Paul Westphal

Not to be confused with Paul Westhead.

Paul Westphal

No. 44
Guard
Personal information
Born	November 30, 1950 (1950-11-30) Torrance, California
Nationality	American
High school	Aviation (Redondo Beach, California)
Listed height	6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
Listed weight	195 lb (88 kg)
Career information
College	USC (1968–1972)
NBA Draft	1972 / Round: 1 / Pick: 10th overall
Selected by the Boston Celtics
Pro career	1972–1984
Career history
As player:
1972–1975	Boston Celtics
1975–1980	Phoenix Suns
1980–1981	Seattle SuperSonics
1981–1983	New York Knicks
1983–1984	Phoenix Suns
As coach:
1992–1996	Phoenix Suns
1998–2000	Seattle SuperSonics
2009–2012	Sacramento Kings
Career highlights and awards
NBA Champion (1974) 5× NBA All-Star (1977–1981) 3× All-NBA First Team (1977, 1979–1980) All-NBA Second Team (1978)
Career statistics
Points	12,809 (15.6 ppg)
Assists	3,591 (4.4 apg)
Steals	1,022 (1.3 spg)
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com

Paul Westphal (born November 30, 1950) is a retired American basketball player and a former head coach with several National Basketball Association teams. Westphal has had a storied career in the NBA, both as a player and as a coach. As a player, he won an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics in the 1974 NBA Finals. In addition to being a five-time All-Star selection, from 1977–81, Westphal earned three All-NBA First Team selections and one Second Team honor. Later, he would return to the Finals in 1993 as head coach of the Phoenix Suns. He would return to his home state of California when he was head coach at Pepperdine University from 2001–06.

Biography

Westphal was born in Torrance, California. He went to Aviation High School and then USC. He was the 10th overall pick in the 1972 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics. After three seasons in Boston, including a championship ring in 1974, he was traded to the Phoenix Suns. In 1976, Westphal helped the Suns reach their first-ever Finals appearance. In Game 5 of that series, called by many the greatest game ever played in basketball, Westphal made several memorable plays:

- With time winding down in regulation and the Suns trailing 94-91, Westphal poked the ball away from Jo Jo White, took a long pass from Dennis Awtrey, and hit a breakaway layup. He was fouled on the play and hit the free throw to tie it at 94-94.

- In the second overtime, with 15 seconds left and the Suns trailing 109-108 after just making a basket, Westphal stole the ball from John Havlicek after Havlicek received the inbounds pass. This began a chain of events that culminated with Curtis Perry hitting a jumper to give the Suns a 110-109 lead.

- After the Perry basket and a Celtics timeout, Havlicek got the ball with five seconds left and hit a bank shot to put the Celtics up 111-110. The buzzer sounded and Celtic fans poured on the floor, thinking the Celtics had won. However, referee Richie Powers correctly ruled that Havlicek's shot went through the basket with two seconds left on the clock. After one second was placed back on, Westphal, sensing that the Suns could get a better shot off if the ball was inbounded at halfcourt, called a timeout that the Suns didn't have while preparing to inbound the ball from under the Celtics' basket. A technical foul was assessed; the Celtics made the subsequent free throw and increased their lead to 112-110. The resulting timeout call allowed Phoenix to inbound the ball at midcourt, rather than go the full length of the court. (As a result of this play, the NBA changed the rules prior to the following season.) Garfield Heard then made a shot for the Suns that sent the game into triple-overtime.

-With 20 seconds left in the third overtime and the Celtics seemingly in control at 128-122, Westphal scored two quick baskets to cut it to 128-126 and nearly made a steal at midcourt after the second, but failed and the Celtics ran out the clock to the victory.

Westphal was 6th in the NBA in scoring average for the 1977–78 season at 25.2 ppg. The following 1978-79 season, he was 7th with a 24.0 points per game average.

After the 1979–80 season, he was traded to the Seattle SuperSonics for Dennis Johnson where he played one season before heading to the New York Knicks. In 1983 he returned to Phoenix for a last hurrah. He had been injured and only played in 59 of the 82 games of his final season.

In his career Westphal scored a total of 12,809 NBA points for an average of 15.1 points per game, with 3,591 assists for an average of 4.4 assists per game. He also had 1,580 rebounds, for an average of 1.9 per game. He was a 5-time All-Star and 3 times an All-NBA selection and one time a second team All-NBA selection. He is Phoenix's fifth all-time leading scorer (9,564), averaging 20.6 points (1975–80, 1983–84) and a member of the Sun's Ring of Honor.

