NBA legend Lenny Wilkens dies at 88

Lenny Wilkens, the NBA Hall of Famer and basketball legend, died at the age of 88, his family announced Sunday.

Wilkens played 15 seasons in the NBA, was selected to the All-Star Game nine times, and led the league in assists twice.

He served as a player-coach for four seasons, three with the Seattle SuperSonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder) and one with the Portland Trail Blazers, before embarking on a successful full-time coaching career.

Wilkens led the SuperSonics to their only NBA championship in 1979 and also coached the Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Toronto Raptors, and New York Knicks during a career that spanned from 1969 to 2005.

"Lenny Wilkens embodied the very best of the NBA: a Hall of Fame player, a Hall of Fame coach, and one of the most respected ambassadors of the sport," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement.

"So much so that four years ago, Lenny was given the extraordinary honor of being named one of the 75 greatest players and 15 greatest coaches in NBA history," Silver added.

After serving as assistant coach for the U.S. men's national "Dream Team" that won gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Wilkins later led another formidable lineup, including Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, and David Robinson, to gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Wilkens holds the record for most games managed in the NBA with 2,487, and is third on the all-time list of winning coaches with 1,332, behind Gregg Popovich and Don Nelson.

He was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1989 and later as a coach in 1998, joining John Wooden, Bill Sharman, Tom Heinsohn, and Bill Russell as the only other inductees to achieve this dual distinction.