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Kevin Mackey Had a Keen Eye for Basketball Talent

Kevin Mackey, who epitomized the phrase "basketball lifer," passed away on Tuesday at the age of 79. He made his mark at the high school, college, and professional levels as a coach, and as a scout with a keen eye for basketball talent. Mackey had a self-induced downfall at the height of his coaching career, and then he bounced back to finish his career as part of the basketball community at the NBA level by working as a scout for the Indiana Pacers. He was inducted in the American Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024. 

I told Mackey's story in detail in my January 2007 Basketball Times article titled Catching Up With...Kevin Mackey, but it is worth retelling the highlights here so that younger fans can appreciate the impact that he had on the game as a whole and on many specific players who he coached or scouted. 

Mackey led Don Bosco Technical High School (Boston) to the 1976 Massachusetts state title plus three consecutive Class A Catholic championships before serving as an assistant coach at Boston College from 1977-83. Mackey earned a reputation as a top recruiter, and several of the players who he brought to Boston College later played in the NBA, including Michael Adams, John Bagley, John Garris and Jay Murphy. One of his top prospects was future NBA player Manute Bol, who Mackey attempted to bring to Cleveland State. 

Mackey served as Cleveland State's head coach from 1983-90, posting a 142-69 record with back to back Mid-Continent Conference regular season titles (1985-86) and two NIT appearances. His teams employed a "run and stun" full court pressure defense adapted from what he learned while coaching under Tom Davis at Boston College. Some of these concepts were later borrowed by well-known coaches such as Rick Pitino and Jerry Tarkanian. The highlight for Mackey at Cleveland State was the team's Cinderella run in the 1986 NCAA Tournament, when the Vikings upset the Bobby Knight-coached 3rd seeded Indiana Hoosiers and then beat 6th seeded St. Joseph's before losing 71-70 to Navy (featuring Hall of Fame center David Robinson) in the Sweet 16. That was the first time a 14th seeded team reached the Sweet 16. Cleveland State used the proceeds from that NCAA Tournament run to build what is now known as the Wolstein Center, and in 1990 the school signed Mackey to a two year $300,000 contract. Unfortunately, midnight struck for Mackey and the Cinderella Vikings when Mackey was caught driving under the influence after leaving a Cleveland crackhouse. 

Mackey admitted that he had been an alcoholic for many years, and that he had begun using cocaine shortly after the 1986 NCAA Tournament. He immediately went into drug rehabilitation, requesting that Cleveland State grant him a leave of absence to complete the 60 day program. The school president stated "I fired Kevin Mackey, but really he fired himself." Mackey completed the drug rehab program run by John Lucas--a former number one overall draft pick whose NBA playing career was ruined because of his drug addiction--and then Lucas helped him get a job coaching minor league basketball. Mackey spent 13 years coaching in a veritable alphabet soup of leagues in addition to coaching in Argentina, Canada and Korea. He won four championships, including three straight USBL titles. During that time, he coached 35 players who later played in the NBA, including Darrell Armstrong, Michael Curry and Adrian Griffin, who played on the Dallas Mavericks team that made it to the 2006 NBA Finals.

After Larry Bird became president of the Indiana Pacers, Mackey was the first person he hired. Mackey worked for the Pacers as a scout for 18 years before retiring in 2021. Mackey was gracious enough to provide a lot of time for me as my primary source for "A Scout's-Eye View of the Game," which is still one of my favorite articles that I have written. I had long wanted to have the opportunity to learn about--and share with my readers--how elite basketball talent evaluators do their job, and I would say that the insights that Mackey provided nearly 20 years ago are still relevant today. I will never forget Mackey's concise, colorful descriptions of players he scouted, including one who "has hands like feet" and another who he dismissed as "JAG" (just another guy). Although intelligent use of statistics is part of talent evaluation, the value of the educated eye should not be minimized--and Mackey's basketball eye was as educated as anyone's.

In 2007, Mackey shared with me his all-time NBA team:

1st Team

Center: Wilt Chamberlain
Power Forward: Bill Russell
Small Forward: Larry Bird
Guard: Magic Johnson
Guard: Michael Jordan

2nd Team

Center: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Power Forward: Shaquille O'Neal
Small Forward: Julius Erving
Guard: Jerry West
Guard: Oscar Robertson 

Mackey said that if he could expand the roster to 11 then he would include Elgin Baylor. Mackey selected Red Auerbach as his coach, with Phil Jackson as the assistant coach (back in the day, teams did not have an armada of assistant coaches). 

Speaking with Mackey and watching games alongside him is one of the highlights of my basketball writing career. I felt like we were kindred spirits because of our mutual love of basketball; we connected despite our differences in age and life experiences.

Mackey lived a life with no regrets; after I asked him if he thought about what he might have accomplished had he been able to coach longer at Cleveland State, Mackey replied, "I think that regret can be a cancer. I'd rather do a good job with today. We had a great run—it was too short--at Cleveland State and that was a great, wonderful part of my career. College-age coaching was a wonderful opportunity and we had terrific success." However, he admitted that he missed coaching and that if he ever had an opportunity to coach again then he would take it. 

That opportunity never presented itself, so I am picturing Kevin Mackey in basketball heaven now, coaching the "run and stun" and recruiting players who do not have "hands like feet."

Labels: Boston College, Cleveland State, Indiana Pacers, Kevin Mackey

posted by David Friedman @ 3:17 AM

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