‘Russell Era’ Ends as Failure in Sacramento

The first words out of Gregg Lukenbill’s mouth were as subtle as a plummeting guillotine blade. “It’s over,” the Sacramento Kings’ owner told Bill Russell simply. After Monday’s short conversation, Russ went straight to his office, cleaned out his desk, got into his car, and vanished into the dark and the fog.

He took it well, Lukenbill suggested.

Someone who saw him shortly afterward, bent over his desk, said Russell appeared shattered.

That would figure. His two-plus years as the Kings’ front-office boss -- which produced 57 wins and 127 losses, and led to his firing and his coach’s demotion, which the club announced Tuesday -- represents a catastrophic failure for a proud, even arrogant man who never before in his 55 years had failed catastrophically.

Basketball was decidedly simpler when Bill was a player: two national titles at the University of San Francisco. An Olympic gold medal. Eleven championships in 13 seasons with Boston.

You could say he failed in Seattle in the ‘70s ... but the team he built went to the finals the year after he was canned, and won a title the next year, so Russell could tell himself he had something to do with it.

He failed as the coach here, too -- 17 wins, 41 losses -- but he could tell himself it was with another man’s players.

But now, these are HIS Kings. He drafted Kenny Smith, Vinny Del Negro and Pervis Ellison. He traded for Wayman Tisdale, Danny Ainge, Rodney McCray and Ralph Sampson. He’d run off 11 of the 12 men he ... inherited, all except Harold Pressley.

Yet they’re 6-15. They’ve lost five in a row. And they face four games in five nights on the road, then four quality opponents at home, which Lukenbill feared would leave them at 6-23.

What, one wonders, can Russ tell himself this time?

Some of it was bad luck, he would argue, and rightly: Ricky Berry’s suicide ... Pervis Ellison’s tendinitis, keeping him out of all but four games ... Sampson’s bad wheel.

And three close losses this season that might have been wins had Berry or Ellison been out there, or if coach Jerry Reynolds had been more experienced.

Russell can tell himself the Kings would have been 9-11, and people would have been saying how improved the club was.

He can tell himself that Ellison, whom he was booed for drafting, will be a force in pro basketball once his foot heals, and then people will be praising the guts Russell showed when he drafted him.

All of that’s on the one hand.

On the other are 57 wins and 127 defeats, mostly on merit.

“I’m frustrated,” Lukenbill said. “The fans are frustrated. ... Sooner or later you make your own luck. ... It was time for a change.”

It was time for a change when he hired Russ, too, and change came in an avalanche:

Reggie Theus went for Randy Wittman and a first-round pick that the Kings spent on Berry. Theus is scoring 19 a night in Orlando, Wittman is gone, Berry dead.

Otis Thorpe, a good rebounder who was asking big money, was dispatched for McCray and Jim Petersen, then Jim hurt a knee.

Joe Kleine, the center, and forward Ed Pinckney were traded to Boston for Ainge, a guard, and 7-footer Brad Lohaus. Then Lohaus was lost to the expansion draft.

LaSalle Thompson, a powerful rebounder, was traded for Tisdale, a scorer, who demanded and got more dough than Thorpe ever dreamed of.

Suddenly, Russ realized all his rebounders were gone -- Thorpe, Kleine, Pinckney, Thompson, Lohaus -- and so he drafted Ellison, then gave up Petersen to get Sampson.

And both showed up lame.

It undermined Reynolds. The Kings have been outrebounded in 18 of their first 20 games.

Still, when Lukenbill and Reynolds talked until 2 in the morning after Sunday night’s loss -- “I told him, ‘If you want to keep coaching, you’re welcome to,’ ” Lukenbill says -- Jerry took the heat.

“Gregg,” he said, “I think you can do better.”

So, for a second time, he finds himself shepherding this ballclub along until a coach can be found. His only sin was a lack of experience, and this was a poor bunch for on-the-job training. As director of player personnel, however, the ebullient Reynolds is perfectly suited to form fast alliances around the league -- something the reclusive Russell never managed or even attempted.

Bill’s only close connections were with his old coach, Red Auerbach, who stole Kleine and Pinckney; and with teammate Don Nelson, who stiffed him with Sampson.

As for the head-coaching vacancy, Gregg wants Dick Motta, supposedly. The consensus is, Motta is not interested. The same is said to be true of Seattle aide K.C. Jones. John MacLeod would do nicely, however. Stan Albeck is known to be eager to get back in the league and would be a popular, powerful choice.

There is also Frank Hamblen, the assistant Lukenbill fired before bringing in Russell. Hamblen, clever and aggressive, left bitter, done in by then-G.M. Joe Axelson, who wearied of Frank’s telling him he was screwing things up -- which he was. At the time, Joe had Lukenbill’s ear, and he was whispering “Russell.”

Sacking Hamblen, Lukenbill now allows, “was probably a mistake.”

Russell will be remembered as another kind of mistake. Firing him, Lukenbill thinks, was almost a favor. “It hasn’t been pleasant for Bill,” he said. “I think Bill would tell you that ... if he’d talk to you.”