The story of Hall of Fame mentor, Alex Hannum, who won NBA titles with the St. Louis Hawks in 1958 and the Philadelphia Warriors in 1967 and an American Basketball Association title with Oakland in 1969.

Alex Hannum was a journeyman player during his NBA career, one that saw him play with seven different teams over an eight-year career. He even played with the St. Louis Hawks on two different occasions in successive years – the second of which kick started a coaching career which would eventually carry him right into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Where do you start this tale of a vagabond warrior – not a great player but one who would battle anyone right down to the wire?

Hannum played college basketball at the University of Southern California and his three-year varsity career didn’t exactly cause much of a stir. He scored 569 points (9.2 ppg) in his varsity stint covering 62 games, averaging 10.5 rpg as a junior and 11.4 ppg as a senior – not spectacular figures – but Hannum’s value was not as a scorer. He was tough as nails and could defend versus bigger people.

He served in the military from 1943 through 1946, having played the prior two seasons (1941-42 and 1942-43) at the University of Southern California. It was reported that he managed to play some basketball during his service time and eventually he would be tabbed as the “Old Sarge” by Buddy Blattner, a nationally known sportscaster. Blattner was later very responsible for the national appeal of the St. Louis Hawks when he broadcast the club’s games via KMOX Radio, a 500,000 watt, clear channel station that blanketed most of the United States. Hannum returned to USC in 1946 and immediately earned a starter’s position.

In 1945-46, Hannum also played for the Los Angeles Shamrocks, an Amateur Athletic Union team, and averaged 9.8 points per game. He signed with the Oskosh All-Stars of the National Basketball League in 1948 for whom he averaged 5.9 points per game in 62 games. That triggered a career that saw him play for seven different teams as a player and eight different teams as a coach, including a short stint with the Hawks as a player-coach.

Sold by Oskosh to the Syracuse Nationals of the NBA in 1949, Alex had his two best scoring seasons as a professional the next two years (1949-50 and 1950-51) averaging 7.5 points per game. He was traded to the Baltimore Bullets along with guard Fred Scolari the next season (1951-52) and then was sold by the Bullets to the Rochester Royals later that year.

The then Milwaukee Hawks purchased his contract from Rochester in 1954 after Hannum refused several offers from the Royals. Hannum finished that season playing in 53 games and averaging 5.4 points per game and, more importantly, 6.49 rebounds per contest.

When the Hawks moved to St. Louis, Hannum became an important cog in the team, playing in 71 games and averaging 20.9 minutes per game, the third best mark of his NBA career.

Hannum was released by the Hawks in 1956 and then signed with the Fort Wayne Pistons. The Pistons released him on December 12, 1956 and the Hawks, realizing their mistake in letting him go earlier in the year, quickly resigned him a week later.

When future Hall of Famer Red Holzman resigned during January of 1957 and guard Slater Martin quit after a 5-3 mark as interim head coach, Hannum took over. Actually, the players wanted Hannum and owner Ben Kerner reluctantly agreed.

It took a lot of convincing on my part – with the help of others – to get Kerner to sign on and give him a chance.

“Nobody else on the team wanted the job,” I told Bennie.

Ben has a thing about coaches. He had a lot of them in his previous nine years in the league. And he eventually followed Hannum by hiring Andy Phillips, Ed Macauley, Paul Seymour, Fuzzy Levane and Richie Guerin to lead his team before finally selling the team to an Atlanta group in 1968.

Holzman, who also is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, had replaced Fuzzy Levane as coach of the then Milwaukee Hawks in 1953-54 and lasted until January of 1957. The previous year (1955-56) he led St. Louis to its first ever playoff win in eight years, finishing tied for second in the Western Division of the NBA with a 33-39 mark.

After leaving St. Louis, Holzman became the chief scout for the New York Knicks in 1959. In 1967 Red replaced the veteran Dick McGuire and started a coaching career that saw them win two division titles (1969-70 and 1970-71). McGuire then took over Holzman’s post as chief scout for the team, a job he still holds today.

In 1970, New York won the NBA title, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers four games to three in the NBA Finals. Two years later, they lost to the Lakers in five games – again in the Finals – and then turned the tables on the Lakers in 1973, also winning in five. Holzman’s coaching career covered 18 years and totaled 754 wins, including 58 playoff triumphs. He also served as a basketball consultant to the Knicks from 1991 through 1998.

But back to Hannum.

After taking over the Hawks from Martin, Alex led them to a first place tie in the Western Division and finished the season with a 19-22 mark. They downed the Fort Wayne Pistons and Minneapolis Lakers in Western Division tiebreakers and then defeated the Lakers 3-0 in the Western Finals. Although they lost to Boston in the championship round, four games to three, the year proved the making of one of the greatest rivalries in league history and triggered a revival of sports activity in St. Louis that saw a new hockey franchise, the St. Louis Blues, and a new football team, the St. Louis Cardinals, get established there. Eventually, pro soccer would also get on board, strangely enough with Kerner as the key figure in that franchise.

The final game of the NBA Finals was a key in the sudden resurgence of the Hawks. That game saw the Hawks battle back from almost certain defeat to force the Celtics into two overtimes. With just one second remaining, the Hawks were down by a single bucket but had the ball under their own basket, a full 92-feet away from the Celtics’ goal.

