Doug Collins’ Beautiful Mind Revived Sixers
Doug Collins has a beautiful mind. That is the major point brought to light in a profile of the 76ers’ coach in the current issue of Sports Illustrated, written by Michael Rosenberg — Collins remembers everything. Every little detail of every game, no matter how long ago.
It is that eye for detail, coupled with a burning desire to impart all he knows to everyone around him, that has made him something of a Mr. Fix-It throughout his NBA coaching career. The teams he inherited in Chicago, Detroit and Washington all improved dramatically after he took over, and the Sixers have done the same this year; they carry a 40-39 record into Friday night’s game against Toronto, after going 27-55 last year.
The caveat is that his exhaustive nature, his need to constantly remind players of every possible variable “wears on a guy,” as his former player (and current assistant) Michael Curry says in the story.
But Collins swears he is a different guy now — that he has learned to pull back, learned to delegate to his assistants. It is something he has said at other times this season. The players only hear his voice, he tells SI, when they absolutely need to hear it. (What he didn’t add is that he is forever texting them pointers, advice, reassurance, etc. “He is,” Andre Iguodala said before the season, “a very good texter.”)
They have hit a bump in the road, losing their last three to slip to seventh in the Eastern Conference with three regular-season games remaining, but overall the results are undeniable.
“My career is going in the right way because of him, because he’s here,” second-year point guard Jrue Holiday says in the story.
(In an interesting juxtaposition, Holiday is also quoted in the current issue of ESPN the Magazine. Asked how often his coach is wrong on a scale of 1-10, he says, “One. Why? Because I have to say that. And why do I have to say that? Because I like playing.”)
Anyway, here are some other interesting tidbits from the SI story:
- When Collins works a summer camp, he learns the name of every camper by the second day. “I want them to feel important,” he says in the story. (That works with writers, too. He addresses everyone on the Sixers beat by name. Amusing aside, though: After the recent Lil Wayne-induced loss to Sacramento, Collins mistakenly called me “Greg.” I am now known by that name among my fellow scribes.)
- Collins’ favorite Bible verse, Proverbs 3: 5-6 (“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding/In all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”) is tattooed on his right breast, and the names of his four grandchildren are embroidered over his heart.
- He once paid the Pistons’ video coordinator a playoff share — around $5,000 — out of his own pocket.
- His son Chris, the associate head coach at Duke, presented him the Olympic gold medal Chris earned as an assistant to Mike Krzyzewski at the 2008 Games. That’s because the elder Collins was denied one at the ‘72 Olympics, when the final against the Soviets ended in controversy.
- Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf gave him a watch after each of the six NBA championships Chicago won under Phil Jackson, Collins’ former assistant and the man promoted to the head-coaching job when Collins was fired in 1989.
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