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Game state source: whynba · Retrieved Oct 9, 5:36 pm EDTNBA legend. Named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team and inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Biography, honors and career statistics below.
Lenny Wilkens
Career at a glance
Lenny Wilkens played 15 NBA regular seasons between 1960 and 1975, appearing in 1,077 games and averaging 16.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game. He played for 4 teams: St. Louis (1960–68, 554 games), Seattle (1968–72, 308 games), Cleveland (1972–74, 149 games), Portland (1974–75, 65 games). His best scoring season was 1968–69 with Seattle: 22.4 points per game over 82 games.
The season table marks him as the league leader in assists once. In the playoffs he appeared in 7 postseason runs (64 games, 16.1 points per game). Multiplying each season’s games by its scoring average gives roughly 17,800 regular-season points (an estimate from per-game figures, not an official total).
Among the 404 players with at least 200 NBA games profiled on whynba, Wilkens ranks No. 23 in assists per game.
whynba analysis of the season-by-season statistics below (Wikipedia revision, CC BY-SA 4.0). Totals are estimates from per-game averages.
About Lenny Wilkens
Leonard Randolph Wilkens (October 28, 1937 – November 9, 2025) was an American professional basketball player and coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has been inducted three times into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, first in 1989 as a player, as a coach in 1998, and in 2010 as part of the 1992 United States Olympic "Dream Team" for which he was an assistant coach. In 1996, Wilkens was named to the NBA 50th Anniversary Team, and in 2021 he was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team. In addition, in 2022 he was also named to the list of the 15 Greatest Coaches in NBA History, being the only person to be in both NBA 75th anniversary lists as a player and as a coach. He is also a 2006 inductee into the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
Wilkens made a combined 13 NBA All-Star Game appearances as a player (nine times) and as a head coach (four times), was the 1994 NBA Coach of the Year, won the 1979 NBA championship as the head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics, and was the head coach of the Olympic gold medal–winning 1996 U.S. men's basketball team.
During the 1994–95 season, Wilkens set the record for most regular season coaching wins in NBA history, a record he held when he retired with 1,332 victories.As of February2022[update], he is in third place on the list, behind Don Nelson and Gregg Popovich. Wilkens won the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award for the 2010–11 NBA season. Wilkens is also the most prolific coach in NBA history, at 2,487 regular-season games, 89 more games than Nelson, and over 400 more than any other coach, and has more losses than any other coach in NBA history, at 1,155.
- Born
- October 28, 1937 New York City, New York, U.S.
- Listed height
- 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
- Listed weight
- 180 lb (82 kg)
- Position
- Point guard
- High school
- Boys (Brooklyn, New York)
- College
- Providence (1957–1960)
- NBA draft
- 1960: 1st round, 6th overall pick
- Playing career
- 1960–1975
Career highlights and awards
- 9× NBA All-Star (1963–1965, 1967–1971, 1973)
- NBA All-Star Game MVP (1971)
- NBA assists leader (1970)
- NBA anniversary teams (50th, 75th)
- No. 19 retired by Seattle SuperSonics
- Consensus second-team All-American (1960)
