OT - Lenny Wilkens: "I was a little upset when he went to graduation"

wtcantfw · Post #1 » by **wtcantfw** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 1:25 pm

Lenny Wilkens did an AMA on Reddit yesterday.

A little tidbit on Vince. Nothing earth-shattering, but I think this is the first time Lenny has spoken on the graduation issue.

Early on Vince had tremendous talent. He wanted to win. I felt like he was so capable. I never had any problems with Vince. I was a little upset when he went to graduation when we were in the Playoffs. I felt like it was a little bit of a distraction. But overall I never had a problem coaching him. He always wanted to just win.

EDIT: Just finished reading the AMA. That must have been the most boring AMA I've ever seen. In true Lenny style.

mintsa · Post #2 » by **mintsa** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 1:42 pm

Nice....15 years later the head coach speaks out. Should've told him no and that was that....

Jonn · Post #3 » by **Jonn** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 1:51 pm

Graduation wasn't the reason we lost that game. Terrible shot selection was.

JonasVFTW · Post #4 » by **JonasVFTW** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 1:55 pm

Lenny would play JJ and JV in the 4th.

TheSamMitchell · Post #5 » by **TheSamMitchell** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:06 pm

This is a 2011 type thread. If only VC didn't go to graduation, maybe we would be good right now. But right now I don't care if he played golf the day of the game. Raps are 4th seed and are going to play a favorable opponent in the 1st round. Things are looking good.

duppyy · Post #6 » by **duppyy** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:18 pm

15 years later Casey will say he's upset that DeMar missed a lot of shots.

C Court · Post #7 » by **C Court** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:23 pm

The summer after the missed graduation shot, I had a conversation with Stan Albeck, with Lenny and Jim Brewer listening in. They did not contradict anything Stan said.

Stan told me the entire coaching staff was against Vince going to graduation, as were his team mates. However, management made the final call.

After the loss, Lenny held a coach's season wrap-up meeting. In the meeting, every single member of the coaching staff said that Raptors management should NOT have allowed Vince to attend the graduation. It was a huge distraction and Vince did not play well as a result of travelling back and forth to UNC that day.

gamer1035 · Post #8 » by **gamer1035** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:27 pm

People seem to think that graduation was important and defend him for it. He graduated with some useless bull degree and may have cheated to get that.

Northface82 · Post #9 » by **Northface82** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:32 pm

Lenny Wilkins was the GOAT Raptors Coach.
(flame away boys)

Post #10 » by **Duffman100** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:32 pm

Centre Court wrote:The summer after the missed graduation shot, I had a conversation with Stan Albeck, with Lenny and Jim Brewer listening in. They did not contradict anything Stan said.

Stan told me the entire coaching staff was against Vince going to graduation, as were his team mates. However, management made the final call.

After the loss, Lenny held a coach's season wrap-up meeting. In the meeting, every single member of the coaching staff said that Raptors management should NOT have allowed Vince to attend the graduation. It was a huge distraction and Vince did not play well as a result of travelling back and forth to UNC that day.

It was game **** 7. What the hell were they thinking? If that happened now, RealGM would explode.

cram · Post #11 » by **cram** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:39 pm

Half the people on this board were in diapers when this happened.

Ancient history folks

Young_Buc · Post #12 » by **Young_Buc** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:46 pm

Funny enough, if social media was a thing I could see him not going because of the backlash.

ruckus · Post #13 » by **ruckus** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:59 pm

gamer1035 wrote:People seem to think that graduation was important and defend him for it. He graduated with some useless bull degree and may have cheated to get that.

I had no problem with Vince going to his graduation. I don't know what his thought process was but, I'm pretty sure graduating from university was probably near to the top of his list for proud accomplishments at the time. In a series as close as it was, despite the distraction, he had a chance to win it at the end. What more can you ask for? A couple of inches to the right or left and, this isn't even a talking point.

Edit: to add: it was only his 3rd year in the league - graduation is once in a lifetime - he probably figured he'd have years and years of championship contending ahead of him

RonaldArtest · Post #14 » by **RonaldArtest** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:09 pm

Lenny emerges from his coma with this tidbit. Nice. And didn't VC major in African American studies or something? Not to discredit anything with that course, but it wasn't like he was going back to accept his diploma for engineering.

Lowrys Chode · Post #15 » by **Lowrys Chode** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:19 pm

Northface82 wrote:Lenny Wilkins was the GOAT Raptors Coach.
(flame away boys)

By far. He's one of the winningest coaches of all time. That's why it really bugs me when people say Casey is the best coach we've ever had.

Badonkadonk · Post #16 » by **Badonkadonk** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:25 pm

I have zero respect for people who were directly involved in the situation that decide to publicly pile on 15 years later. None.

Lenny might as well have been in a coma the whole time he was coaching the Raps. I was convinced he'd mastered the art of sleeping while standing up and swaying back and forth slightly.

Carlton Banksy · Post #17 » by **Carlton Banksy** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:25 pm

gamer1035 wrote:People seem to think that graduation was important and defend him for it. He graduated with some useless bull degree and may have cheated to get that.

Um... and he may not have cheated to get it. What kind of argument is that?

I agree it was a distraction, but I don't think anybody can argue that it wasn't important to him, and throwing around baseless speculation that he may have cheated is absurd & irrelevant.

Big Shot · Post #18 » by **Big Shot** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:35 pm

There are different graduation ceremonies scheduled at different times. He could always pick the time most convenient to him but he chose not to.

Anyway, that's history and who cares.

C Court · Post #19 » by **C Court** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:37 pm

Duffman100 wrote:
Centre Court wrote:The summer after the missed graduation shot, I had a conversation with Stan Albeck, with Lenny and Jim Brewer listening in. They did not contradict anything Stan said.

Stan told me the entire coaching staff was against Vince going to graduation, as were his team mates. However, management made the final call.

After the loss, Lenny held a coach's season wrap-up meeting. In the meeting, every single member of the coaching staff said that Raptors management should NOT have allowed Vince to attend the graduation. It was a huge distraction and Vince did not play well as a result of travelling back and forth to UNC that day.

It was game **** 7. What the hell were they thinking? If that happened now, RealGM would explode.

Grunwald didn't want Vince to go to graduation either. But MLSE senior management was terrified that Vince would bolt like McGrady did, so anything Vince wanted - Vince got.

C Court · Post #20 » by **C Court** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 3:40 pm

ruckus wrote:
I had no problem with Vince going to his graduation. I don't know what his thought process was but, I'm pretty sure graduating from university was probably near to the top of his list for proud accomplishments at the time.

Except that was one of many UNC graduation ceremonies he could have attended. In fact, most of his classmates were not at that ceremony.