Athletes - Paul Westhead

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	Athletes - Paul Westhead

Paul Westhead (born February 21, 1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a former 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. 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.

Westhead should not be confused with another NBA coach, Paul Westphal.

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