Al Attles: The Demise of the Player-Coach, 1994

[The player-coach was a mainstay of the early NBA. But times change, and the association hasn’t had one in an eon for a variety of good reasons. One is that serving as a player-coach can be extremely awkward. “The impossible job” the late-Al Attles calls it in this article published under his byline in the December 1994 issue of the magazine Playbook. Attles speaks from experience, having served as the player-coach of the San Francisco Warriors while in his early 30s and toward the end of his 11-year playing career. He got the job on an interim basis for the last 30 games of the 1969-70 season and remained in both roles for the entire next season. In 1971-72, Attles retired as a player to concentrate on coaching the Warriors. Attles tells his story in the first person, though he received an editorial hand from sportswriter Michelle Smith, who would become a leading journalistic voice in covering women’s basketball. Smith just published a book on Stanford’s iconic women’s basketball…