Alvin Gentry

Alvin Gentry

Alvin Gentry (born November 5, 1954) is an American professional basketball coach, and college basketball player, who has led four different NBA teams. He served as an interim coach for the Miami Heat at the end of the 1995 season, and later coached the Detroit Pistons and the Los Angeles Clippers. He was most recently the head coach for the Phoenix Suns.

Biography

He was born in Shelby, North Carolina, where he grew up and attended Shelby High School. His first cousin is former NC State and NBA star David Thompson.

Gentry played college basketball at Appalachian State University under Press Maravich and Bobby Cremins. In 1978 he spent one year as a graduate assistant at the University of Colorado. He also was an assistant coach at Baylor University under Gene Iba in 1980. After one year Gentry joined the University of Colorado staff. Gentry served as an assistant at the University of Kansas under Larry Brown, where they won the 1988 NCAA National Championship. While in Colorado Gentry married his first wife, Pat Sue DeLuca. They have one daughter, Alexis. Gentry and DeLuca divorced in 1986 after five years of marriage.

In 1989 he began his NBA coaching career as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs under Larry Brown. It was in San Antonio that Gentry met his future/current wife, Suzanne Harris. They have two children, Ryan and Jack.

Gentry joined Gregg Popovich, R. C. Buford, and Ed Manning as part of Larry Brown's assistant coaching staff for the Spurs when Brown left Kansas before the 1988–1989 NBA season.

After two seasons in San Antonio, Gentry left to become an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers beginning in the 1990–91 season. For the 1991 season Gentry joined Kevin Loughery's staff as an assistant coach for the Miami Heat, where he coached for three seasons. He then moved to Detroit following the 1994-95 season where he served as an assistant for two and a half seasons before being named head coach late in the 1997–98 season.

Gentry (center) gestures during a game against the Golden State Warriors in March 2009.

Gentry briefly returned to San Antonio as head assistant coach following the 1999–2000 season, where he was reunited with former co-assistants Gregg Popovich (the Spurs head coach and vice president of basketball operations) and R.C. Buford (the Spurs General Manager). But that assignment was brief, as Gentry accepted the head coaching position for the Los Angeles Clippers weeks after taking the San Antonio job. He did a solid job with the Clippers his first two years, leading them to 31 wins and 39 wins respectively in those two seasons. Those seasons were marked by the solid play of youngsters, such as Darius Miles, Elton Brand and Lamar Odom. In Gentry's third season, however, the team regressed (despite the addition of Andre Miller), and Gentry was fired in February 2003.

Gentry later became an assistant coach for the Phoenix Suns for six years, serving under head coaches Mike D'Antoni and Terry Porter. When Porter was fired in his first season as head coach, Alvin Gentry took over on an interim basis. He was named Suns' head coach for the 2009-2010 season. Gentry's record in his first year as head coach during the 2009-2010 season was 54 wins, a career high, to 28 wins. The Suns advanced to the Western Conference Finals and lost to the Lakers in six games. He became the fifth head coach in franchise history to lead his team to a Western Conference Finals berth in his first full season. Gentry figured out how to blend the two styles of D'Antoni and Porter. Comparing his coaching to D’Antoni, Gentry said "We are not seven seconds or less. We’re 12 seconds or under. We don’t take a lot of really quick shots. We don’t play with that breakneck pace. We play with a rhythm." Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich remarked "One thing about Phoenix is they are better defensively than in the past. They’re much more active, much more committed, they’ve taken responsibility to a much more significant degree than ever before."

Coaching record

Legend

Regular season	G	Games coached	W	Games won	L	Games lost	W–L %	Win–loss %
Playoffs	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
MIA	1994–95	36	15	21	.417	4th in Atlantic	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
DET	1997–98	37	16	21	.432	6th in Central	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
DET	1998–99	50	29	21	.580	3rd in Central	5	2	3	.400	Lost in First Round
DET	1999–00	58	28	30	.483	—	—	—	—	—	—
LAC	2000–01	82	31	51	.378	6th in Pacific	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
LAC	2001–02	82	39	43	.476	5th in Pacific	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
LAC	2002–03	58	19	39	.328	(fired)	—	—	—	—	—
PHX	2008–09	31	18	13	.581	2nd in Pacific	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
PHX	2009–10	82	54	28	.659	2nd in Pacific	16	10	6	.625	Lost in Conf. Finals
PHX	2010–11	82	40	42	.488	2nd in Pacific	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
PHX	2011–12	66	33	33	.500	3rd in Pacific	—	—	—	—	Missed Playoffs
PHX	2012–13	41	13	28	.317	(resigned)	—	—	—	—	—
Career		705	335	370	.475		21	12	9	.571

External links

• BasketballReference.com: Alvin Gentry
• Biography, nba.com