Abdul-Jabbar Figures NBA Needs a Coach Kareem

You want to know what it’s like to turn 50? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will tell you.

One day you’re losing your mother. The next day, your legacy.

You look around the NBA and nobody is playing with his back to the basket. Big men are using only their strength, not their minds. Teams are not winning the way you won.

“Some guys in the NBA, they don’t have a clue,” you say.

You think, you can help them. You have wanted to leave your mark on something other than a record book. This is your chance.

Your mother’s heart attack prevents you from saying goodbye, and you realize, time is short. You want to leave that mark now.

You decide you would like to become an NBA coach.

“I think I should give it a shot,” Abdul-Jabbar said recently from his Century City office, and he wasn’t smiling.

He hoards his smiles as if they were scarce commodities, so that doesn’t mean anything, but this seems serious.

In the eight years since he retired as a player, in his new roles as author and speaker, Abdul-Jabbar has taught countless youngsters black history. He wondered, couldn’t you teach something you know even better?

“The game needs my knowledge,” he said. “The game needs to know what I know.”

Abdul-Jabbar has no coaching experience. He has not been involved in the game since he retired in the spring of 1989.

But while he was having these mid-life revelations last spring, those two facts were rendered irrelevant by the Indiana Pacers’ hiring of Larry Bird, who also had no coaching experience.

“A lot of people in the league today don’t have any perspective on things,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “Maybe I could help give them that.”

So here he is, hoping to spread the word that he is ready and willing to teach someone, as John Wooden and Pat Riley taught him.

So, what do you think?

“I wouldn’t bet against Kareem doing anything,” said Pat Williams, senior executive vice president of the Orlando Magic. “But as an unproven entity, he would be a tremendous risk.

“Indiana took an enormous gamble with Bird. Is there a franchise out there with the courage to give that shot to Kareem?”

So, what do you think?

“I don’t know Kareem well, but I don’t know him to be a particularly personable or charismatic guy and that might make it hard,” said Jerry Reynolds, Sacramento’s director of player personnel. “I also have fears of guys who want to coach all of a sudden. Do they really want to coach, or do they want a lot of money and to be on TV all the time?”

So, what do you think?

“In the right situation, he would be great,” said Jerry West, Laker executive vice president. “The respect he would command would be enormous. Usually former players are high-strung coaches, so his composure would be a plus.

“He knows the game, and if he surrounds himself with good people to help him with the other stuff, this could work.”

So who knows?

Jerry Sloan succeeded.

Bill Russell failed.

Dave Cowens is doing it.

Magic Johnson could not.

“Magic was a fiasco because he didn’t know whether he wanted to play, coach, entertain or be an entrepreneur,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “I just want to coach.”

So far, only one thing is certain: Abdul-Jabbar will work in two major pre-draft workouts next year in Phoenix and Chicago.

It will be his first extended NBA work since he tutored center Shawn Bradley several years ago before easing into the relative anonymity of his writing and marketing deals.

General managers will be watching, and wondering.

How bad does he want it? Is he willing to work somewhere as a grunt assistant, or in the Continental Basketball Assn., before getting his chance?

Phil Jackson coached the Albany Patroons for five years before taking over the Chicago Bulls. Is Abdul-Jabbar willing to do that?

“I will consider anything,” Abdul-Jabbar said, but his aides make it clear that being a head coach is his immediate goal.

“The best thing would be to dig in and get to the root of all this thing, to do it at the ground level,” Williams said. “A lot of guys have paid enormous dues. That’s how it generally works.”

And how would he do with the media and public? During his 20 NBA seasons, those were arguably his two toughest foes.

He was sometimes as difficult on autograph seekers as opposing centers. In front of cameras or pens, he was often stiff and snarly.

That would not exactly make him a dream date for the sort of rebuilding, publicity-hungry franchise that might be attracted to him.

“I can handle that stuff now,” he said. “I know it’s part of the job. I can handle it.”

West doesn’t think it would matter.

“He’s a private guy but . . . any franchise that would announce Abdul-Jabbar as their new head coach, basketball people would look at it like, ‘Hmmmm, that’s interesting,’ ” West said. “I think a lot of people would take him.”

Then there is the question of ego. Ever since Abdul-Jabbar filed a suit against Miami Dolphin running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar to prevent him from continuing to use his relatively new name, folks have wondered.

Why is this 50-year-old man so afraid of sharing a spotlight he no longer commands?

Speaking for the first time about the suit, Abdul-Jabbar explained it differently.

“I’m protecting the companies that I do business with,” he said. “When I signed endorsement contracts, my name became a property.

“It’s like somebody starting a soft drink company and calling it Coca-Cola. It’s like an actor changing his name to John Travolta.”

Abdul-Jabbar noted that his shoe affiliate is already concerned because the football Abdul-Jabbar signed with a rival shoe company.

“At this point, it’s more than just a name,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

Perception remains a problem. NBA coaches fight with referees, not over endorsement deals.

Not that Abdul-Jabbar has ever worried about perception.

“I know I’m qualified to be an NBA coach,” he said. “Anybody that doubts that is foolish. And I’ll prove it if I get a chance.”