First true dynasty
Basketball Hall of Famer John Kundla dies at 101
Minneapolis Lakers coach John Kundla is carried by his players to their dressing room in Minneapolis after defeating the New York Knickerbockers to win their fourth NBA basketball championship in five years. Kundla died Sunday.
he bawled out,” Mikan once told Sports Illustrated. “The message he sent was that no one on the team was above criticism.”
Kundla was born in Star Junction, Penn., on July 3, 1916. He relocated to Minneapolis with his family at the age of five.
The Detroit Gems of NBL moved to the Twin Cities in 1947 and hired Kundla to run the renamed Lakers. In Mikan, Vern Mikkelsen and Jim Pollard, the Lakers assembled the first superteam, beating New York in 1952 and ’ 53 and Syracuse in ‘ 54 for the three straight titles.
He also was a trailblazer during those racially tense seasons, often turning down hotels that refused to house black players when the team was on the road. When he later coached at the University of Minnesota, Kundla was on the bench when the first black players arrived at the school.
“John was an incredible staple of Minnesota basketball,” Timberwolves and Lynx owner Glen Taylor said in a statement.
To this day Jackson, Auerbach and Kundla stand as the only three coaches to have won more than two championships in a row and Kundla remains tied with Popovich and Riley for total championships with five.
“He was an all- time great, Hall
of Fame NBA coach,” Timberwolves coach Tom Thibodeau said in the team release “He had a very profound impact on the NBA, coaching and the overall game.” What was Kundla’s secret? “One game with about a minute left to go. Tie game. I substituted,” Kundla recalled to NBA. com last year. “The player I substituted gets a beautiful basket and wins the ball game. Everybody said, ‘ What a smart move you made.’
“What had happened, the ( other) player came to me and said, ‘ I want to go to the bathroom.’ I got credit for being smart.”
That kind of humility was his hallmark, both on the court and at home.
Kundla and wife Marie, who died in 2007, had six children. Five of Kundla’s six grandchildren played college basketball, a hoops- loving family that would only find out how revered the patriarch was when others would speak for John. Only two were around during his Lakers days.
“We were too young to realize how important it was and what a number of accomplishments he had made until we reached the age of reason,” Tom Kundla said. “That’s what my dad does. No big deal. We’d see the trophies and the big gold basketball in the entry way. It was a norm.”