November 10, 1990

A visionary is someone who hears music others don’t hear. This is also true of a lunatic. Coach Paul Westhead has proved to be a little of both in the course of his career. He won an NBA championship as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in 1980, then was fired eleven games into the ’82 season because his playing style wasn’t up-tempo enough for Magic Johnson. As a college coach in the days before the shot clock, he got frustrated when Temple held the ball against his LaSalle team, and shifted one defender into the backcourt to tempt the Owls with a five-on-four advantage – and then moved another, and another, until at last Temple broke its stall with a five-on-two edge.

At Loyola Marymount University in the late 1980s, Westhead, a Shakespearean scholar, developed a style that could have been inspired by the Bard’s line from Macbeth, “If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.” The Lions ran a fast-break on every possession, grabbing the ball out of the net on made baskets and tearing down the court for a fast shot, pressing in the backcourt without worrying about the long pass over the top. If the opponent converted a layup, the Lions would fast-break again and again and again, imposing their tempo on the game. He took an undermanned LMU team – inspired by the late-season death of leading scorer and rebounder Hank Gathers, led by his friend Bo Kimble—to the regional finals of the 1990 NCAAs, where it lost to eventual champion UNLV.

Westhead brought “the System” to the NBA in 1990, with Denver. Constant running, little defense, so-so rebounding – what worked in the unequal world of college hoops was disastrous in the more athletic NBA. The Nuggets lost their first five games by an average score of 149-137, then took the System to Phoenix to face the league’s number-two team in scoring from the year before. Worse, it was Denver’s fourth game in five nights, never a formula for peak performance in the pros. On this night, the Suns took full advantage, romping their way to a 107-67 halftime lead en route to a 173-143 win. Phoenix shot 43-of-57, .754 from the field, 30 of the baskets coming on dunks or layups. Eight Suns scored in double-figures; five topped 20 points. For a little perspective, Phoenix’s first-half total of 107 – the NBA record for a half -- would have led the league ­in points per game every year from 1995-96 to 2003-4.

The Nuggets were 43-39 the year before Westhead arrived. They went 20-62 and 24-58 in his two seasons in Denver. Since then, he has been an assistant with Orlando and Oklahoma City in the NBA, head coach at George Mason and with the WNBA Phoenix Mercury, and is currently the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Oregon.