My Favorite Blazers: Johnny Davis, Rick Carlisle, Dick Harter

From left, with players Chris Dudley, Buck Williams and Arvydas Sabonis, coaches Johnny Davis, P.J. Carlesimo and Rick Carlisle (courtesy Trail Blazers)

Updated 6/27/2024 12:20 PM

It has been long enough ago — three decades, in fact — that many of you may not be familiar with the era that bridged the Clyde Drexler/Rick Adelman era with the Jail Blazers.

Drexler led the Trail Blazers to NBA Finals appearances in 1990 and ’92. Two years later, after Portland had been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs each year, owner Paul Allen fired Adelman as coach.

Allen’s hire was a surprise — P.J. Carlesimo, straight out of Seton Hall, a man who had never before coached a game in the NBA.

Carlesimo lasted three seasons before Allen fired him, bringing on Mike Dunleavy to replace him.

Carlesimo’s final season, 1996-97, was the unofficial beginning of the Jail Blazers era, with Rasheed Wallace and J.R. Rider joining the likes of Cliff Robinson and Gary Trent on the Portland roster.

I like Carlesimo, but the focus here is on the coaching staff he built that was among the strongest in the NBA at the time. Three-assistant staffs were the norm in the ‘90s, unlike today, when there are generally five or more full-time assistants. (The 2023-24 Dallas Mavericks, for instance, list eight assistant coaches along with a player development coach on their staff, though they seem to have trouble spelling “assistant” on their website.)

Carlesimo’s well-chosen aides — Dick Harter, Rick Carlisle and Johnny Davis — are the choices for this installment of “My favorite Blazers.” All three would serve as head coaches during their tenures in the NBA.

Coaches P.J. Carlesimo and Dick Harter during a timeout with Cliff Robinson (courtesy Trail Blazers)

Carlesimo had coached Seton Hall to the 1989 NCAA championship game and served as an assistant to Chuck Daly with the Dream Team that won Olympic gold in 1992. Harter became the senior member of P.J.’s Portland staff, a Marine Corps veteran best known in these parts as coach of the “Kamikaze Kids” during an intriguing seven-year run as head coach at Oregon in the 1970s. Harter later coached 25 years in the NBA, including a season and a half as the first head coach of the Charlotte Hornets from 1988-90. Harter, who was 64 when he joined the Blazer staff in 1994, died of cancer at age 81 in 2012.

Carlesimo’s other hires were younger.

Davis, 38, had been a rookie guard who played an instrumental role in the Blazers’ 1977 NBA championship run. After an 11-year playing career, Davis spent three years as assistant to president Stan Kasten and director of community relations with the Atlanta Hawks. Davis then served three years as an assistant coach in Atlanta and one with the Los Angeles Clippers before returning to Portland to coach under Carlesimo. Carlisle, 34, had been a reserve swing man for five NBA seasons, winning a championship with Boston in 1986. Portland was the second stop on a long, successful coaching career for Carlisle, who had served as an assistant with the New Jersey Nets for five seasons before taking the job with the Blazers.

When Carlesimo came onto the scene, the Portland roster featured most of the holdovers from the Adelman era, including Drexler, Robinson, Terry Porter, Buck Williams and Jerome Kersey, along with Rod Strickland and Harvey Grant. Drexler was traded midway through the first season (1994-95) and all the others were gone except Robinson by the time PJ’s three-year run was concluded in 1997. By then the core group was Robinson, Rasheed Wallace, J.R. Rider, Kenny Anderson and Arvydas Sabonis.

“It was interesting transitioning with that team from the one that reached the NBA Finals in the early ‘90s to the Wallace/Sabonis era in Portland,” Carlisle told me in a recent interview from Indianapolis just days after his Indiana Pacers had been eliminated by Boston in the Eastern Conference finals. “My experience since is that I have had a lot of teams from one year to the next that might have six to eight new players. Going through that same thing with Portland was a great template for how to work through those kinds of challenges.”

During his time in the NBA, Harter worked with Hall of Famers Chuck Daly in Detroit, Jack Ramsay and Larry Bird in Indiana and Pat Riley in New York. Harter got to the NBA Finals twice — in 1994 with the Knicks, losing in seven games to the Houston Rockets, and in 2000 with Bird and the Pacers, losing in six games to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Harter was all about discipline and defense. He helped Daly build a defensive system that would eventually key the Pistons’ ride to three straight NBA Finals, winning titles in 1989 and ’90. Harter was the architect of Riley’s defensive-minded teams that stymied opponents in the early ‘90s.

“Dick was such a great defensive coach,” Carlisle said. “His experience in the league was a great help to P.J. during our time together there.”

