Ron Ganulin, the Brooklyn-born coach and basketball lifer, called it "the most devastating thing that's happened to me in sports."

Bianchi was a pro basketball lifer, a man with no degree of fluency in the language corporate executives speak.

Twenty years ago, the extreme strategic positions were all the source of comic amusement to the sagacious basketball lifer.

The two of them are well-respected basketball lifers who, in sharp contrast to their employers, abstain from any display of emotion.

Between the humble McGuire and the low-key Holzman, there was a decided absence of ego, just two basketball lifers starting another season.

Jeff is a basketball lifer.

They figure if a basketball lifer cannot make this kind of talent and depth work, no one can.

Even though this burly basketball lifer had never coached in the Final Four, he must have had something to do with the victory, no?

West was "a basketball lifer," David Stern, commissioner of the N.B.A., noted, and the only question was where he would land.

Silas the pro basketball lifer has been one of the great class acts.