- NBA champion (1979)
- NBA Coach of the Year (1994)
- 4× NBA All-Star Game head coach (1979, 1980, 1989, 1994)
- Top 10 Coaches in NBA History
- Top 15 Coaches in NBA History
- Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award (2011)
Career statistics
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960–61 | St. Louis | 74 | — | 25.3 | .425 | — | .713 | 4.5 | 2.8 | — | — | 11.7 |
| 1961–62 | St. Louis | 20 | — | 43.5 | .385 | — | .764 | 6.6 | 5.8 | — | — | 18.2 |
| 1962–63 | St. Louis | 75 | — | 34.3 | .399 | — | .696 | 5.4 | 5.1 | — | — | 11.8 |
| 1963–64 | St. Louis | 78 | — | 32.4 | .413 | — | .740 | 4.3 | 4.6 | — | — | 12.0 |
| 1964–65 | St. Louis | 78 | — | 36.6 | .414 | — | .746 | 4.7 | 5.5 | — | — | 16.5 |
| 1965–66 | St. Louis | 69 | — | 39.0 | .431 | — | .793 | 4.7 | 6.2 | — | — | 18.0 |
| 1966–67 | St. Louis | 78 | — | 38.1 | .432 | — | .787 | 5.3 | 5.7 | — | — | 17.4 |
| 1967–68 | St. Louis | 82 | — | 38.6 | .438 | — | .768 | 5.3 | 8.3 | — | — | 20.0 |
| 1968–69 | Seattle | 82 | — | 42.2 | .440 | — | .770 | 6.2 | 8.2 | — | — | 22.4 |
| 1969–70 | Seattle | 75 | — | 37.4 | .420 | — | .788 | 5.0 | 9.1* | — | — | 17.8 |
| 1970–71 | Seattle | 71 | — | 37.2 | .419 | — | .803 | 4.5 | 9.2 | — | — | 19.8 |
| 1971–72 | Seattle | 80 | — | 37.4 | .466 | — | .774 | 4.2 | 9.6 | — | — | 18.0 |
| 1972–73 | Cleveland | 75 | — | 39.6 | .449 | — | .828 | 4.6 | 8.4 | — | — | 20.5 |
| 1973–74 | Cleveland | 74 | — | 33.6 | .465 | — | .801 | 3.7 | 7.1 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 16.4 |
| 1974–75 | Portland | 65 | — | 17.9 | .439 | — | .768 | 1.8 | 3.6 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 6.5 |
| Career | 1,077 | — | 35.3 | .432 | — | .774 | 4.7 | 6.7 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 16.5 | |
| All-Star | 9 | 3 | 20.2 | .400 | — | .781 | 2.4 | 2.9 | — | — | 9.4 |
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | St. Louis | 12 | — | 36.4 | .380 | — | .759 | 6.0 | 3.5 | — | — | 14.2 |
| 1963 | St. Louis | 11 | — | 36.4 | .370 | — | .755 | 6.3 | 6.3 | — | — | 13.7 |
| 1964 | St. Louis | 12 | — | 34.4 | .448 | — | .759 | 5.0 | 5.3 | — | — | 14.3 |
| 1965 | St. Louis | 4 | — | 36.8 | .351 | — | .828 | 3.0 | 3.8 | — | — | 16.0 |
| 1966 | St. Louis | 10 | — | 39.1 | .399 | — | .687 | 5.4 | 7.0 | — | — | 17.1 |
| 1967 | St. Louis | 9 | — | 42.0 | .400 | — | .856 | 7.6 | 7.2 | — | — | 21.4 |
| 1968 | St. Louis | 6 | — | 39.5 | .440 | — | .750 | 6.3 | 7.8 | — | — | 16.1 |
| Career | 64 | — | 37.5 | .399 | — | .769 | 5.8 | 5.8 | — | — | 16.1 |
Per-game averages. † won an NBA championship · * led the league · ‡ NBA record (as marked).
Profile observation date unavailable.
- Height
- 6′ 1″
- Weight
- 180 lb
- Position
- Point guard
- Jersey
- Not listed
- Country
- USA
- School / last affiliation
- Not listed
- Draft year
- 1960
- Draft pick
- Round 1 · Pick 6
Height, Weight, Position, Country, Draft year, Draft pick: blank in the NBA.com profile, filled from the Wikipedia infobox credited in the About section above.
Roster observations
These dates show when our saved NBA directory observations listed this player with a team. They are not signing, trade or contract dates, and this is not a complete career history.
No roster observations are stored for this player. Historical profile details above do not establish a current team assignment.
Profile source
Biographical fields reflect the saved official profile at the check time shown above. Team assignments use the dated directory evidence in Roster observations. Offseason rosters and jersey numbers can change.
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