Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

It's not like Rod Thorn didn't know point guards. His acquisition of Jason Kidd got the New Jersey Nets to a pair of NBA Finals and helped Thorn be selected for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and enshrinement Friday along with Kidd.

Chicagoan Maurice Cheeks from DuSable High School also is being enshrined in the Hall of Fame Friday. It's mostly because of his playing career with the Philadelphia 76ers, with whom Cheeks became a champion and among the NBA's all-time leaders in steals and assists.

"It's my first draft as Bulls general manager in 1978 and we take Reggie Theus in the first round, good player," Thorn was saying Thursday afternoon at a Hall of Fame media reception in Springfield while Cheeks sat nearby also answering media questions. "Second round, I take Marvin Johnson from New Mexico. Never played for us. In the preseason, (coach Larry) Costello tells me he can't play and we cut him. But back at the draft, Mr. Cheeks is sitting in the front row at the Bismarck Hotel. Stupidest thing I've ever seen. We're sitting out in front of a big crowd doing the draft.

"Mr. Cheeks from the first row after we make our picks stands up and says, but in a nice way, 'You're going to regret not taking Mo Cheeks.' And then he gets up and leaves. I didn't know who he was. Someone tells me it's Mo's father. Our scouts and we felt Mo was OK, but we didn't see him being a terrific NBA player.

"When I got to the Bulls we had Wilbur Holland at point guard," recalled Thorn with a bit of a wince. "He was deaf in one ear and Wilbur would run up the court and Costello would call out a play and Wilbur would not hear or act like he didn't hear what the play was. We tried Reggie at point guard, but he wasn't a point guard. We ended up getting Ricky Sobers, who helped us. But Cheeks with Reggie would have been a heck of a backcourt and we had Artis (Gilmore), who could score. Mo would have been great."

As Thorn was relating the story Thursday afternoon, Cheeks walked by and stopped with some friends and family.

"Yeah, I heard about it," he said with a smile. "I was just trying to get picked by anyone. I didn't know I was going to get picked at all. I guess he (father) knew more than I did. Rod did OK. He got Michael Jordan later on."

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Mo Cheeks and Reggie Theus, it almost happened

We've all experienced those moments, brief flashes of time that we know would have changed our lives. We call it different things, chance, luck, providence, fate, karma, destiny. We often come to believe, perhaps to reconcile our place in the world, it was meant to be, that some force was guiding the result. It was going to be that way, anyway, right?

Hesitating before stepping off a curb before a speeding bus, taking the path that led to the clearing and not the cliff, calling heads when you know you should have been calling tails.

"Any time I had ever called anything myself with a coin, I always called tails," Rod Thorn was musing the other day. "That was the ironic part of it."

Thorn, the longtime NBA and New Jersey Nets executive who was an elite collegiate star before an eight-year NBA playing career, will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Friday in an illustrious class that includes Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Ray Allen, Charlie Scott, Lefty Driesell and Maurice Cheeks. Thorn's seven-year tenure as Bulls general manager would barely be an asterisk on his impressive resume if not for in his final season with the Bulls drafting Michael Jordan.

But if not for the way a coin landed, Thorn would likely be entering the Hall of Fame, if not long before this, as probably the most accomplished general manager in Bulls and perhaps NBA history. While likely having done so for the world's wealthiest ownership group with names like Wirtz, Steinbrenner, Crown, Klutznick and Hunt and in the midst of likely the greatest individual conference rivalry ever featuring the Boston Celtics' Larry Bird and the Bulls' Magic Johnson.

"Yes, we would have been a high level contender," says Thorn. "The Bird and Magic rivalry would have been intense with more regular season games. Ownership definitely would have kept the team, definitely. There's a distinct possibility Rod Thorn would have been a more celebrated general manager.

"Yes, there are instances when you think of things you do and why you did them; that one was not in my control," Thorn acknowledged. "But it changed a lot of peoples' lives; no doubt about it."

It's the simple story of the coin flip for the first pick in the 1979 draft, a footnote in Bulls history that could have been NBA headlines for years. The Reinsdorf group likely never would have gotten a chance to purchase the Bulls, the Los Angeles Lakers, like they were in the 1960s and 1970s, would have been more contender than dynasty, Jerry Krause would have monitored baseballs for 20 more years and Michael Jordan probably would been a Dallas Maverick or Philadelphia 76er.

"Life is full of ironies and so if we had won the coin flip and gotten Magic, we never would have gotten Michael. So the Bulls had to delay being good for a few years," said Thorn. "Obviously, it worked out great for both teams."

Could it have worked out better for the Bulls?

The Bulls of the late 1970s were an underrated team with a Hall of Fame center and future All-Star shooting guard. Led by Artis Gilmore, they barely lost in the 1977 playoffs to the eventual champion Portland Trailblazers. Bill Walton and coach Jack Ramsey called the Bulls their toughest opponent in those playoffs. But with injuries and a coaching change in the 1978-79 season, the Bulls collapsed to a 31-51 record and last in the Eastern Conference.

