The Son Rises

The first funeral was in August. Del Harris flew back to his hometown and delivered his father’s eulogy.

“That was the greatest funeral you could ever see,” said Harris’ older sister, Beverly Jones, from her home in Crossville, Tenn.

“You ought to get the tape. Del has a great sense of humor, and he was so good. Then the preacher carried on, kind of fed off of what Del had said. Everything was really upbeat. It was like a real show.”

Six weeks later, in the same Plainfield, Ind., church, Harris stood and delivered another eulogy, this time his mother’s.

Wilma and Elmer Harris, both 88, had been married for 69 years and were buried side by side in the small town where they raised their two children .

“It was tougher for Mother,” Jones said. “Mother had been senile for so many years. We both sort of drifted apart from her, like our real mother was already dead. . . .

“But I think Mother coming so close behind, [it] was harder to keep that bright outlook.”

For Harris, though, the passing of his parents at what seems a crucial time in his career seems to have left him a kind of peace.

At 61, beginning his fifth season as Laker coach, he is in the final year of his contract with no promise of an extension.

There have been painful losses to the Utah Jazz in the last two playoffs but the Lakers are a solid-looking team and making the NBA finals is the expectation this season. Anything less might end up in Harris’ departure.

But while other men might have spent the off-season--a very long off-season, thanks to the lockout--obsessed with the issue, Harris spent it looking forward to the season as an opportunity to finally reach the pinnacle.

“It’s a year of all years that there’s something extra special in it for me,” he said recently. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to win the championship, just like everybody else. And I’ve won a lot of championships over the years, and they’ve all meant a lot to me. . . .

“I always thought I would win an NBA championship. But now I want it to be this year. It’s easy to say, ‘Well, last year of the contract, too.’ But that’s not near the overriding reason for me. It’s the first time my parents will actually be able to see my Lakers play.

“They haven’t been able to see. . . . My dad had lost his vision. And my mom over the last five years, she didn’t know where she was, or when she thought she knew, she thought she was in her little home and she thought people were her mom and dad and brother.

“Over the last few years, she hasn’t known me. And in the end, didn’t even know her own name. She hadn’t known anything all this time.

“Now they’re in heaven. Now they know.”

Close Relationship

Elmer Harris, a retired barber, was a Hoosier. So, of course, he was a basketball man.

And, despite the onset of blindness, he was a perceptive observer who knew the Lakers almost as well as his son did.

You can thank Beverly for that.

“We have a satellite dish and we’d get every Laker game, of course,” Jones said. “I would call Daddy at the end of every quarter to tell him exactly what was going on. . . .

“If it was in overtime or a really close game, last two minutes, I’d just get him on the line and tell him exactly what was happening. . . . I’m going to miss that, really. Also, I’m going to miss the $60 phone bills. . . .

“Del did seem greatly affected by Dad’s death. He really wanted Dad to be around when he won his championship.”

Elmer Harris had been failing since last spring and his children knew his time was coming.

Said Del Harris, “I knew my dad was dying. We talked [almost] every day while I was in Europe [as an assistant on Team USA at the World Championships in late summer], and he was hanging on. . . .

“When I talked to him at the end, after I came back, there were lots of things he wasn’t coherent about. Like, he didn’t quite understand why he was in the hospital.

“But there were two things he was clear on: points of religion--he was a very religious man--and basketball. He had questions about the lockout. I mean, even at the very end. He wanted to know about my guys, about various players, had I heard anything about them.

“It was amazing, for a guy who couldn’t see, he still had a good feel for how the guys played. what our needs were, our strengths and weaknesses.”

Wilma Harris had no outward reaction to the death of her husband, but apparently, in some way, she knew.

“There’s still no question she became aware,” Harris said. “And at the end, she just shut down. She just quit living. . . . She knew it was time.”

When Harris returned from her funeral, he came burning to coach this season. The lockout delayed things but the urgency never left.

He has been asked about his contract status for more than a year now, since few established NBA coaches start the final season of a contract. Most teams extend coaching contracts before the final season to avoid lame-duck situations.

