Mike Fratello

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Michael (Mike) Robert Fratello (born February 24, 1947 in Hackensack, New Jersey) is a professional basketball coach and is also known as The Czar of the Telestrator because of his mastery of the telestrator. He previously coached the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA. Fratello has the most wins of any Memphis coach and under Fratello, the Grizzlies made the playoffs two years in a row.

He has also coached the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Atlanta Hawks. In his six seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers his record was 248 wins and 212 losses. Fratello took the Cavaliers to the playoffs four times. Fratello coached the Hawks for seven seasons and posted a 324-250 record, making the post-season playoffs five times and winning the Central Division in 1987 with 57 wins. Fratello was named coach of the year for the 1985-1986 NBA season. His NBA career stats are 666 wins and 542 losses for a .551 average. His teams have qualified for the playoffs in eleven of his 16 seasons as a head coach.

One of the most respected basketball minds despite having never won an NBA championship as a head coach, Fratello ranks 19 on the NBA's all time win list and 21 in games coached.

He has been a television commentator for NBC and is currently a main color commentator of TNT. Because of his in depth analysis and ability to break down offensive and defensive plays, longtime announcer Marv Albert dubbed him "The Czar of the Telestrator" for his masterful way of diagramming basketball plays on screen.

Fratello graduated from Hackensack High School, where he was captain of the basketball, baseball and football teams. He was named to the Bergen "All County" Football team as a center in his senior year. He then went on to Montclair State College in Montclair, New Jersey on a football scholarship.^[1] Upon graduation he returned to Hackensack H.S. as an assistant for both the basketball and football teams. Fratello then went on to the University of Rhode Island as a graduate assistant assigned to head coach Tom Carmody, and also coached the U.R.I. freshman basketball team. He had been a college basketball assistant at James Madison under Lou Campanelli and served as an assistant for Rollie Massimino at Villanova before coming to the NBA as an assistant coach for the Atlanta Hawks during Hubie Brown's tenure. On December 28, 2006, ESPN announced that the Grizzlies had fired Fratello. He rejoined TNT part-time for the 2007 NBA Playoffs that same season.

[edit] Return to TNT

For the 2007–08 season, TNT rehired Mike Fratello as a full-time commentator, allowing him to work once again with long time play-by-play announcer Marv Albert, who first paired up with Fratello in the 1990–91 season as the main announcing team for the NBA on NBC. Reggie Miller, who had split time between TNT's studio and the booth the past two years, also became a full-time game analyst, joining Albert and Fratello on the sidelines.

Occasionally, TNT will shuffle the rotation throughout the season, pairing veteran coach/analyst Doug Collins with Albert and Fratello, and pairing Miller with play-by-play Kevin Harlan.

[edit] Career record

Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, % = Win-Loss %

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• ESPN.com profile