In that era, there was a coin flip for the No. 1 draft selection between the teams with the poorest record in each conference. In the Western Conference, it was the New Orleans Jazz. But from a prior transaction, the signing of free agent Gail Goodrich, the Lakers held the Jazz pick.

It wasn't a great Lakers team at the time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had forced his way out of Milwaukee to the Lakers, but the trade stripped the Lakers of their depth. They averaged fewer than 50 wins in Abdul-Jabbar's first three seasons and he seemed to be tiring of the load and expectations, even hinting at retirement. The Lakers were third in their division and fifth in the conference, nowhere close to title contention. They had Abdul-Jabbar and future Hall of Famer Jamaal Wilkes, but a mish mash of older veterans like Adrian Dantley and Lou Hudson. Norm Nixon was their point guard.

The Bulls roster led by Gilmore and Theus arguably was close in talent, almost comparable.

Johnson was the missing piece for the Bulls as well.

In subsequent years, Johnson has been quoted, including in one of his several autobiographies, saying he would have returned to Michigan State if the Bulls won the coin flip, that he wanted to play for the Lakers. But that seems more about loyalty to his longtime employer.

Thorn and longtime Bulls executive Irwin Mandel said they always were confident Johnson would play for the Bulls. "Magic had said he wanted to go into the pros, that there was nothing more he could do in college as he already won a national championship; I did not remember the Bulls being worried," recalled Mandel, now retired.

Johnson's Chicago attorney at the time, George Andrews, said Magic actually seemed to prefer the Bulls.

"He thought at the time Artis was comparable to Kareem," said Andrews. "He thought he could win with Artis. Magic was very positive about Chicago because it was close to home as a Lansing, Michigan guy. It would have been an interesting situation. Reggie would have played fine with him. Artis, those were his prime years, and Reggie became an All-Star. If the Bulls had Magic, Reggie and Artis and with Jerry Sloan becoming coach that season, they would have been very good. That would have been a tough team to match up with."

"We needed a point guard," agreed Thorn. "That's what Magic obviously did, one of the best ever in setting other people up. I think it might have taken us a few years as Magic wasn't a very good shooter when he came in. But we would have been very good within a couple of years."

Of course, the Lakers didn't have much shooting, either, in 1979-80 and then won the championship even with Abdul-Jabbar sitting out the clinching game.

"The Lakers were just OK without Magic," Thorn pointed out. "Magic is one of the 10 best players ever. I do think we would have been terrific."

It was April 19, 1979, about 10 days after the end of the season. There were no draft TV shows then.

The Bulls had plummeted after the heady 1976-77 season that had become known as the Miracle on Madison Street. In 13 of the last 15 home games in 1978-79, the Bulls failed to draw 10,000. So in trying to engage the fans, the Bulls promoted a contest for fans to vote whether the team should call heads or tails.

"Bill Sharman and I were on the call with the league," Thorn recalled. "He was representing the Lakers at the time. The people in New York were asking us who wanted to call it. I immediately said we had this fan vote and, ‘Bill. if it's OK with you, let me call it.' Bill said fine. So I called it heads. It came out tails."

Not quite like the stillness back then in the Bulls offices at 333 North Michigan Avenue. There wasn't much Bulls staff then. Brian McIntyre, who went on to work with Thorn in the league office, was there as was Bulls broadcaster Johnny Kerr. Perhaps Kerr was the bad luck. He was a witness in the previous most famous draft coin flip when the Suns Jerry Colangelo first came up with the idea of the fan vote. The Bulls should have learned. The Phoenix fans voted for heads; Colangelo called heads. It was tails. The Milwaukee Bucks in 1969 selected Abdul-Jabbar and had a title, their only one, by 1971. The Suns got Neal Walk.

"Hey," Kerr brightened at the time, trying to cheer up Colangelo, "maybe they'll talk Neal Walk."

"Johnny was trying to make Rod feel better," recalled McIntyre. "But Rod's way south of morose. So Johnny says, 'The same thing happened to us in Phoenix. We polled the fans and they wanted to go one way. The fans won and we lost.' So Johnny says, ‘Rod, there's a moral to this story. That is if you listen to the fans too much you'll wind up sitting with them.'"

The Bulls selected David Greenwood No. 2. The Knicks picked Bill Cartwright No. 3, but with Gilmore, the Bulls didn't need another center. Greenwood had a 12-year NBA career, six with the Bulls before being traded for George Gervin in 1985. Greenwood came off the bench for the Pistons 1990 champions.

The Bulls would go on a nice run under Sloan, winning 45 games in 1980-81 and sweeping the Knicks in the playoffs before losing to the eventual champion Celtics.

"We got Ricky Sobers (for point guard) and with Theus we had a nice team," said Thorn. "Ricky and Reggie were  a heck of a backcourt and with Artis it looked like we were  ready to go."

