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Larry Brown is now 80 and the absolute epitome of a basketball lifer. After graduating from UNC, and after his legendary fight with Duke’s Art Heyman, he played in the NABL briefly, then took a job as a Dean Smith assistant.
From there he went to the ABA, playing for a few years before coaching the Carolina Cougars and then the Denver Nuggets, before going to UCLA where he landed his first of three colleges on some sort of NCAA trouble (Kansas and SMU would follow).
He was a great coach though as he proved time and again in the NBA, and no one would argue that he was one of the best pure coaches of all time.
Needless to say, with a playing and coaching career that started in 1960, Brown has seen more basketball than most people could possibly imagine, including a glimpse at an aging Wilt Chamberlain who could still dominate high level players.
To set it up, a number of NBA players used to go over to UCLA when Brown was there, including Magic Johnson.
One day 43-year-old Chamberlain showed up, had a bit of a disagreement with Magic, and settled it in an unusual way and one very few people could accomplish, and virtually no one other than Chamberlain could have pulled this off.