Los Angeles Lakers: Jack McKinney, godfather of the Showtime era, passed away

Jack McKinney, the godfather of the Los Angeles Lakers Showtime Era, recently passed away.

When one thinks of the Los Angeles Lakers’ Showtime dynasty of the 1980s, they will inevitably think of Magic Johnson running the fast break, James Worthy or Byron Scott finishing it with a slam dunk, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhooks and coach Pat Riley orchestrating it all. But one man started the whole phenomenon, and he hardly ever gets any credit for it.

That man was Jack McKinney. Unfortunately, on the evening of September 25, ESPN reported that former Lakers coach Jack McKinney had passed away at the age of 83.

For many Laker fans, especially the casual fans, this story may not catch their attention. Who the hell was Jack McKinney, they may ask themselves. However, a quick look at history will reveal that he played a huge role in the team’s flagship era, although he gets little to no credit for it due to a cruel twist of fate.

McKinney grew up in Chester, PA, just a short drive from Philly, and coached college basketball at St. Joseph’s University for eight years, going to the NCAA tournament four times. When Dr. Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in the summer of 1979 and drafted a 19-year-old named Magic Johnson, he hired McKinney as their head coach because he felt he was the best available coach who would make the Lakers into a fast break team.

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They started off 9-4 and had lots of room for improvement, as Los Angeles and its jet set was just starting to become infatuated with them. However, during a day off, McKinney was riding his bike to meet with assistant coach Paul Westhead for a game of tennis when he suffered a near-fatal fall.

As a result, Westhead was promoted to head coach, and he promoted a former Laker player named Pat Riley from being legendary play-by-play man Chick Hearn’s color commentator to being an assistant coach.

The Lakers won the world championship that year, and when Riley replaced Westhead as head coach early in the 1981-82 season, the Lakers won another ring that season, and thus, “Showtime” was born.

Today, Riley – with his slicked-back hair, Armani suits and 1980’s yuppie sensibility – gets much of the credit for making the team’s engine purr. But history can be inaccurate sometimes, as it was really McKinney who put that engine together.

When Westhead took over as the coach, he basically kept McKinney’s system intact, thinking that he would return as head coach once he recovered from his bike accident.

McKinney did indeed return as a head coach – of the Indiana Pacers the next season. He retired after a few seasons and would never coach in the NBA again.

The Lakers, meanwhile, continued building the foundation for what would become arguably the greatest team in NBA history during the mid-80’s.

Westhead started to get away from what made the Lakers successful in 1979-80 – i.e. what McKinney was doing by coaching fast break basketball, which led to Westhead getting canned in the fall of 1981 amidst a slow start and Magic Johnson complaining to the media that the Lakers weren’t playing the style they should’ve been playing.

When Riley took over, he pretty much went back to what McKinney set up in the fall of 1979, and the rest, as they say, was history.

Jeff Pearlman, an author who grew up a Laker fan in the New York City area, wrote an extensive book about the Showtime Lakers in 2014, with many in-depth stories about characters other than Magic, Riley or Dr. Buss. One of those characters was Jack McKinney.

During his prep for the book, Pearlman interviewed McKinney at his home in Florida and found, that due to the neurological issues that his accident caused, he could barely even remember coaching the Lakers. Because of that cruel twist of fate, most people don’t remember – or even know that he coached the Lakers and some of their greatest players. Let alone that he provided the strategical foundation for their greatest era.

One of the stars he coached has vouched for that fact. Norm Nixon, a starter on Showtime from 1979-83, wants us to know that McKinney deserves tons more credit for that era than he’s ever gotten.

"“He created Showtime,” said Norm Nixon, Los Angeles’ All-Star guard. “That should never be forgotten. Jack McKinney created Showtime.”"

As it looks like the Lakers will be recreating Showtime, or at least a good imitation of it this season, let’s not forget a humble, down-on-his-luck man who put it into place to begin with. Thoughts and prayers to his family, friends and associates.