But it wouldn't be much of anywhere with coaching changes, personnel problems with players using drugs and a collapse in the 1983-84 season. Bulls managing partner Jerry Reinsdorf likes to tell the story of his baseball owning colleague George Steinbrenner approaching him one day in 1984 about getting rid of this albatross of a franchise that was losing games and money and embarrassing the so called "Magnificent Seven" of owners of Steinbrenner, Lester Crown, Lamar Hunt, Jonathan Kovler, Arthur Wirtz, Walter Shorenstein and Phil Klutznick. They'd drafted Jordan, but they had top 10 draft picks for years and still embarrassment. So Reinsdorf cobbled together a group of investors to take the Bulls—perhaps some symmetry with the Chicago White Sox—and Jordan off their hands. Before the end of the 1984-85 season with the Reinsdorf group assuming control, Reinsdorf fired Thorn and replaced him with a baseball scout, Jerry Krause.

Thorn went on to a prominent role with the NBA and then resurrecting the Nets to a pair of Finals appearances after trading for Jason Kidd.

"I'm very humbled, very proud (to be going into the Hall of Fame)," Thorn acknowledged. "I feel great about it and particularly for me getting in the same time as Jason Kidd, who had a lot to do with me getting in. And Rick Welts, who I worked with in the NBA office and is a good friend. So I feel great about it."

And the Bulls ending up doing OK, as well.

"All's well," agreed Thorn, "that ends well."

the-coin-flip-that-could-have-changed-bulls-history

The coin flip that could have changed Bulls history

I remember how Johnny Kerr used to say about the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. If they wait until after he’s dead, well, he’d show them by not attending the enshrinement ceremony.

It’s about time the Hall of Fame rectifies one of its most blatant omissions and adds a smile to Kerr’s memory.

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame hosts its annual enshrinement ceremony Friday in what will be a celebrated class featuring, among others, Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Ray Allen, Grant Hill and Chicago’s Maurice Cheeks. The Bulls get a mention with the induction of onetime general manager Rod Thorn, who famously drafted Michael Jordan in 1984 before a long career in the league office and as an executive with the New Jersey Nets.

Thorn will be inducted in the contributor to basketball category along with fellow league official and now Golden State Warriors president Rick Welts.

Which again leads me to wonder, hello, where’s Johnny Kerr?

It’s an annual exercise with the announcement of the newest Hall of Famers to consider the most overlooked.

I have Johnny Kerr at the top of my list as someone who could also have been considered as a player for a career that included a collegiate Final Four, multiple NBA All-Star appearances, an NBA championship and being the original iron man of the NBA with a streak of 844 consecutive games played, ended only in his final playing season when his coach decided it was a distraction even though Kerr wasn’t injured.

Kerr went on to set standards in NBA coaching, as an ABA executive and eminently as a Bulls broadcaster and the league’s unofficial toastmaster. Kerr was honored by the Hall of Fame with the John Bunn lifetime achievement award just before Kerr’s death from cancer in February 2009.

Here’s my top 10 list of those who should be in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

He was regarded as one of the best passing big men ever. One of the greatest Chicago winners, Kerr led Tilden High School to a city championship, the U. of Illinois to the Final Four and the Syracuse Nationals to the NBA title in his rookie season. He was a three-time All-Star at center despite playing in the same conference with Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. Kerr went on to become the coach of the expansion Bulls and remains the only coach in NBA history to take an expansion team to the playoffs. He was instrumental with the ABA Virginia Squires in signing little known collegians Julius Erving and George Gervin. Kerr then was the face of Bulls broadcasting for more than 30 years and a longtime NBA goodwill ambassador and speaker. He checks every box as the ultimate contributor to the game.

The U. of Michigan forward was one of the prototypes of the modern NBA power forward with shooting range and speed. He set university rebounding records and went on to be one of the leading scorers in Houston Rockets history with a seven-year stretch averaging more than 20 points and playing in five All-Star games. His career was limited by the infamous Kermit Washington punch, but then he went on to coach the Rockets to two NBA titles and more than 500 wins. He also was the gold medal Olympic coach in 2000.

The seven footer from Kankakee and Illinois Wesleyan was one of the most accurate shooting big men ever who even led the league in free throw shooting one season. He made seven All-Star teams and averaged 16.2 points and 14.8 rebounds in the 1979 Finals for victorious Seattle, just barely missing averaging a double/double for his career. He played 14 seasons and was an elite three-point shooter in an era when even guards didn’t shoot many.

Perhaps the winner of the unofficial most underrated ever. The slashing forward was a pivotal player on championship teams for the Washington Bullets and Milwaukee Bucks and in nine straight seasons in the 1970s averaged between 18.4 and 21.5 points while always defending the opponent’s top scorer and an all-defensive player. He played in four Finals in the 1970s and was the leading Finals scorer for the decade. He averaged more than 20 points in 98 playoff games and 18.5 in his 13-year career.

It’s surprising he’s been overlooked being the best player of his 1930s era before the NBA was formed. At 6-5, he was the dominant big man of his pre-George Mikan era with his hook shot and scoring that led to the three-second rule in the lane. He set scoring records at the U. of Kentucky and for Oshkosh of the National Basketball League (which merged with the Basketball Association of America in 1949 to form the modern NBA), was three-time league MVP and led his team to six titles. He was the leading scorer in 33 games against the famed New York Rens in which Oshkosh won 17, becoming the historic and Hall of Fame Reds toughest rival.

