When news that Melvin Hunt had been named Nuggets interim head coach reached Sharon Dawson, she cried. Cried tears of joy. Hunt had always been one of her favorites.
It had been that way from the first day they met, after Sharon’s husband, Carroll, hired the fresh-faced assistant from Incarnate Word in San Antonio to his first pro gig as video coordinator with the Houston Rockets in 1999.
This was a day she and many, many other longtime friends were certain would arrive — even if his promotion was less than ideal, Hunt taking over on an interim basis for Brian Shaw, who was fired March 3.
“I actually thought he would get the job (in 2013),” said Carroll Dawson, who spent 27 years with the Rockets as an assistant coach and general manager, and put together championship teams in 1994 and 1995. “I just hope that they see what we saw in him, and that they make that permanent.”
Few people know Hunt as well as Dawson, who shares a 16-year friendship with his fellow Baylor alum. Still, you have to look hard around the NBA to find someone who doesn’t gush about Hunt’s character. And there aren’t many people Hunt doesn’t know around the league.
During the Nuggets’ March 16 game at Memphis, as action was happening down court, Grizzlies guard Nick Calathes jogged over to Hunt to offer words of congratulations and encouragement.
In New Orleans, Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday hollered to Hunt as he sauntered toward him in a hallway after the game. Hunt ended the quick exchange by telling Holliday to say hello to his brother for him.
In Houston, former Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich sprinted up and kissed Hunt on the side of his head as he was addressing the media postgame.
Last Wednesday, while doing a pregame news conference at the Pepsi Center, Philadelphia 76ers staffer Lloyd Pierce snapped a picture of Hunt.
“He’s one of the most likeable people I’ve ever known,” Dawson said. “Plus, he’s very knowledgeable.”
Small-town roots
Hunt’s smile stretched the length of his face.
“We had the first indoor mall in America.”
“Delta Air Lines started there.”
“Great fishing.”
Hunt had Tallulah, La., on his mind. His eyes light up when he talks about his hometown.
Tallulah is the kind of city that goes away on a Google map if you zoom out too much. With a population of just over 7,000, it sits near the Louisiana-Mississippi border and is much closer to Mississippi’s capital city, Jackson (67 miles), than to New Orleans (229 miles).
“The people made shirts: ‘I’m so Tallulah.’ Nobody knows what that means except us,” Hunt said. “We don’t know that we’re poor, because what is poverty? We don’t know that we’re rich, because it’s defined by the individual. Those are some of the things that we believe. It’s a great little town.”
How could he not love a town that is trying to set up a Melvin Hunt Day this summer?
It was in Tallulah that Hunt grew up with two brothers: older brother Marvin, and younger brother Sebastian, who was named after accomplished British Olympic middle distance runner Sebastian Coe. Sons of a school teacher, Bobbie Fort, and a factory worker, James Fort, the family bounced from Tallulah to Michigan when the auto industry had jobs available in the 1970s.
“That was the place to be,” Hunt said.
But those jobs dried up in the early 1980s, and the family was forced to move back to Louisiana. By then, Hunt’s basketball life had begun to sprout wings. He’d brought back the “city” moves he’d learned in Michigan to northeast Louisiana to star at McCall High School, in addition to being salutatorian of his graduating class. Then it was on to Baylor.
His mom, Bobbie, was there every step of the way. She was his biggest fan, the fire burning as bright, if not brighter, in her for her son to succeed as it did inside Melvin. She died Nov. 26, 2013, at age 65.
Hunt sobbed.
“That’s the one thing,” Hunt said. “I wish she could see this.”
He paused.
“It’s a soft spot for me because she wanted me to be a head coach probably more than I wanted to be a head coach,” he said. “She believed in her baby. So for her not to be able to see me lead a group the way I’m leading the group — that is disappointing.”
NBA career gets rolling
Dennis Lindsey picked up Hunt from the airport and drove him to the Rockets’ basketball offices. The year was 1999, and Hunt had just accepted a video coordinating position with the Rockets. It was fitting that Lindsey was the person bringing him in; the two were longtime friends, having met for the first time on a recruiting trip to Baylor.
Teammates for four years in Waco, Texas, they starred on teams that advanced to the NCAA and NIT tournaments.
Lindsey was now director of player personnel in Houston. Carroll Dawson helped spring Hunt from his assistant’s job at Incarnate Word and Coach Tomjanovich was eager for his arrival.
“We really believed in it being a player-friendly place,” Tomjanovich said. “So, I wanted guys who could do that. Melvin was that kind of guy.”
The Houston guys are a tight-knit bunch. Hunt, Dawson, Tomjanovich, Jim Boylen, Lindsey. While Dawson and Tomjanovich are now retired, the other three are going strong. Lindsey is the general manager of the Utah Jazz, and Boylen is an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs.
“Those of us who had the pleasure to learn under Rudy, he’s a real rallying point,” Lindsey said. “He’s certainly, from a basketball standpoint, a center point in all of our lives.”
And he’s one of the many coaches who have shaped Hunt’s philosophy on basketball. Tomjanovich has been the biggest influence but so too have George Karl, Mike Brown, Boylen, Dawson and many others.
Lindsey nearly hired Hunt in Utah last summer.
“I thought a lot about him in this position,” Lindsey said. “But I didn’t want business to come between a close friendship. In many ways that probably wasn’t fair to Melvin.”
In his near month-long stretch as interim coach with the Nuggets, players have raved about his ability to communicate with clarity and respect. In turn, they’ve had their best efforts of the season after going 2-19 in their final 21 games under Shaw. And that, Lindsey said, is not a shocker.
“It’s no surprise that he’s in a leadership position,” Lindsey said of Hunt. “It’s no surprise that he’s doing very well.”
And yet Hunt’s peers warn against letting his smile and his jokes fool you. Underneath, they say, lies a fierce competitor.
“He’s very task-oriented; you tell him to go clean that wall over there and you’ll get the best job done anybody can do,” Dawson said. “I like people like that. He just wants to get the job done. It’s good when good things happen to good people, and he’s a good one.”