In 1992 he became the head coach of the Phoenix Suns. For several years prior, he was an assistant coach with the Suns under head coach Cotton Fitzsimmons. With players such as Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle, Richard Dumas, and the newly-acquired Charles Barkley and Danny Ainge, the Suns made it to the Finals in Westphal's first season as a coach, but eventually lost to the Chicago Bulls in six games. Incidentally, Game 3 between the two teams went to triple overtime (the Suns won the game) and is considered one of the greatest games ever played.

While the Suns made the playoffs during each of Westphal's seasons as coach, they did not return to the finals, and Westphal was replaced during the 1995–96 season. He served as an assistant coach for a high school team in Arizona for two years before he returned to the NBA as a coach with the SuperSonics for the 1998–99 season. He coached in Seattle until he was fired during the 2000–01 season.

He returned to the college ranks in April, 2001 at Pepperdine University. In his first season, Westphal led the Waves men's basketball team to a 22–9 record and tied nationally ranked Gonzaga for the WCC title. The team achieved an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament, but lost 83-74 to Wake Forest in the first round in a game played at Arco Arena. This was the only postseason berth during the rest of Westphal's five-year tenure and he finished with an overall record of 74–72. After a 7–20 season in 2005–06, Westphal was fired on March 15, 2006.

Westphal has also worked as a studio analyst for Fox Sports Net West/Prime Ticket for Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers games, first joining them during the Clippers' playoff run. In 2007, Westphal announced the locally broadcast USC basketball games. He worked alongside Jim Watson on FSN Prime Ticket. Westphal was also a studio analyst along with Don Maclean for the 2007 Pacific-10 Conference Men's Basketball Tournament games that aired on FSN.

On June 28, 2007, the Dallas Mavericks announced they had signed Westphal as an assistant coach under head coach Avery Johnson.

When Johnson was replaced by Rick Carlisle, Westphal left coaching to become executive vice-president of basketball operations (under Donnie Nelson) for the Mavericks on October 2, 2008.

On June 10, 2009, Westphal was named head coach of the Sacramento Kings in principle.

On January 5, 2012, Westphal was fired as head coach of the Sacramento Kings.

He is currently a nominee for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2012.

Head coaching record

NBA coaching career

Legend
Regular season	G	Games coached	W	Games won	L	Games lost	W–L %	Win-loss  %
Post season	PG	Playoff Games	PW	Playoff Wins	PL	Playoff Losses	PW–L %	Playoff Win-loss  %

Team	Year	G	W	L	W–L%	Finish	PG	PW	PL	PW–L%	Result
PHX	1992–93	82	62	20	.756	1st in Pacific	24	13	11	.542	Lost in NBA Finals
PHX	1993–94	82	56	26	.683	2nd in Pacific	10	6	4	.600	Lost in Conf. Semifinals
PHX	1994–95	82	59	23	.720	1st in Pacific	10	6	4	.600	Lost in Conf. Semifinals
PHX	1995–96	33	14	19	.424	(fired)	—	—	—	—	—
SEA	1998–99	50	25	25	.500	5th in Pacific	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
SEA	1999–00	82	45	37	.549	4th in Pacific	5	2	3	.400	Lost in First Round
SEA	2000–01	15	6	9	.400	(fired)	—	—	—	—	—
SAC	2009–10	82	25	57	.305	5th in Pacific	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
SAC	2010–11	82	24	58	.293	5th in Pacific	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
SAC	2011–12	7	2	5	.286	(fired)	—	—	—	—	—
Career		597	318	279	.532		49	27	22	.551

NCAA coaching career

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Pepperdine (WCC) (2001–2006)
2001–02	Pepperdine	22–9	13–1	T–1st	NCAA First Round
2002–03	Pepperdine	15–13	7–7	4th
2003–04	Pepperdine	15–16	9–5	T–2nd
2004–05	Pepperdine	17–14	6–8	T–5th
2005–06	Pepperdine	7–20	3–11	8th
Pepperdine:		73–62	38–32
Total:		73–62
National champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference tournament champion       Conference regular season and conference tournament champion       Conference division champion

External links

• Paul Westphal's bio on Phoenix Suns' website
• Paul Westphal's official bio on NBA.com
• Paul Westphal at Basketball-Reference.com
• Paul Westphal's statistics on DatabaseBasketball.com