Really, these guys are not in the Basketball Hall of Fame?

Jones can make the case as a four-time All-Star, eight times first team all-defense, a championship with the Philadelphia 76ers and playing in three NBA Finals and one in the ABA. The lanky, 6-9 Jones was arguably the best fundamental big man defender in league history, an unselfish teammate who went on to win the league’s first Sixth Man award and a versatile defender who was annually among the league leaders in blocks and steals and still scoring in double figures. Perhaps more than anyone, Jones symbolized the ultimate team player, defending, doing all the so called little things and blue collar work that leads to success. None of his teams ever missed the playoffs.

Another inspirational player, though in a different way. Love was one of the premier scorers of his era, averaging more than 20 points in a seven-year run with the Bulls from 1969-70 through 1975-76. In a three-year stretch, he averaged just under 25 points while making three All-Star teams and was named all-defense three times. He was often overlooked in his era because of a severe stuttering problem that limited media contact. Love overcome that and went on to become a motivational speaker.

His candidacy appears generally to be a victim of his unpopularity with media combined with his colorful emotional outbursts. The Naismith Hall of Fame considers achievements beyond just professional basketball, and Aguirre was one of the greatest college players ever, leading DePaul to the Final Four as a freshman and then twice the national player of the year. He was selected for the 1980 Olympic team when the U.S. boycotted that Olympics in a dispute with Russia. Aguirre averaged 20 points over 13 NBA seasons with a six-year run early in his career with the Dallas Mavericks when he averaged more than 25 points per game. He started for two NBA champions with the Detroit Pistons and led Dallas to a seven game conference finals against the champion Lakers. He averaged 23 points in 45 playoff games for Dallas.

He was the epitome of the physical power forward of his era, but who still averaged almost a double/double in a 14-year career in the ABA and NBA. He led Marquette to the NCAA title game and was drafted by the Bulls, but signed instead with the ABA. He was a prime player for the 1977 champion Portland Trailblazers. He was a five-time All-Star and all-defensive team player.

I also had Paul Westphal, Sidney Moncrief, Gus Williams, Terry Cummings and Austin Carr on my list for the NBA. They deserve to be added eventually, I defer for women’s basketball, also holding a prominent and deserved place in the Hall of Fame, since I have not watched enough. But for international play, the most obvious omission has been the former Bull, Kukoc. His NBA statistics are modest but sturdy, averaging 11.6 points in a 13-year career. He played for three Bulls championship teams and was a Sixth Man winner who started 17 playoff games for the Bulls in their 1998 title season. But it was in international play where Kukoc was a pioneer and one of the founding elites who legitimized European play in the NBA along with Hall of Famers Drazen Petrovic and Sarunas Marciulionis. Kukoc’s international resume exceeds all as a three-time Euroleague champion, five-time player of the year, three-time final four MVP, Euroleague finals top scorer, Italian league champion and four-time Yogoslav league champion. He also has multiple Olympic and World Championship medals, including two silvers in the Olympics and a gold in the 1990 FIBA World Cup where he was MVP.

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Sam Smith's top ten omissions to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame

The Chicago Bulls congratulate Rod Thorn on being named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2018.  From 1978 to 1985, Rod served as our General Manager.  While more than 30 years have passed since he last worked for our organization, his imprint on the Bulls remains to this day.

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Chicago Bulls statement on Rod Thorn's Hall of Fame selection

Jerry Krause on a gorgeous late summer day, the shuffling clouds parting for bright blue skies, really was smiling down on his wife, Thelma, and the Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2017 Thursday as the inductees were presented their emblematic blazers on the eve of the official enshrinement at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

"One of the first things I saw was his picture," Thelma Krause said about entering for the Naismith Hall of Fame for a press conference and gathering of the new class. "He smiled at me, so hopefully he does know. I'd like to think he does. He would be thrilled and honored and so happy his children and grandchildren were here to participate; he loved sports, he loved scouting and being part of organizations.

"I am so honored for him," Thelma said. "I know how much this would mean for him."

It was a joyful, yet bittersweet day for Thelma and the Krause family as Jerry, the Bulls general manager who oversaw six championships in the 1990s as part of a long executive career in basketball, received the ultimate basketball honor. But he was not there to celebrate since he passed away, actually just shortly before the announcement.

"I would have preferred at least he knew about it," said Thelma. "I think that's the saddest thing; not that he isn't here, which is sad in of itself, but the fact it was just a couple of weeks difference for when he passed away and the announcement was made."

Though it doesn't diminish the honor or the feeling of pride for his family.

"If the family wasn't here it wouldn't have the same meaning," said Thelma. "That helped me get through it. They were in the audience and I could look at them and it would have meant everything to Jerry, too."

Though it was the job first, and because it was and it was such a passion, the honor was perhaps inevitable.

"His accomplishments," Thelma said when asked about the sources of professional pride for Jerry. "The fact he really loved what he did and had the ability to do it and that he just was able to because of Jerry Reinsdorf; to do the job he knew how to do. It's fabulous he was able to be accomplished in both sports (with baseball scouting for multiple teams). He worked hard and got results. He knew his job and when he was allowed to do it he did it well; the results speak for themselves.