Harris, though, has heard repeated reports of his imminent firing--yet has remained. He dealt with Nick Van Exel for four seasons, before the temperamental guard’s departure in a draft-day trade last June.

“There isn’t anything more that they can heap on me,” Harris said. “There’s nobody that wants to win it more than I do. Not Jerry West, not Jerry Buss, not a lifelong fan, not Chick Hearn, not Magic [Johnson], not anybody. Not Shaq.

“There’s nobody who wants to do it as much as the guy in his 40th year. I started [coaching] in 1959. But, I still have enough balance, I think, in my life to keep that from making me do or say crazy things or go nuts about it.”

But is it fair that, after four seasons--he has increased the victory total in each successive season--Harris may be judged, fired or rehired, by one playoff result after a madcap, 50-game lockout-shortened season?

“It’s not productive to think about that,” said Harris, whose name appeared on at least one team’s short list of coaching candidates last summer. He refused to even consider leaving the Lakers.

“Let’s face it, you do the best you can at that moment and that day,” he said. “You let the future take care of itself.

“I think it’s a good philosophy for all of us. It’s one that I’ll certainly try to follow. You’re not going to hear me campaigning through the newspapers for anything. Other than to get our guys to give the best efforts possible.”

West, the team’s executive vice president, said that Harris’ status is no different from what it has been.

“He’s like all of us--our owner will re-evaluate him, as he will me, Mitch Kupchak and other people, at the end of every season,” West said Monday. “Our owner has been very consistent with that.

“I will tell you, I think he’s done just a great job--not a good job, but a great job. I think people get caught up thinking that this is a talented team and talent should win out every time. But we are making great progress. And I think our best basketball is ahead of us.”

West said that perhaps the main reason there were no discussions between management and Harris on his contract was the lockout.

“There weren’t any discussions with anybody,” West said. “To be candid, we thought the season was going to be canceled.”

Beverly Jones says she doesn’t worry about her brother. She says she taught him how to play cards when he was 3. She remembers him winning money at 4, and she says he has always been a winner.

“I don’t worry about Del, I worry about him trading Eddie Jones,” she said, displaying the NBA acumen that has served her well in several NBA fantasy leagues. “I adopted Eddie because I have a son named Eddie. So I have two sons named Eddie Jones.

“I just wish they could find some way for Eddie and Kobe [Bryant] to play together. I don’t worry about [Del] losing his job. I happen to believe God’s in control of everything, so whatever happens is a good idea, even though it may not look good to us at the time.”

Flowers From O’Neal

Among the floral arrangements sent to Plainfield were two from Shaquille O’Neal.

“He sent the loveliest flowers for Mother and Father’s funerals,” Jones said. “Orchids and roses--huge things. They were beautiful. I know Del really appreciated that.”

O’Neal, in his third Laker season, and Harris are bound together, at least for now, in the need for a title.

“Shaq and I, we’ve talked about this various times,” Harris said. “We’ve done about all you can do but win the NBA championship. We’ve been runner-up [Harris with the Houston Rockets in 1981, O’Neal with Orlando in 1995].

“He’s won the scoring championship, he’s been the field-goal [percentage] leader. He’s made the first team all-NBA. He’s played better every year. Overall, his game is better than it’s ever been.

“He’s established himself as an all-time great player at age 26. So what more is there? All he can do, short of winning a championship, is repeat things he’s already done, or maybe add a point or a rebound.

“Like all great athletes, he has to face the judgment of, ‘How many rings did you win?’ And in Michael Jordan’s biography, his motivation to win championships became far greater than his individual accomplishments.

“He looked at Larry Bird and Magic Johnson as guys who had set the bar at a particular point in terms of greatness, and those championships became far more motivating to him than just any individual thing.”

And yes, Harris acknowledges, after all those victories in the NBA--he’s at 550 now--and the playoff runs, he, too, will be measured by the jewelry.

How many rings, Del?

“The same with me,” Harris said. “There are only [16] coaches who have won more games than I have in the NBA. And I’ve only been a head coach 12 full years. The last eight years, my teams have won exactly 400 games, and 50 wins is the standard of excellence.

