| | LOS ANGELES -- If the lowly Los Angeles Clippers pay heed to
their assistant coaches, they can't help but improve.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA's career scoring leader who has
said repeatedly he wants to coach, got his wish Friday, being hired
as an assistant by the Clippers.
Signed through June 30, Abdul-Jabbar joins another former NBA
great, Dennis Johnson, as an assistant with the team. Johnson was
hired Feb. 4 -- a day after Chris Ford was fired and Jim Todd was
promoted from assistant to head coach.
"In pretty short order, we've been able to surround ourselves
with a couple of guys who represented a lot of championships,"
Todd said.
The coaching job will be the second for Abdul-Jabbar, who was
paid $1 for working as an assistant with an Apache high school
basketball team in Arizona last year.
A book he wrote on the five-month experience, "A Season On The
Reservation," was released earlier this month.
"I'm thrilled to be chosen for this position with the Clippers
organization," Abdul-Jabbar said in a statement. "I look forward
to helping the Clippers team and the entire organization improve."
Abdul-Jabbar retired after the 1988-89 season with 38,387 points
in a record 57,446 minutes. The 52-year-old Hall of Famer averaged
24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists in his 20-season career
-- six with the Milwaukee Bucks and 14 with the Los Angeles Lakers.
A six-time NBA Most Valuable Player, he played on six
championship teams -- the first with Milwaukee in 1971, and the
final five with the Lakers in the 1980s. The Bucks traded him to
the Lakers on June 16, 1975.
Johnson, 45, was a member of three championship teams -- the
Seattle SuperSonics in 1979, and the Boston Celtics in 1984 and
1986 -- and played against Abdul-Jabbar in many a big game.
Abdul-Jabbar will be on the bench for the first time tonight
when the Clippers face the Bulls in Chicago.
"We are pleased to have Kareem join our staff," said Elgin
Baylor, the Clippers' vice president of basketball operations. "I
think that he will be a tremendous asset, given his experience and
knowledge of the game.
"Our players -- especially our big people -- can't help but
benefit greatly by sharing in that experience and knowledge."
The 7-foot-2 Abdul-Jabbar, who led UCLA to three NCAA
championships and an 88-2 overall record in the late 1960s, was a
member of the NBA's All-Defensive first team five times.
Young Clippers centers Michael Olowokandi and Keith Closs figure
to be the players affected the most by his hiring. The 7-foot
Olowokandi is 24; the 7-3 Closs is 23.
"I am ecstatic that the organization has moved to support what
we are trying to accomplish in developing our young players," Todd
said. "I don't feel that there can be anybody more qualified to
work with our big men."
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