"He would say, 'I never worked a day in my life,'" recalled Thelma.  "He was a kid in candy store."

Though Thelma acknowledged sometimes even Jerry admitted he stayed too long.

"He lived it," she said about Krause's legendary manic work ethic. "There was little separation. He admitted in his later years that he had his priorities wrong, that he gave far too much to whatever job he was doing, that he did not prioritize his family the way he later came to recognize he would have wanted to. I think what bothered him (overall) was the misperception, the willingness of people to never believe him and believe the other people who were more popular."

Still, Thelma didn't hesitate when asked of what Jerry was most proud.

"Giving Stacy away at her wedding," she said. "That's the most proud."

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Thelma Krause accepts Hall of Fame jacket on behalf of her late husband, Jerry Krause

It wasn’t quite up there with Potsdam, Yalta, the Missouri Compromise or Jefferson’s dinner with Hamilton that established the national economic structure and the District of Columbia. But that day in Jerry Reinsdorf’s office was perhaps the most consequential meeting in Chicago sports history.

Because that was the day longtime mostly baseball scout Jerry Krause persuaded the new managing partner of the Chicago Bulls that he was The Man with the Plan for the Chicago Bulls.

Six years later the Bulls began the greatest dynasty in Chicago sports history, one that was responsible for six members to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Phil Jackson, Tex Winter and Reinsdorf.

And how there is the seventh, Jerry Krause.

Krause’s selection for the Hall of Fame was announced Saturday at the Final Four in Phoenix. He will be enshrined posthumously in Springfield, Mass., the birthplace of basketball, September 8.

Krause died March 21 at 77 after a long illness.

“It’s bittersweet because on the one hand I am really happy for Jerry’s family and it’s going to be a great thing for his children,” Reinsdorf said. “But I wish it would have happened when he was alive so he could have enjoyed it.

“It would have meant a lot,” said Reinsdorf. “It would have been, for him, a validation of his work. He had a lot of critics while he was active, like many general managers, and while he would have liked people to think it didn’t bother him, it did. That’s just human. Jerry was very human. Had he lived to see this he would have felt validated in that his work was being recognized. That meant so much to him.

“But not just for himself,” said Reinsdorf, who was perhaps closest to Krause in working together directing the Bulls for 18 years. “While he is getting in for what he did as an executive, a large part of what an NBA general manager does is scouting. Krause always considered himself a scout at heart, identified with scouts. I think he would have looked at it as a symbolic recognition of the little guy who stays in the background, not corporate, not famous, not with the fancy suit or the fancy words, but without whom the team wouldn’t have the right players.

“He talked a lot about how scouts were not properly recognized, the fact the baseball Hall of Fame doesn’t recognize scouts and how unfair that is,” said Reinsdorf. “He would have been beaming, so proud.”

Krause’s contributions to basketball, the Bulls and Chicago are the stuff of legend, taking over one of the most underperforming teams of the previous decade, slowly, methodically, like a scout, chipping away a piece here and a piece there and then building it back up to where it was a near invincible skyscraper of a franchise.

Then Jordan went away and no one, certainly not Reinsdorf or Krause, believed he was going to be back. Krause began assembling the pieces once again, almost an entire new team to greet Jordan upon his return. And then winning three more titles with that group. Not quite the same Jordan physically, either, but certainly in a similarly dominating style. Not exactly the same way, as little could be with Dennis Rodman. But the staff Krause assembled, perhaps the greatest and most knowledgeable in basketball history, remained to be the backbone of the next championship iteration.

Not much of that team reflected the reticent scout, a traveling sports party never before imagined or likely to be seen again. So, of course, there were built in and inevitable rivalries and disputes. Krause endured it all as the wizard behind the curtain. You don’t always get the renown for pulling the strings, but it’s necessary.
“We inherited Michael Jordan, which many held against Jerry, but not a lot else,” Reinsdorf pointed out. “We had good guys, but not a team. I don’t believe there was anyone from that first team when he took over who was on the championship team and then just Jordan and Pippen the only ones on the second three-peat team who were on the first three-peat team. He really built two completely different three-peat teams. Think of that.

“Jerry also recognized you had to make some changes every year even if you won a championship,” said Reinsdorf. “You had to keep fresh, keep moving forward, never be satisfied and sit back or you would fall back. He was always working. That was Jerry.

“Not every decision he made was perfect, but he had so many good ones,” recalled Reinsdorf. “Look at someone like Brian Williams in 1997, so many like that, a key guy here and there paying big dividends at important times in the playoffs, the Finals, players let go elsewhere who could delicately fit in. It’s really a unique art to have that eye for the whole. It wasn’t easy, which anyone who tried knows. But in taking time to build we were generating community interest and making progress every year. The shot on (Craig) Ehlo (to beat Cleveland in 1989). Then we go to beat New York the next round, lost to Detroit in six, then seven the next year; there was progress, always progress. He knew we had something in Scottie and Horace, young thoroughbreds; it was getting better and the final piece was Bill Cartwright. The criticism and disappointments just made Jerry want to try harder. He never gave up; he was relentless. He never stopped trying and then in Jordan’s seventh season it happened and then what a run.”

