AllMovie

Factsheet

• Grew up in a strict Pentecostal home and wasn't allowed to watch movies or TV or read comics; saw his first film when he was 17.
• Won two North Dakota state basketball championships in high school. 
• Drafted by the New York Knicks in the second round (17th overall) of the 1967 NBA Draft; spinal-fusion surgery caused him to miss the Knicks' 1970 NBA Championship, but he helped win the title for New York as a backup in 1973.
• Played for the Knicks until 1978, when he joined the New Jersey Nets as a player-assistant coach.
• Played in the NBA for 13 years and retired following the 1979-80 season.
• Coached the Albany Patroons to the 1984 Continental Basketball Association Championship.
• Became an assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls in 1987; promoted to head coach in 1989 and went on to win six titles with the team.
• In 1992, won the Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider award, awarded by the governor to current or former North Dakota residents who have brought honor to the state.
• Named NBA Coach of the Year in 1996.
• Joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 1999 as head coach and won five NBA titles with the team.
• First coach to ever win 11 NBA titles and the first to win three in a row at three different times (1991-93, 1996-98 and 2000-02).
• Inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.
• Is the author of several books on basketball, including Sacred Hoops, More Than a Game and The Last Season.
• Retired from coaching following the 2010-11 NBA season.