Alvin Gentry: A Key Factor in Golden State Warriors’ Success
By Eric He
When highly touted assistant coach Michael Malone left the Golden State Warriors before the 2013-2014 season to become head coach of the Kings, Mark Jackson promoted Pete Myers — regarded as a yes-man — to top assistant, despite calls for him to hire someone of greater stature. That was Jackson’s ego at work, not willing to hire strong assistants for fear that they — and not him — would receive credit.
Oh, what a long way we’ve come in such short time.
Steve Kerr, unlike his predecessor, has no ego. You can see it in his attitude, you can see it translate onto the court with his players, and you can definitely see it by looking at the man in a suit next to him on the bench: Alvin Gentry.
Gentry is the Warriors’ associate head coach, Kerr’s right-hand man. He brings more than three decades of coaching experience to the bench and parts of 12 seasons as a head coach in the NBA. Right away, bringing in an experienced assistant in Gentry shows that Kerr is willing to learn, to defer, and to have someone for guidance in his rookie year.
Then there’s the fact that Gentry served as head coach of the Suns while Kerr was his GM from during the ’08-’09 and ’09-’10 seasons, leading the Suns to the Western Conference Finals in the latter year. Talk about shoving egos aside — an established head coach willing to work for his former boss again, and Kerr willing to heed Gentry’s advice.
It’s part of what makes this year’s Warriors team so special, and it’s why Gentry will be coaching Team USA on Friday night in the Rising Stars Challenge to kick off All-Star Weekend in New York City.
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Gentry is an offensive mastermind. In his first full season with the Suns (2009-2010), Phoenix led the league in scoring at 110.0 points per game and shot over 40.0 percent from three-point range. Gentry had two-time MVP Steve Nash, a younger Amar’e Stoudemire, an athlete winger in Jason Richardson, and a ton of depth — Grant Hill, Channing Frye, Robin Lopez, Goran Dragic, Leandro Barbosa — at his disposal, and he intertwined the offensive weapons effectively.
As Gentry described to the New York Times, the Suns “played with a rhythm,” a rhythm that he has brought to Golden State. The skill-sets may be different, but the Warriors are similar to that Suns squad in more than a few ways. The Suns had a superstar point guard in Nash, and so do the Warriors in Stephen Curry. The Suns led the league in three-point shooting percentage; the Warriors are second. The Suns had all that aforementioned depth, but the Warriors arguably have an even deeper rotation.
And the style of play — here’s Gentry full quote to the New York Times about his 2009-2010 Suns:
"“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.”"
The Warriors lead the league in pace this season — 101.2 possessions per game — but it’s a more controlled pace, where the “rhythm” that Gentry preaches is apparent. Yes, they can run on the fastbreak and Curry can work his magic with pull-up threes and dazzling killer crossovers, but when they want to, they can settle into the half-court game and be just as effective, the ball hopping around and the “weave” leaving opponents’ heads spinning. The Warriors will always be most lethal in transition, but their ability to keep the same pace and rhythm when the game slows down has been a welcome addition.
Last season, if you had told me that Alvin Gentry would be coaching during All-Star Weekend in 2015, I would have assumed he had latched on to a head coaching job somewhere and was thriving in his new role.
Half of that is true — Gentry is thriving with the Warriors — and boy should Kerr be ever thankful that he has Gentry next to him.
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