Yet, it was all so unlikely, Krause the voluble baseball scout Reinsdorf would see in meetings, always ad advocate of someone, but just another guy brought in by Bill Veeck whom he’d inherited. He’d ask Roland Hemond who the guy was. Then Reinsdorf would put together a group to purchase the Bulls after a fortuitous dinner with one of the Bulls’ owners, baseball’s George Steinbrenner. Perhaps some synergy with two teams, Reinsdorf figured as well. Reinsdorf didn’t know anyone in the NBA, but he knew a little bit about the basketball he liked to watch. But not how to go about producing it in a market known as a graveyard for pro basketball.

Hey, Krause, thought, I can do this. So Krause called Reinsdorf. That most fateful meeting was planned.

“Had he not come and asked for the job I never would have thought of him,” Reinsdorf admits. “I don’t want to imagine what would or could have happened. He came and asked for a meeting and said he wanted to be the general manager of the Bulls. I had just bought the team. I knew I needed to make a change. It had to be a break with the old. I knew what I wanted: Red Holzman basketball. I had no idea where to go for it. I really didn’t take him very seriously. Just as a matter of courtesy I asked him his credentials.

“I didn’t remember him running the Bulls,” said Reinsdorf about Krause’s short lived tenure as personal director of the mid-1970s. “I never knew the Ray Meyer story (about how Krause was set up to recruit Meyer to coach the Bulls and lost his job over it). I didn’t know about the Zephyrs and all the other professional NBA) teams he was with (as a scout). He told me. I said, ‘OK, go on what are you going to do?’

“So he starts telling me he wants to build around defense and he wants to bring in this guy, Tex Winter, who I never heard of. He explained to me Tex’s offense, which was the kind of thing that was on my mind. I’m not a basketball expert,” Reinsdorf acknowledged. “So I couldn’t quite explain it myself. But it’s one of those things you know it when you hear it. The triangle is just one of a number of offenses that involve movement of the ball and off the ball. Then he talked about defense and had this guy Johnny Bach he wanted to bring in.
I thought to myself, ‘He’s talking about everything that I believe in. I’ll give him a shot.’”

So Krause began to dismantle the building so he could replace it, stronger, better, brighter. One of the principal foundations Krause understood, that is so overlooked and especially today, Reinsdorf says, is the value of teachers. It’s why Winter was first on the list and soon Bach.

“There’s no question these were career teachers,” said Reinsdorf. “They had been head coaches, but most of their lives were teaching, and it’s something Jerry understood and recognized because he also was a student of the game and always believed in learning, that there was more to learn every day. It was an incredible thing we had. It’s unfortunate that it’s hard today to find teachers like Tex and Johnny who just want to teach. It’s like in baseball. You emphasize fundaments; you have to understand fundamentals.

“I remember Michael always saying the games are easy, that the practices are hard and that’s the way it was with the Bulls, with North Carolina,” said Reinsdorf. “You practice hard, focus on fundamentals, the right things to do and then when you play the game it’s easy; you just use your muscle memory from practice. Michael was probably the best practice player of all time. Michael could never please Tex; or at least Tex would never let Michael know he would please him, which was another of the strengths we had with veteran teachers like that. Jerry understood and they were his true connections with the players.

“There was Jerry’s ability to evaluate talent and his ability to evaluate coaches, Phil Jackson, Doug Collins, guys no one recognized who went on to become elite in the field,” Reinsdorf pointed out. “Jerry also had this great ability to absorb. He’d seek out people who knew more than he did and he was like a sponge; a lot of these guys he idolized, like Clarence “Big House” Gaines, Slick Leonard, Dean Smith, Red Auerbach. He never thought he knew it all. He always was looking to learn from people he felt knew more than he did.

“Then he wanted to pass it on to younger people,” noted Reinsdorf. “John Paxson tells the story of after Krause left and John took over how Krause tried to help him. Here was the guy taking his job. Matt Lloyd (now assistant general manager in Orlando) spent countless hours with Jerry even after he left the Bulls.”

Reinsdorf knows there were many difficult times, especially the early building years, and even during the winning years, conflicts, jealousies, an inevitability in most administrations. Everything wasn’t Jerry’s idea, Reinsdorf acknowledged. But Jerry, though rigid, wasn’t intractable.

“Like with Rodman,” Reinsdorf recalled. “He said he’d never play for the Bulls. Then a year later he backed off. He was stubborn, but he could be talked out of something. Like trading (Charles) Oakley, because he also understood what was essential for success.

“Once he developed the core we weren’t going to change,” said Reinsdorf. “At the same time, getting Horace (Grant) enabled us to trade Oakley; he loved Oakley, didn’t want to trade him. But he knew what we needed in the guy who could help put us over the top (Cartwright). Winning meant everything. Here was this guy, overlooked, physically small who wasn’t popular—not a lot of general managers are—and now he was executive of the year. That meant a lot to him, winning twice. That was a vote of his peers, the people who most knew the game.

