Musselman’s Son is Courting Success Too : Pro basketball: Eric Musselman, son of ex-Timberwolves Coach Bill, was a CBA general manager at 23.

The memory is a decade old, but Kris Musselman has not forgotten any of its revolting details.

As she sat in the stands watching her son, Eric, play a high school basketball game on a visitor’s court, she could hardly believe what she was seeing.

While Eric played, fans hurled hot dogs at him and held up signs, viciously displaying their distaste for his father, Bill, who was coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“The whole way home I cried,” Kris said. “I thought it was terrible what these people were doing to a 16-year-old kid. I would have told him to walk away from it. But Bill said it was part of athletics. He said it would make Eric into a tougher individual.”

Kris now acknowledges that incident and others like it actually strengthened her son.

“Eric thrived on it,” said Kris, who is divorced from Bill and lives in La Jolla. “It was probably the real making of Eric.”

Eric Musselman, who played basketball at the University of San Diego from 1984-88, has continued to thrive under similar circumstances.

At 23, he was named general manager of the Continental Basketball Assn.’s Rapid City Thrillers. Although he was given the job largely on his father’s recommendation, Musselman proved himself immediately.

He made nine trades his first day on the job. By week’s end, he had traded the entire 10-man roster. And by season’s end, Musselman had transformed the 16-38 Thrillers into a team with a 38-16 record--the league’s best.

The next year, Musselman reluctantly took on the additional duties of coaching the South Dakota franchise. With no experience, Musselman, then 24, led Rapid City to a 42-14 record, second best in CBA history.

With only that year of coaching experience, he was hired by his father as one of his assistants with the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves. Musselman was fired along with his father after last season, but Thrillers owner Pat Hall quickly hired him back as the team’s coach and general manager.

At 26, Musselman appears to be far ahead of the game. While most coaches pay their dues at the high school or junior college level, Musselman’s training ground was professional basketball.

Most who know him say it has nothing to do with luck or his last name. They believe it has everything to do with his knowledge of the game, his fiery intensity and his ability to relate to people.

People who know Eric and Bill say the first two virtues were acquired from Bill, but the last one sets them apart.

Although Bill has enjoyed his share of successes in nearly 30 years of coaching, he has been criticized throughout his career for being too tough on his players, and at times insensitive to management’s wishes.

Kris said she doesn’t believe Eric will make the same mistakes.

“Eric knows the competitiveness has to be tempered,” she said. “He’s very much a people’s person. I think he’ll be more successful than his dad. His know-how with people will get him far.”

Said Barry Hecker, player personnel director of the Los Angeles Clippers, who gave Eric his first job out of USD: “Eric has the same work ethic as Bill, but he has more people skills. He has more empathy.”

But on the court, Hall, the Thrillers owner, says the two are incredibly alike.

“They’re both as intense as I’ve ever met,” Hall said. “I’d rate them 1 and 2, and I’m not sure Bill is No. 1.”

In Eric’s rookie year of coaching, he showed that intensity by being among the league leaders in technical fouls.

Hall said he began to recognize Musselman’s vigor over the airwaves. During his first season as general manager, Musselman also doubled as a color commentator for the Rapid City radio station.

“He was supposed to be commentating on the game, but sometimes you’d hear some choice words come over the radio that were directed at the officials,” Hall said. “I don’t think they were supposed to get on the air.”

Eric Musselman started overachieving during his high school basketball career. Although he was only 5 feet 7, Musselman averaged 24 points per game his junior year for Brecksville High, finishing fourth in the city of Cleveland in scoring.

He worked hard to achieve what he did, and the extra practice earned him a scholarship to USD, where he played under Jim Brovelli and Hank Egan. But even though his lack of size limited his playing time, Musselman absorbed the wisdom of Egan and Brovelli, and occasionally interjected some of his own knowledge, which he gained from watching his father.

“Sometimes in the huddle, he gave us some pretty good advice,” Egan said. “He really understood the game.”

Musselman’s aptitude convinced Thrillers owner Hall that he better not let this “kid” slip away.

“Everybody in the league laughed at me when I flew him up here for an interview,” Hall said. “But right away I could see how sharp he was.”

Not only did Musselman turn Rapid City into a winner on the court, he also turned the franchise’s financial fortunes around.

The year before he took over as GM, the team lost $225,000 with Tom Nissalke running it. In Musselman’s first year, the Thrillers made $25,000. The next year, the Thrillers were $100,000 in the black.

But Hall said much of Musselman’s success in 1989 and 1990 came from his ability to spot talent.

“Eric probably has a wider knowledge of players than Bill does,” Hall said. “When we drafted Stevie Thompson (from Syracuse) everyone laughed at us. But Stevie wound up being one of the best players in the league.”

One of Musselman’s better acquisitions in the 1989-90 season was point guard Michael Williams, who had been waived by the Dallas Mavericks.

Williams had also been released by Detroit and Phoenix earlier in the season, and he was on the verge of quitting the game.

Williams, who now starts for the Indiana Pacers, credits Musselman for turning around his career.

“I went into that experience thinking negatively,” Williams said. “But Eric just made everything so loose. That was really the first time (since college) that I got the opportunity to play night in and night out. He would tell me, ‘Mike, you’re too good to be down here.’ ”

Bill said Eric always has had a knack for seeing talent.

“When Eric says a guy can play, he can play,” Bill said. “He also told me (former UC Irvine guard) Scottie Brooks can play. I didn’t believe him, but Scottie has played in the (NBA) for three years.”

But for all the inherent coaching qualities that Musselman possesses, neither his mother nor his father figured he would enter the profession.

“He never mentioned it to me at all until he got out of school,” Bill said.

Kris knew the pressures Eric would encounter in coaching, but she never steered him away from it.

“I told Eric to do what he enjoyed doing in life,” she said. “And from the time, he was old enough to walk, he had a basketball in his hand.”

Musselman couldn’t have placed himself in a more high-pressured situation than Rapid City. His father had just won four consecutive CBA championships--three with Tampa Bay and one with Albany. If he failed, people would be able to say “He only got the job because of his father. He didn’t deserve it.”

“I told him the pressure would be unbearable,” Bill said. “You don’t want him to face the pressure that you’ve faced. But I know that he’s tough mentally. I think he took on the challenge unbelievably well.”

But even though Musselman has met every challenge, he has experienced the down side of coaching--getting fired. He is not bitter about his brief stint in Minnesota.

However, he is unhappy about the way his father was treated by the media and the organization.

“In two years, we had the best record of all the expansion teams. I just thought (the firing) wasn’t justified.”

Those who know Eric don’t think the NBA has seen the last of him.

“There’s going to be a day when they’re talking about Eric in the NBA,” Hall said.

But for now, they’ll talk about him in the CBA.

“Now that he’s back, the rest of the league is scared--and that’s basically because of one individual,” Hall said. “I’m 45 years old and I’m not ashamed to say I owe most of my success in basketball to a 26-year-old kid.”