Alvin Gentry-led teams tend to move fast
The New Orleans Pelicans finished last season with a 45-37 record, and were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Golden State Warriors, who went on to win the 2015 NBA championship. Here’s the New Orleans Times-Picayune reporting on how the team may change under new head coach Alvin Gentry:
In the last five years Gentry has finished a season with a team – as the head coach of the Phoenix Suns in 2009-12 and as the associate head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers (2013-14) and Golden State Warriors (2014-15) – his team’s have never ranked lower than 8th in pace and finished first with the Warriors in their NBA title run.
Last year’s Pelicans’ squad finished 16th in the league in scoring averaging 99.4 points per game – the highest mark of Williams’ tenure. Gentry’s teams have led the league in scoring three times in the last six seasons with the Warriors averaging 111.0 points per game a season ago.
One of the things that impressed Pelicans general manager Dell Demps about Gentry was Gentry’s understanding of the Pelicans roster and the willingness to play with a different style in order to succeed in an ever-changing NBA.
“We interviewed a number of candidates, but Alvin talked about all of our players,” Demps said in Monday’s introductory press conference. “He had a great understanding of our team. He had an understanding of how he wanted this team to play. He talked about defense first and how that would make our defense better. I felt like we had a shared vision.