“It was a little bit of a screw you to everyone who never believed in me,” Reinsdorf said with a laugh. “He deserved it. Firing Doug (Collins) contributed to him being unpopular; he had a lot of negative things written about him. He wasn’t able to turn a phrase or be a candidate for the cover of GQ. But we could see the progress we were making, that he was the right man for the job.”

Reinsdorf knew that wasn’t always popular in the community or even in his board room.

“I remember one of my partners came to me and said Krause doesn’t know what he’s doing and we have to make a change,” Reinsdorf recalled. “I explained that I believed Krause, that he was doing the job and we would get there. It was Larry Levy. He said he wanted out. So I bought him out.

“To Levy’s credit,” said Reinsdorf, “and he’s a guy who deserves respect for that, years later he asked Jerry to speak at a YPO, Young President’s Organization, function. So he introduces Jerry and tells that story, about how wrong he was.”

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Jerry Krause, Basketball Hall of Famer

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced earlier today that former Chicago Bulls executive Jerry Krause has been selected as part of its Class of 2017.

During his 18 years with the Bulls, the franchise won six NBA Championships (1991-93, 1996-98), advanced to the postseason 14 times, claimed six Central Division titles and won 808 games—the most by an Eastern Conference team over that span.  Krause’s Bulls squads posted nine 50-win seasons, including four years with 60 or more wins and one season with 72 victories.  Prior to Golden State’s 73-9 campaign in 2015-16, Chicago’s teams in 1995-96 (72-10) and 1996-97 (69-13) owned the best single-season records in NBA history.

“I know this would have meant the world to Jerry.  It only further validates his legacy and what we all knew about his body of work with the Bulls,” said Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf.  “I know it is bittersweet for Thelma and his family, as this means a great deal to them as well.  It’s a shame that he won’t be here to enjoy this honor, but I know his family is extremely happy."

Regarded as the architect of Chicago’s six World Championship teams, Krause took over Chicago’s basketball operations department on March 26, 1985, following a successful run as a scout for the Baltimore Bullets, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers and, previously, the Bulls (1969-71). During his NBA career, he was responsible for the drafting of future Hall of Famers Earl Monroe, Wes Unseld and Scottie Pippen. He also played a key role in the drafting of four NBA Rookie of the Year recipients in Monroe, Unseld, Alvin Adams and Elton Brand. In addition, Krause worked to select other NBA stars such as Jerry Sloan, Norm Van Lier, Clifford Ray, Michael Cooper and Norm Nixon.

Among the players he drafted for the Bulls were Pippen, Charles Oakley, Horace Grant, Stacey King, B.J. Armstrong, Toni Kukoc, Elton Brand, Ron Artest, Jamal Crawford and Tyson Chandler. Along with Michael Jordan, Pippen and Grant were the cornerstones of Chicago’s first three-peat teams. From a free-agent standpoint, Krause complemented his rosters with the signings of Trent Tucker, Steve Kerr, Bill Wennington, Jud Buechler, Randy Brown, Ron Harper, Robert Parish, Brian Williams and countless others. He also traded for John Paxson, Bill Cartwright, Luc Longley and Dennis Rodman, who all played critical roles for Chicago’s championship squads. Perhaps his greatest move was when he hired Phil Jackson from the Continental Basketball Association’s Albany Patroons, first as an assistant coach and later as head coach of the Bulls.  Krause also hired assistant coaches Tex Winter, Johnny Bach, Jimmy Rodgers, Bill Cartwright and Frank Hamblen. For his efforts, Krause was named NBA Executive of the Year by his peers in 1987-88 and 1995-96.

Krause, who passed away on March 21, is joined by fellow inductees Tracy McGrady, Bill Self, Rebecca Lobo, Muffet McGraw, Robert Hughes, Mannie Jackson, Tom Jernstedt, Zack Clayton, Niko Galis and George McGinnis.  Enshrinement ceremonies for the Class of 2017 will be Sept. 7-9 at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

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Jerry Krause selected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

The year 1949 was a turning point in the life of 13-year-old Jerry Reinsdorf. In the Jewish religion, a boy has his Bar Mitzvah at age 13. It is considered the time honored traditional age of manhood, when by Jewish law being responsible for your actions passes from the parents to the child.

Young Jerry realized there also was an auxiliary element to the cultural event.

“A Bar Mitzvah,” Reinsdorf Friday night offered to an audience at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony, “is the time in his life when a Jewish boy realizes he has a better chance of owning a team than playing for one.”

It became true for Jerry Reinsdorf and worked out as better than anticipated for Reinsdorf in the Springfield Symphony Hall. He joined the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Allen Iverson, Yao Ming, Sheryl Swoops and Tom Izzo in being inducted in the Hall of Fame Class of 2016. It was an entertaining evening as O’Neal wrapped up the program with a speech that ranged from high comedy to touching family consideration. Iverson offered a unique glimpse into his life with a meandering and emotional journey through his many trials and tribulations and even Yao Ming had some fun joking about Iverson’s famous avoidance of practice.

