At 62, after 31 years in the college ranks, Tarkanian is defying basketball’s conventional wisdom, which insists that a college coach without pro experience as a player or, at least, as an assistant coach, can’t make the leap to the NBA. The NBA coach of choice is an ex-player, like the Bulls’ Phil Jackson or the Knicks’ Pat Riley, who “has been there.” College guys, it’s said, will be overwhelmed by the sophisticated offensive and defensive schemes, the never-ending season and, above all, the superstar players with their superstar salaries and egos. “For a college coach, the pro game is like something from Mars,” says former Boston Celtics coach Tommy Heinsohn.
Top college coaches aren’t always eager to jump to the tenureless NBA. Only nine of the 27 pro teams started this season with the same coaches they had two years ago. The Bobby Knights, Dean Smith and John Thompsons already make big money and are the undisputed stars of their teams. Tarkanian, too, would have preferred to remain in the college ranks, where he has the highest winning percentage of any Division I coach in history. But his renegade recruiting practices and his players’ contempt for rules made Tarkanian the NCAA’s most public enemy and embroiled him in a decadelong battle that wound its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, it was a nasty feud with UNLV’s president that finally did him in. “If I had a hobby, I would have retired,” said Tarkanian, who once made it a practice not to hire assistants who owned golf clubs or fishing rods.
Tarkanian concedes his ignorance of the wrinkles of the pro game. He was shocked that he had to tolerate reporters in his locker room until shortly before game time, dismayed that he was prohibited from doffing his sports jacket during play and baffled by how to signal for a 20-second timeout. On opening night, when Robinson crashed to the floor and lay there, Tarkanian appeared clueless until referee Joe Crawford called over, “Tark, call timeout or something. You just can’t stand there and watch him.” The local press has criticized the coach for everything from poor substitution patterns to insufficient ref-baiting. Tarkanian has sought counsel from virtually anyone–rival coaches, his former players, even visiting journalists–familiar with the league. “One of Coach’s strengths is he knows what he doesn’t know,” says Greg Anthony, a former UNLV star now with the Knicks. “He’s not too proud to seek knowledge where others might not.”
Yet there’s something Lieutenant Columbo-ish about Tarkanian’s act. “He can flat-out coach,” says Robinson, whose $5 million-plus annual salary gives his opinion a lot of weight. “He’s nowhere near as in the dark as he portrays himself.” Tarkanian is wise enough to realize that his first priority is “whatever David wants.” He also has the advantage of having run a pro-style program at UNLV; if any college coach can make it in the pros it should be a master of run-and-gun offense and in-your-face defense. (Some would say he essentially ran a pro team; when UNLV star Reggie Theus was drafted by the Chicago Bulls, one reporter asked him if he’d have to take a pay cut.) Finally, Tark has a reputation as a player’s coach. “He’s very good at showing he cares,” says Robinson. “That may be more valuable than anything else.”
Tarkanian’s “caring” has already produced one remarkable comeback story. At the home opener, the Spurs’ starting point guard was a 25-year-old rookie named Lloyd Daniels, a New York City playground legend who for more than a dozen years scored more drugs than baskets. Tarkanian recruited Daniels to UNLV back in 1987, only to see him arrested in a Vegas crack house a month later. Two years later Daniels was shot three times during a drug deal and almost bled to death. For years he drifted through basketball’s hinterlands; Daniels couldn’t make it with the Albany (N.Y.) Patroons or even in the New Zealand League, where no one else even thought about playing above the rim.
Daniels’s arrest was another blemish on Tarkanian’s college record. But the coach kept in touch. When Daniels got religion and straight, Tark recruited him again. “Coach stuck with me through thick and thin,” says Daniels, who is tested twice weekly for drugs. “I can’t promise to pay him back, just to go out and do my best.” Daniels’s best on opening night was pretty good payback. He sank three consecutive three-point shots and wound up with 21 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists in a Spurs victory. “I told him before the game to watch out for the traps,” exulted Tarkanian. “He said, ‘Coach, I was raised in Brooklyn. I ain’t scared of nothing’.”
Tarkanian, who was raised in Ohio, is plenty scared, though. “Without the talent, you can’t outcoach anybody,” says TV commentator Dick Vitale. (In 1978 Vitale became the last college coach with no NBA background to jump directly to an NBA head-coaching job, and he flopped.) Even with Robinson and a born-again Daniels, the Spurs have a weak roster. Tark opened the season with four veterans on the bench who between them averaged 16 points a game last year, three rookies who weren’t even drafted, three players with a history of drug or alcohol problems and two players– certainly an NBA record-with bullets still in them. It doesn’t add up to much of a team, and all too soon “The Shark” could be smelling his own blood.
