Knicks coach Lenny Wilkens talks to his team during a time out in a game against the Dallas Mavericks in 2004. EPA

By the time he finally made it all the way back home, the Knicks were already in the early throes of a two-decade death rattle. Lenny Wilkens never complained, because he was always happiest when he had a team to coach, players to teach, basketball wisdom to share.

“It’s been a long trip to get back where I started,” Wilkens said in a long interview on Jan. 15, 2004, the day he was hired to coach the Knicks, a day before his new team would beat one of his old teams, the Seattle SuperSonics, 108-88, one of the 1,332 wins he would accumulate as an NBA coach, still the third-highest total in the league’s history.

Wilkens’ death was announced by NBA commissioner Adam Silver S

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