In 1967 Alex Hannum set foot on a piece of pristine NBA history. Ever since then he has been an island unto himself, a survivor starved for more company. If it were up to him, Hannum would have voted Bill Fitch onto his hallowed grounds in 1986, he would have voted Pat Riley on in 1994, he would have voted Del Harris on and Chuck Daly on and Lenny Wilkens on, too. Alas, there's a higher power at work. Not any network executive, not the Nielsen ratings.
Fate is all.
This being real life as the NBA knows it and not MTV or CBS or NBC, there was no tidy script that assured a satisfying ending. Destiny delivered NBA championships to Hannum when he was coaching St. Louis in 1958 and Philadelphia nine years later. He was the first coach to win NBA titles with two different teams. Thirty-three years later, he remains the only one. It has been a lovely, rather lonely legacy.