“I’ve been to the finals, I’ve coached in college where we had great teams, in high school we had great teams, Puerto Rico [where he coached for seven years and] won three national championships.

“The only thing left for me, other than redoing stuff that I’ve done, is to win the NBA championship. You know, I’ve probably got four or five years, something like that, left to be in the business.

“I would like to do it right now.”

When asked recently, O’Neal, whose nature isn’t to verbalize his support for a coach, said it wasn’t up to him to be concerned about others’ fates, that he only could control his own.

But did those flowers at the funerals in Plainfield mean something else?

“You can see his quotes, ‘If we don’t win, it’s going to be Del or me,’ ” Harris said. “I tell him, it’s you and me when it’s all said and done.

“So let’s get it done.”

Going Up

The Laker’s victory total has increased every season under Coach Del Harris:

‘94-95: 48

‘95-96: 53

‘96-97: 56

‘97-98: 61

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Things Turning Up?

A look at Laker Coach Del Harris’ career, with season, team and record:

* 1979-80, Houston (41-41)--Tied for second in the Central Division, defeated San Antonio, 2-1, in Eastern Conference first round, lost to Boston, 4-0, in Eastern Conference semifinals.

* 1980-81, Houston (40-42)--Tied for second in the Midwest Division, defeated Lakers, 2-1, in Western Conference first round, defeated San Antonio, 4-3, in Western Conference semifinals, defeated Kansas City, 4-1, in Western Conference finals, lost to Boston, 4-2, in NBA finals.

* 1981-82, Houston (46-36)--Tied for second in Midwest Division, lost to Seattle, 2-1, in Western Conference first round.

* 1982-83, Houston (14-68)--Finished last in Midwest Division.

* 1983-86--Scouted for the Milwaukee Bucks.

* 1986-87--Assistant coach, Milwaukee Bucks.

* 1987-88, Milwaukee (42-40)--Tied for fourth in Central Division, lost to Atlanta in Eastern Conference first round, 3-2.

* 1988-89, Milwaukee (49-33)--Fourth place in Central Division, defeated Atlanta, 3-2, in Eastern Conference first round, lost to Detroit, 4-0, in Eastern Conference semifinals.

* 1989-90, Milwaukee (44-38)--Third place in Central Division, lost to Chicago, 3-1, in Eastern Conference first round.

* 1990-91, Milwaukee, (48-34)--Third place in Central Division, lost to Philadelphia, 3-0, in Eastern Conference first round.

* 1991-92, Milwaukee (8-9)--Replaced as coach after 17 games by Frank Hamblen.

* 1994-95, Lakers, (48-34)--Third place in Pacific Division, defeated Seattle, 3-1, in Western Conference first round, lost to San Antonio, 4-2, in Western Conference semifinals.

* 1995-96, Lakers (53-29)--Second place in Pacific Division, lost to Houston, 3-1, in Western Conference first round.

* 1996-97, Lakers (56-26)--Second place in Pacific Division, defeated Portland, 3-1, in Western Conference first round, lost to Utah, 4-1, in Western Conference semifinals.

* 1997-98, Lakers (61-21)--Second place in Pacific Division, defeated Portland, 3-1, in Western Conference first round, defeated Seattle, 4-1, in Western Conference semifinals, lost to Utah, 4-0, in Western Conference finals.

* Regular-season record: 13 seasons, 550-451, .549, No division titles, one conference title, no NBA titles.

* Playoff record: Overall: 38-50, .432. In first round: 21-21, .500. In semifinals: 11-20, .355. In conference final: 4-5, .444. In NBA final: 2-4, .333

How They Rank

Career NBA coaching victories:

1. Lenny Wilkens* 1,120-908

2. Bill Fitch 944-1,106

3. Red Auerbach 938-479

4. Dick Motta 935-1,017

5. Pat Riley* 914-387

6. Don Nelson 867-679

7. Jack Ramsay 864-783

8. Cotton Fitzsimmons 832-775

9. Gene Shue 784-861

10. John MacLeod 707-657

17. Mike Fratello* 550-437

17. Del Harris* 550-451

*--Active