Paul Westhead
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Paul Westhead (born February 21, 1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a basketball coach in the NBA and the NCAA. He has coached three different NBA teams, and was also the coach of the Loyola Marymount University men's basketball team during that school's era of greatest basketball glory. Westhead is known for employing an unorthodox, run-and-gun style.
Westhead started his NBA coaching career at the top of the NBA world, succeeding Jack McKinney as the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. With rookie guard Magic Johnson and longtime star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on his squad, the Lakers rather easily won the 1980 NBA Finals in Westhead's first year as the Lakers' coach. However, the team was defeated in the playoffs the next year by the Moses Malone-led Houston Rockets, and Westhead was fired early in his third season with the Lakers, and replaced with Pat Riley. It is commonly believed that Magic Johnson orchestrated Westhead's ouster.
The next season, Westhead was the head coach of the Chicago Bulls, but lasted only one season as the Bulls went 28-54.
After that, Westhead returned to the college ranks, and took over as the head coach of the Loyola Marymount men's basketball program. From 1985-1990, Westhead oversaw an impressive run in which LMU--a smaller school which is not a traditional NCAA basketball power--became a legitimate contender in NCAA hoops. Westhead recruited star players like Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, and rewrote many NCAA record books with Loyola Marymount's famous run-and-gun style. However, Loyola's run ended after the untimely on-court death of Gathers, and the graduation of Kimble.
At the conclusion of the 1989-1990 season, Westhead left LMU for the NBA's Denver Nuggets, a position he held for two seasons. His tenure in Denver was best known for attempting to incorporate the run-and-gun offense that worked for LMU to the NBA.
However, while Denver averaged a league-best 119.9 points per game in 1990-91, this resulted in Denver surrendering an NBA record 130.8 points per game, including one game versus the Phoenix Suns where Denver gave up 107 points in one half, which still stands as an NBA record. Westhead was fired from the Nuggets after two seasons after posting a combined W/L record of 44-120.
Following his tenure with the Nuggets, Westhead returned to college coaching as the head coach of George Mason University from 1993-1997. This time, Westhead's run-and-gun style did not succeed at the college level, ending his tenure at Mason with a 38-70 record. Westhead was succeeded at Mason by Jim Larranaga after the 1996-1997 season.
In 2005, Westhead was hired as the head coach of the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury, a position that he (as of February 2006) still holds.
Paul Westhead is occasionally confused with another NBA coach, Paul Westphal.
External links
- [BasketballReference.com: Paul Westhead]
- [wnba.com: Press release announcing Westhead's hiring as Phoenix Mercury coach]
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