Description
From the unique perspective of his forty years in NBA arenas, Basketball Hall of Fame player and coach Lenny Wilkens examines the growth and changes in basketball -- and American life -- in this thoughtful and revealing memoir. Today basketball is arguably America's favorite pastime, with its massive fan base, marketing juggernaut, and young players who earn eight figure salaries. And Lenny Wilkens watched it grow nearly every step of the way, first as an unstoppable point guard and now as the winningest coach in NBA history and one of the few to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame twice -- as both a player and a coach. When Lenny Wilkens entered the NBA upon graduation from Providence College in 1960, professional basketball (and America) was almost unrecognizable compared to the high-decibel game played today in hyper-modern arenas. During training camp trips, the team would sometimes stop at segregated restaurants where Wilkens and his one black teammate could only be served at the kitchen door. Wilkens nonetheless became a team leader, and ultimately became one of the first African-American head coaches in any sport. Featuring candid revelations, including thoughts on his experience coaching multimillion-dollar players less schooled in fundamentals than the college players in Wilkens' prime, Wilkens and award-winning sportswriter Terry Pluto take readers on a journey of astonishing change, relating the secrets of survival in this most turbulent sport. Unguarded is the most thoughtful book from inside professional basketball since Bill Bradley's Life on the Run.