“Dick was a defensive genius,” Davis told me in an interview from his home in Asheville, N.C. “He was very good with teaching it. We talked a lot about defense and his concepts. He was by the book. ‘Take no prisoners — we’re going to kick the door down.’ He wanted you to give everything you had on the defensive end and be where you’re supposed to be.

“You could tell from his military background he was very disciplined in his approach, and he expected you be to the same. I loved coaching with Dick. Learned a lot from him. If he’d had another guy or two like (former Oregon star) Ronnie Lee in Charlotte, he could have played that way. Dick didn’t adjust in terms of allowing people to be soft or carry out their assignments. All the players would say, you had to do it a certain way for Dick Harter or you didn’t play. He was a great guy. I enjoyed hearing the stories about all the experiences he had in basketball.”

Carlisle said his time with the Blazers was “a great experience.”

“It was an amazing three years,” he said. “It was a move from the far Northeast to the far Northwest. The city of Portland was spectacular. P.J. was wonderful to work for. I really enjoyed the staff.”

Harter was Carlesimo’s defensive guru. Carlisle worked primarily with the offense.

“Rick was a young coach and he was very good even then,” Davis said. “He had all the makings of becoming a super head coach. He paid attention to detail. He had a good way of communicating. He didn’t waste words, didn’t waste time on things that were irrelevant. He brought that to the staff.”

Sabonis came to the NBA for the first time in 1995-96 and played two seasons under Carlesimo in Portland. He was 30 when he arrived but his legs were 40, having undergone a pair of serious Achilles tendon surgeries while playing in Europe. The 7-3 giant was much different than the player who led the Soviet Union to gold in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.

One day after a Blazer practice, Carlisle took me into his office and we watched a few minutes of a game film from 1983. Sabonis was 18 and playing for the Russian Junior National Team that played an exhibition against Virginia, led by 7-4 Ralph Sampson, guard Othell Wilson and Carlisle. Sabonis was large but sinewy — not enormous as he was in later NBA years, when he weighed 315 — and could run the court and shoot and block shots like no big man I had seen before.

“Most people don’t have any idea the kind of awesome, spectacular talent Sabonis was before some of the injuries,” Carlisle said. “And he was still great afterward. It was a dream getting to work with him for a couple of years.”

After Carlesimo was fired, Carlisle joined Bird and Harter on the Indiana staff from 1997-2000. In 2000-01 he got his first head coaching job in Detroit. He led the Pistons to back-to-back 50-win seasons and won NBA Coach of the Year honors the second season.

It was the beginning of an illustrious career in 22 years as a head coach for Carlisle. There was an NBA championship in 2011 with Dallas. There have been 15 playoff appearances, including this season, when he took a young Indiana team to 47 wins and the Eastern Conference finals. I think it was one of the finest coaching jobs in Rick’s career.

“Rick did an amazing job with that team this season,” Davis said. “I consider him a good friend. I’m happy he has a good team now with the Pacers. I’m not surprised he has had the success he is having.”

Davis coached with Carlisle for two seasons on Carlesimo’s Portland staff, then worked a year as lead assistant for Carlisle when he was head coach of the Pacers in 2006-07.

“Rick is a real solid coach on both ends of the court,” Davis said. “He has great command of his huddle. He communicates well with his players. They enjoy playing for him. He takes the talent he has and figures out how to play best.

“His team this year had the fastest pace in the league, but there were years where his teams were more deliberate. He has always played to the strength of his players. He is not stubborn in his approach. He will make adjustments and put in the schemes that best suit his talent.”

Carlisle had great respect for Davis, too.

“Johnny was a guy who understood the game well,” Carlisle said. “I learned a lot from him about his overall view of the game. Johnny is one of those guys who has a welcoming personality and real life wisdom. It was a pleasure to work with him both in Portland and Indiana.”

Carlisle has 943 career regular-season victories and could become the 11th coach in NBA history to crack the 1,000-win mark as early as next season. He is currently 12th on the all-time list, one win behind Bill Fitch. Carlisle also has 71 post-season triumphs, so he is over the century mark in total victories as an NBA head coach.

With Harter specializing in defense and Carlisle focusing on offense in Portland, Davis worked in player development but also his own development as a young coach. He kept a notebook on players in the league, watched a lot of video, worked with players before and after practice and before games and got involved in schemes on both sides of the ball.

“I was watching carefully how things were evolving in the league and formulating in my own mind how we would do things,” Davis said. “I was hoping that I would be a head coach some day, and thinking if I were ever to be in that situation, these are the things that would be good to do.

