as coach. Not to mention a continuing last laugh.
No one has more NBA coaching victories than Leonard R. Wilkens, Jr – and he still digs his job.