Hannum, still a player-coach, devised a play that might have tied the game. He instructed Bob Pettit, the team’s best player, to set up at the Boston end just a step back of the free line and told him that he would throw the basketball the entire length of the court off the Boston basket so it would bounce right back into his hands. Since the clock didn’t start until it touched a player’s hands, Hannum admonished Pettit to “quickly get a shot off.”

Only Hannum could have come up with such a play.

Alex threw a bullet right on target. The ball came right back to Pettit, now stationed at the top of the free line. Pettit caught and shot the ball with one motion and the ball rolled around the hoop twice before slowly rolling off the rim. The final score was 125-123. That one play made pro basketball successful in St. Louis.

The next season (1957-58) saw the Hawks win the Western crown, then defeat the now Detroit Pistons, 4-1, in the Divisional Finals. The Celtics won the East again, setting up another meeting with St. Louis, but this time the outcome was different.

St. Louis prevailed in six games, winning the clincher on their home court, 110-109 as Pettit scored a game-high 50 points, including 19 of his team’s final 21. They opened the series at Boston winning 104-102 and then after the Celtics tied the series at two games each, won the final two games by a total of three points – 102-100 at Boston and by the aforementioned 110-109 at home. The overall margin of victory in the Hawks’ four wins totaled eight points.

Alex had signed a two-year contract at the start of the 1957 season but asked owner Ben Kerner for an extension and a new deal immediately after the playoffs ended. An impasse was reached and Hannum announced he would not coach the team the following season and resigned. Kerner then hired veteran NBA guard Andy Phillips to lead the team only to have Hannum change his mind shortly after the Phillips signing.

When Hannum called a few days later to say he was ready to resume coaching, I advised him that “Kerner said he had a coach and he wouldn’t or couldn’t change.” By that time, all of the NBA coaching jobs were taken. I told Alex to call the Wichita Vickers team which was owned by the Vickers Oil Company. The terms were much higher than the Hawks original contract and I believe included the use of a convertible. He coached that team for two seasons, finishing second both years (58-59 and 59-60) and won 41 and lost only 21 games (.651).

He came back to the NBA in 1960-61 as head man of the Syracuse Nationals, a team he played for during the 1949-50 and 1950-51 seasons. Staying there for three seasons, he won 38, 41 and 48 games, before moving to the San Francisco Warriors in 1963. In 1963-64 he captured the Western crown, winning 48 and losing only 32 and beating the Hawks, 4-3 in the West finals before losing to Boston in the NBA title round in five games. The Warriors finished out of the playoffs the next two seasons. Then Hannum moved again, this time to Philadelphia where he was to achieve some of his greatest successes.

In 1966-67, they won 68 and lost only 13, bested Boston in the Eastern Finals four games to one, and then upended his old team, the Warriors, four games to two to win his second NBA crown. A year later, he led the 76ers to a 62-20 record, finished first in the East, but lost to the Celtics four games to three in the Eastern Finals.

He jumped to the American Basketball Association in 1968, leading Oakland to a 60-18 mark, downed Indiana in five for the ABA title and earned himself the ABA Coach of the Year honor.

In the season of 1969-70 he came back to the NBA with San Diego replacing one of his former St. Louis players, Jack McMahon, but finished with a 18-38 mark. The next season he turned the team around, winning 22 more games but finished with a 40-41 mark and did not make the playoffs. In 1971 he jumped back to the ABA coaching the Denver Nuggets for the next three seasons before retiring form the game in 1974.

The nomadic Hannum was considered a “player’s coach” – beloved by everyone who played for him and the 1966-67 Philadelphia team. They won 79 games and lost only 17, including an 11-4 won-lost mark en route to the NBA title, and have often been called “the greatest team in NBA history.” That club included Wilt Chamberlain, Dave Gambee (a former St. Louis Hawks player), Lucious Jackson, Billy Cunningham, Chet Walker, Wali Jones, Bill Melchionni, Matt Guokas, Hal Greer, Larry Costello and for a time, Johnny Green.

That season, Wilt finished third behind Hall of Famers Rick Barry (35.6ppg) and Oscar Robertson (30.5 ppg) in scoring with 24.1 ppg, but led the league in field goal percentage by a wide margin over Walt Bellamy of the Knicks (.683 to .512). He finished third in assists to Guy Rodgers of Chicago (11.2 per game) and Robertson (10.7 per game), handing out 7.8 assists per outing and again led the league in rebounds, 24.2 per game to Boston’s Bill Russell’s 21.1. A year later, Chamberlain would again lead the league in field goal percentage (.595), rebounds (23.8) and assists (8.6).

Hannum had won titles in two leagues – one in the ABA and two in the NBA – and won 690 regular season games and 63 playoff games during his illustrious career. But what if Slater Martin had decided to keep coaching or Bob Pettit, who eventually did coach the Hawks in 1961-62 (he won four and lost only two) had not passed up Kerner’s offer, or if center Charley Share had taken the job when offered? Might Hannum never have gotten a chance to coach?

The 1958 triumph over Boston was the only NBA crown the Hawks ever won and Alex Hannum rewarded those who vented him for the job with a title.

It almost never happened.

Coming next week: Great coaches I have know, the Baron, the General, Little Louie, the McGuires (Al and Dick), El Deano and the Wizard of Westwood.