{"id":11185,"date":"2025-11-10T17:49:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T17:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=11185"},"modified":"2025-11-10T17:49:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T17:49:14","slug":"nba-legend-dead-at-88-as-tribute-pours-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=11185","title":{"rendered":"NBA legend dead at 88 as tribute pours in"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"73\" data-end=\"114\"><strong data-start=\"73\" data-end=\"112\">NBA legend Lenny Wilkens dead at 88<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"116\" data-end=\"232\">Lenny Wilkens, a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer as both player and coach, died Sunday at 88, the NBA confirmed.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"234\" data-end=\"477\">Wilkens played 15 NBA seasons, earning nine All-Star selections and twice leading the league in assists. He later coached for 32 years, including 11 seasons with the Seattle SuperSonics (1969\u20131985), guiding them to the 1979 NBA Championship.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"479\" data-end=\"645\">One of only five people inducted into the Hall of Fame as both player and coach, Wilkens was also named among the NBA\u2019s 75 greatest players and 15 greatest coaches.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"647\" data-end=\"733\">\u201cLenny Wilkens represented the very best of the NBA,\u201d Commissioner Adam Silver said.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"735\" data-end=\"1045\">Tributes poured in from around the league. Golden State coach Steve Kerr called him \u201can incredible man,\u201d while Indiana\u2019s Rick Carlisle said, \u201cWithout him, I\u2019m not here.\u201d The Atlanta Hawks added, \u201cHe was an innovator, a trailblazer, a winner and a leader\u2026 always carrying himself with calm dignity and grace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NBA legend Lenny Wilkens dead at 88 Lenny Wilkens, a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer as both player and coach, died Sunday at 88, the NBA confirmed. Wilkens played 15 NBA seasons, earning nine All-Star selections and twice leading the league in assists. He later coached for 32 years, including 11 seasons with the Seattle&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=11185\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;NBA legend dead at 88 as tribute pours in&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11187,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11185\/revisions\/11187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}