“Whatever it was we were trying do to as a staff, I was all in. But at the same time, I was also aware that as you evolve as a coach, you have to formulate in your mind, ‘If I were a head coach, what would I do, and how would I do it?’ ”

During Davis’ two years coaching in Portland, the Blazers went 44-38 and lost in the first round of the playoffs each year.

“We had some talented players on those teams,” Davis said. “It was a great time for me, being a part of that staff and learning from those guys. The one thing that became crystal clear: you have to have talent to win. You can have great concepts, but if you don’t have the talent to do things, you either have to adjust how you want to play or get new players. There was no in between.”

After the 1995-96 season, Davis landed his first head coaching job — in Philadelphia, where he was introduced to a rookie named Allen Iverson. The 76ers had gone an abysmal 18-64 under John Lucas. Iverson — listed at 6-foot but probably closer to 5-10 — averaged 23.5 points and 7.5 assists and was named NBA Rookie of the Year.

“Allen’s motor was outstanding,” Davis said. “He could go and go and go. Later in his career, he called himself ‘The Answer.’ That was his moniker. I had him when he still had one or two questions.

“But I really enjoyed coaching him. I never questioned his effort or desire to win. He was an amazing player for his size.”

Subsequent coaches of Iverson — notably Larry Brown — had some difficult moments coaching him. Not Davis.

“He wasn’t that tough to coach,” Davis said. “He would come to practice some days and not give it his all, but that happens with players sometimes. I wish I’d have had 12 Allen Iversons with his mentality for playing, his bravery, his confidence.”

The ’95-96 Sixers finished 22-60. Davis was fired after the season and Brown hired. Four years later, with Iverson hitting his prime, they won 56 games and reached the NBA Finals.

In Portland, Elston Turner replaced Davis on Carlesimo’s staff for the 1996-97 campaign. The Blazers improved to 49-33 but were eliminated again in the first round of the playoffs. That didn’t meet Allen’s expectations, so Carlesimo was fired. Harter and Carlisle joined Bird’s staff in Indiana.

Meanwhile, Davis had become an assistant again. After two seasons with New Jersey and four with Orlando, Johnny got another chance as a head coach, with the Magic in 2003-04.

Davis took over for none other than Doc Rivers after a 1-10 start. Orlando’s roster featured Trący McGrady, Juwan Howard, Tyronn Lue and an aging Rod Strickland coming off the bench. In 71 games under Davis, Orlando went 20-51. That earned the Magic the No. 1 draft pick, which they used to select center Dwight Howard straight out of high school.

With McGrady gone, the 2004-05 Magic were led by Grant Hill, Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley. Howard averaged 12 points and 10 rebounds as a 19-year-old, and the Magic were 31-33 and in the eighth and final playoff spot in the East heading into the final month of the regular season. Then Orlando general manager John Weisbrod double-crossed Davis.

“That situation was disheartening for me,” Davis said. “I liked John, who was a good man. I had a handshake deal with him, that if the team made the playoffs, I would be given a new contract for the following two seasons.

“With 18 games to go, he fired me. He got a little jumpy because he thought we might not make it. He didn’t factor in when you make a change like that, it’s not enough time to get something new going. You just need to do better. He panicked a bit.”

Under interim coach Chris Jent — who had been a member of Davis’ staff — the Magic dropped 13 of their last 18 games and didn’t make the playoffs.

Johnny moved on to Minnesota as an assistant coach in 2005-06. He would spend another decade as an assistant with five different teams. Was there regret that he didn’t get another opportunity as a head coach?

“I always felt like with more time I could have gotten it done,” Davis said. “But you know what? A lot of people don’t even get a chance once. I can’t moan and groan too much. It wasn’t what I would call a full opportunity, and I didn’t get to finish it (in Philadelphia or Orlando). But it’s better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all.”

Davis, 68, has a good life these days. He and his wife of 43 years, Lezli, have lived in Asheville — population 95,000, but with a metro area of about 375,000 — for 15 years. They have two children and one grandson. He considers himself in good health.

“My wife and I walk every day, anywhere from three to six miles,” Johnny said. “We stay active. We use moderation in what we eat and exercise and try to keep stress out of our lives.”

When he retired in 2014 at age 59, he had clocked 24 years in the league as a coach. That to go with 11 years as a player and three as an executive, giving him 38 years in the NBA.

“I feel grateful,” Davis said. “I met some wonderful coaches, players, administrators. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. In my heart, I believe I could still do it today. I know all coaches say that, but I could have done it for a few more years.

“But you know how it goes. People don’t leave the NBA; the NBA leaves you.”

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