Paul Westhead is this year's recipient of the National Basketball Coaches Association's Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award.
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SAN ANTONIO — As far as Paul Westhead is concerned, the NBA might as well use an hourglass as the 24-second shot clock it introduced way back in 1954 to inject pace and offense into the game.
If Westhead had his druthers, we would see teams squeezing off shots just four or five seconds after they got their hands on the ball.
“The speed is the issue for me,” the coaching lifer said before Game 2 of the Finals Friday night at the Frost Bank Center. “I would walk into a new job and say, ‘All right, guys or gals, who wants to run fast this year?’ If there were 12 players in the room, they’d all raise their hand. A week later, ‘Who wants to run fast?’ No hands.”
Westhead, 87, almost turned himself into a brand name for breakneck offense through a coaching career spanning seven decades. He was honored as the 2026 recipient of the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award presented annually by the National Basketball Coaches Association (NBCA).
Before the running-and-gunning of the Phoenix Suns 20 years ago under Mike D’Antoni’s “Seven Seconds or Less” style earned point guard Steve Nash two MVP awards, Westhead had put a premium on pace. He laid the groundwork for the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s, turned up the oxygen needs of opponents in Denver already fighting the altitude, and made Loyola Marymount college games feel like half basketball, half track meet.
“First man down, shoot,” Westhead said, sharing his creed Friday. “That’s what we do. If they pass it to you, shoot it. It works. If you go fast enough.”
A winner, on-court and off
Westhead is the only coach to win both NBA and WNBA championships, achieving those dreams with the Lakers in 1980 and the Phoenix Mercury in 2007. Before, in between and after, he coached in high school, at multiple men’s and women’s college programs, as a head coach of two other NBA teams, and as an assistant for three more. He even worked a season in Japan.
“Coach Westhead’s impact on the game extends far beyond wins and championships,” said J.B. Bickerstaff, the Detroit Pistons coach now serving as NBCA president.
Coincidentally, it was Bickerstaff’s father Bernie, as GM of the Nuggets, who hired Westhead in Denver.
“He challenged conventional thinking,” Bickerstaff said, “introduced ideas that were ahead of their time, and influenced generations of coaches across every level of men’s and women’s basketball. His commitment to innovation, teaching, and the growth of our game has left a lasting mark on our profession.”
The Daly award honors the Hall of Fame coach best known for his NBA titles with Detroit’s “Bad Boys,” for setting what the NBCA calls a “standard for integrity, competitive excellence and tireless promotion of NBA basketball.”
Said Westhead: “Chuck was a good friend of mine, who helped me in my early coaching career back in Philadelphia. It was always a challenge to coach against Chuck. He usually outsmarted me, but in how to dress for the game, Chuck never came in second.”
From St. Joe’s to the pros
Westhead got his first coaching job before graduating from St. Joseph’s, serving as an assistant to his mentor Jack Ramsay. From there he went to Cheltenham high school outside Philadelphia, then worked from 1970 to 1979 at La Salle.
When Jack McKinney was hired as the Lakers head coach in 1979, Westhead joined him as his lone assistant. Just 14 games into the season, McKinney was hospitalized after a serious bicycle accident. Westhead was named the team’s interim coach and helped L.A. go 50-18 the rest of the way with super-rookie Magic Johnson and a revitalized Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That crew beat Philadelphia for the 1980 NBA title, Johnson famously jumping center and dominating (42 points, 15 rebounds, seven assists) in the clinching Game 6 when Abdul-Jabbar was injured.
In Game 6 of the 1980 Finals, Magic Johnson records 42 points and 15 rebounds playing the center position to win the NBA title.
The Lakers went 54-28 the following season but got eliminated in the playoffs’ first round. By the next fall, Westhead and Johnson were at odds, with the point guard feeling constrained by his coach’s system-first style. Westhead was fired after 11 games in 1981-82, replaced by assistant Pat Riley.
Westhead coached the Chicago Bulls in 1982-83, then veered back to college to install a fast-paced offensive game at Loyola Marymount in L.A. With a pair of transfers from USC, Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, the Lions posted a combine 70-18 record in Westhead’s final three seasons there and set several NCAA scoring records.
Back in the NBA for two seasons with Denver, Westhead turned the Nuggets into the league’s most potent scorers in 1990-91. But they couldn’t overcome defensive and roster deficiencies, finishing 20-62. Denver improved by only four victories the next season, after which Westhead pivoted back to college at George Mason from 1993 to 1997.
From there, Westhead interspersed two-year stints as an NBA assistant with Golden State, Orlando and Seattle/OKC with jobs in the ABA minor league and with the Panasonic Super Kangaroos in the Japan Basketball League.
Westhead was hired by the Mercury in 2005 and guided star Diana Taurasi and the team to the WNBA title. He spent 2009 to 2014 coaching the women’s program at the University of Oregon.
20 jobs for the 21st award-winner
By Westhead’s count, he had 20 jobs in basketball. He thanked his wife Cassie and their children Monica, Patrice, Paul and Juliet for their indulgence in relocating so many times so he could do what he loved.
The trail Westhead blazed cut across all levels, from preps to pros, working with both genders, for teams both domestic and foreign. He became something of a guru for others who wanted to push the ball and score fast, a pro-active way to thwart both his teams’ foes and any referees that might size up his crew for whistles in a more physical halfcourt game.
“Fantastic coach,” said Knicks coach Mike Brown, before Friday’s game. “When I took the Lakers job [in 2011], I actually went and had lunch with him and asked him more importantly about the finer points of transition offense.”
Westhead is the 21st honoree of the Daly award. He joins Don Nelson (2025), Rudy Tomjanovich (2024), Rick Adelman (2023), Mike Fratello (2022), Larry Brown (2021), Del Harris (2020), Frank Layden (2019), Doug Moe (2018), Al Attles and Hubie Brown (2017), K.C. Jones and Jerry Sloan (2016), Dick Motta (2015), Bernie Bickerstaff (2014), Bill Fitch (2013), Pat Riley (2012), Lenny Wilkens (2011), Jack Ramsay and Tex Winter (2010) and Tommy Heinsohn (2009).
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