Reinsdorf was somewhat in the background in the epochal class headed by O’Neal and perennial All-Stars like Iverson and Yao. But it perhaps also was appropriate and symbolic in the professional career and sports ownership of the unpretentious Reinsdorf. He often stayed in the background, out of the public view, allowing his players and managers to reap the acclaim of six NBA championships with the Bulls in the 1990s and a long history of producing award winning players and coaches and playoff teams.

But it also was his low key leadership and appealingly supportive management mixed with good humor and honor that enabled the Bulls over three decades to become one of the most iconic names in sports and a leader in the Chicago philanthropic community.

“Aside from the championships,” Reinsdorf said in his speech, “I am most proud of the Bulls’ many contributions to our community, which is a testament to the awareness of our players and our entire staff that there is an obligation to give back to the city which has supported us during lean years as well as the good years. We recognize that we are only caretakers of the franchise. The real owners are the fans.

“I am also proud that more than 10 former players are still associated with the team,” Reinsdorf said.

“Players alone don’t win championships,” Reinsdorf told the large audience. “It takes an entire organization. Someone has to acquire the players, someone has to coach them, someone has to generate revenue to pay them. But at the end of the day, the players are the ones who put their minds and bodies on the line to win. Not only did we have the greatest player of all time in Michael Jordan, who was drafted by Rod Thorn, but we also had all time greats in Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and players like John Paxson, Toni Kukoc, Bill Cartwright and Horace Grant. They were outstanding players in their own right, but they also understood that their greatest value was in complimenting Michael and other future Hall of Famers. Jerry Krause was brilliant in identifying and signing those players. The only two players of both threepeat teams were Michael and Scottie. Jerry also signed two of the greatest basketball minds, Tex Winter and Johnny Bach, as assistant coaches. I would not be standing here tonight if not for Jerry Krause. John Paxson and Gar Forman have been worthy successors to Jerry.

“Perhaps the most satisfying thing occurred when Michael Jordan became a team owner and said to me,” Reinsdorf continued with a laugh, “’I owe you a lot of apologies. It’s a lot harder to run a team than I thought.”

Reinsdorf devoted much of his efficient 12-minute talk to his personal history, from a Knicks fan in the 1940s going to games for 50 cents to leaving Brooklyn in 1953 for George Washington U. to pursue his goal of being an attorney. He married there and is closing in on 60 years married to Martyl. He moved to Chicago after graduation from Northwestern U. law school and then spent four years working for the IRS. Then it was starting Balcor, a real estate investment company, which was sold to American Express in 1982. He said in 1980 on a hunch he contacted Bill Veeck about purchasing the Chicago White Sox baseball team and headed a group to purchase the team in 1981. In the summer of 1984, he related about a dinner with fellow baseball owner George Steinbrenner, who was a Bulls part owner. They wanted to sell. Reinsdorf put together a group that purchased the Bulls in 1985. Some part owners, like Lester Crown and Lamar Hunt, remained in the new group.

He said Hunt, a veteran team owner and sports league president, had good advice: “Do whatever you think is best and don’t worry about what anybody else thinks.”

“A kid named Michael Jordan had been drafted by the Bulls but hadn’t played yet,” Reinsdorf said about when his group completed the initial purchase agreement in September, 1984. “At the time he was drafted, Bulls management said, ‘He’ll be a fine offensive player. You are not going to build a franchise around him.’ That’s what I thought, too, as did everyone else. By the way, Michael was born in Brooklyn.”

Reinsdorf said he consulted Bill Bradley, who endorsed his notion that defense and team play were essential to success. He told the story of the unexpected and surprise hiring of Krause and the evolution of coaches through Doug Collins to Phil Jackson that kept the Bulls on the right and upward path. Reinsdorf and Collins remain close and Collins was at the Hall of Fame Friday for the enshrinement along with former Bulls players like Kukoc, members of the basketball and front office staff numbering close to 100. Phil Jackson and Scottie Pippen were ceremonial presenters on stage for Reinsdorf.

Reinsdorf also laughed that when he fired Collins, “I was so unpopular that one night I drove up to a Motel 6 and they turned the lights out.”

Reinsdorf also credited Steve Schanwald for the marketing success and business partners and associates like Allan Muchin, Bob Judelson, Howard Pizer, Dennis Gilbert, Andy McKenna, Tony LaRussa and the late Sandy Takiff. Dozens of Reinsdorf’s Family members, friends and current and former Bulls and White Sox staff were in attendance, including Bud Selig, Jim Thome, Kenny Williams, Paxson, Forman, LaRussa, and Dennis FitzSimons.

“No one succeeds in life because of his or her own ability,” Reinsdorf emphasized. “You have to be helped by others. I have been blessed by many without whom I could not have succeeded. There is my wife, Martyl, who worked to put me through law school, put up with my insane work schedule and raised our kids. The rest are too numerous to mention in their entirety. I have been blessed with a bunch of great kids, grandchildren and daughters-in-law. It’s been a great life. I know I am probably in the fourth quarter, but I am hoping for triple overtime.”

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Jerry Reinsdorf enshrined in Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame

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