Excited to attend the dedication ceremony for the bench installed in the Naismith Coaches Circle in honor of legendary coach Rollie Massimino and to celebrate with the Massimino family in Springfield, MA during the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction weekend.
Appreciate the birthday shout from my Bally Sports Cleveland team!
The longtime coach-turned-broadcaster led the Hawks, Cavs and Grizzlies to a combined 667-548 record, with 11 playoff appearances in 16 seasons.
SAN FRANCISCO — Mike Fratello, young Atlanta Hawks assistant coach, was 35 years old and stood 5-foot-7 inches (same as now) when he got the chance to interview for the Chicago Bulls’ top job for the 1982-83 season.
The process went well enough and Fratello already was home when he got the call that the Bulls had decided to hire Paul Westhead. The snag? One of Chicago’s co-owners had decided that Fratello was too short to command the respect of NBA players.
Recalling that slight Sunday, Fratello, now 75, said, “You earn respect.”
Click here for the rest of the story by Steve Aschburner for NBA.com.
Mike Fratello’s ties to the former Soviet republic now under Russian attack stretch back to his days as Alexander Volkov’s first NBA coach in the 1980s. They only got deeper from there.
Click here to read Marc Stein’s (The Stein Line) account of how Coach Fratello came to coach Ukraine’s national team.
In his USA Basketball coaching debut as head coach of the USA Men’s National Team that competed in the February 2020 FIBA AmeriCup qualifying games, Mike Fratello led his team to two wins against Puerto Rico.
Fratello, who currently is an analyst for NBA TV and for nationally televised games on TNT, served as an NBA head coach for 17 seasons, including stints with the Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Memphis Grizzlies.
Boasting of an NBA career regular-season record of 667-548 for a .549 winning percentage, he led teams to the NBA playoffs in 11 of his 15 full seasons as a head coach. He ranks 20th in all-time NBA regular season wins (667) and 21st in games coached (1,215).
USA Basketball spoke with Fratello to get his insight and perspective on coaching. Click here to read the interview.
