Former Lions basketball star and NBA coach Rick Adelman (’68) will be inducted into the West Coast Conference Hall of Honor in March. It was announced on Feb. 5, that Adelman, along with nine other individuals, will be honored at the WCC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships in Las Vegas.
Rick Adelman led the Lions in scoring his junior and senior seasons and was the seventh player in Loyola history to reach the 1,000-point plateau. He was only the third player in school history to finish the season with a point per game average over 20 points (21.0). The two-time all-conference selection was the winner of the John Donovan Memorial Trophy, winning the WCC Player of the Year honor in 1967-68.
He graduated in 1968 and was drafted in the seventh round (79th overall pick) by the San Diego Rockets. He played until 1975 for the Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers, Chicago Bulls, New Orleans Jazz and the Kansas City-Omaha Kings. During his NBA playing career, Adelman averaged 7.7 points and 3.5 assists per game.
He went into coaching in 1977, and had a long career as a coach in the NBA, which included stints with Portland Trail Blazers (1988-93), Golden State Warriors (1995-97), Sacramento Kings (1999-06), Houston Rockets (2007-11), and the Minnesota Timberwolves (2011-2014). He finished with a record of 1,042-748 in the NBA (58.2 percent) and earned 79 wins in the playoffs, leading Portland to the NBA finals in 1989-90 and 1991-92. Adelman ranks eighth in career NBA victories and is 10th in playoff wins (79).