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This Day In Sports…January 6, 1995, 30 years ago today:

With Atlanta’s 112-90 win over Washington, Hawks coach Lenny Wilkens becomes the NBA’s all-time leader in regular season victories at that point. His 939^th win topped the mark set by Boston Celtics great Red Auerbach. Late in the game, with the Hawks safely in command, Wilkens paid tribute to a legendary Auerbach tradition and lit up a victory cigar and took a few puffs. And after the game, Wilkens was showered with confetti by Atlanta players.

Wilkens made his biggest mark as a coach with the Seattle SuperSonics, for which he was a player-coach from 1969-72 and the full-time coach from 1977-85. He led the Sonics to their only NBA championship in 1979. Wilkens also coached the Portland Trailblazers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks and guided the U.S. Olympic basketball team to a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  

Not to forget Wilkens’ career as a player. He was a 13-time NBA All-Star and won an Olympic gold medal in 1996. His No. 19 was retired by the Sonics, and that carried over when the franchise was moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. (I’m sure Wilkens, now 87, would just as soon see a new NBA Sonics franchise established in Seattle—and move it back there.) He has been inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame three times: as a player, as an NBA coach, and as part of the coaching staff of the 1992 “Dream Team” that won Olympic gold in Barcelona.

Wilkens ended up with 1,332 NBA regular-season wins and held the record until 2010, when it was broken by Golden State Warriors coach Don Nelson. The current record holder is San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who passed Nelson in 2022 with his 1,336^th career victory. Popovich’s present total is 1,388—he’s been on a leave of absence since November, when he suffered a mild stroke.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)

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