Del Harris Calls It Quits After 50 Years In NBA
June 8, 2009 – 8:45 am by Michael Bean
Del Harris has seen a lot and accomplished a lot in his five decades in the Association. You rarely hear him mentioned in the same breath as the great coaches in the league, but the man has a track record of success as a player, assistant, head coach and other roles. Harris joined ESPN Radio Chicago last week to talk about the long strange trip that has been his 50 year NBA career.
On his retirement:
“I’ve been cleaning out the garage…In a week of cleaning out the garage, I’m thinking maybe I made a bad decision…Life comes in stages and phases. I’ve been fortunate enough to have an interesting run in basketball. I’m an active guy and there’ll be stuff to do. I’ll probably stay in basketball in some way or another. Who knows, I might do a Brett Favre.”
On his last season:
“I thought that as the year went on, we came together with a good program and a good system. Starting from nothing is not easy to do. To me, it was a good year for me to go out on because I just had a great time those last 2 months. I gotta say the first 5 months were frustrating because I wasn’t happy…It was just a remarkable turnaround. For us to have a winning record, to go in and take Boston to 7 games…one more guy and we win that series.”
