When David Griffin took over as the New Orleans Pelicans' executive vice president of basketball operations, the prevailing thought is he would remove head coach Alvin Gentry as they worked on trading Anthony Davis.
Surprisingly, Gentry remained even after Davis was traded and the Pelicans entered a rebuild. However, Griffin has a good reason for sticking to his head coach.
In an interview with Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, Griffin revealed that he has complete faith with Gentry right from the start, especially with his proven track record. The 46-year-old exec also emphasized that moving on from Gentry has never been an idea considering that they need a coach who can help them establish a winning culture.
“Everybody says, ‘Why didn’t you start over with a new coach?’” Griffin said. “‘Well, I don’t know a lot of other coaches that I went to the conference finals with, with a roster similar to this.’ The fearless Alvin that coached the 2010 Suns to the conference finals is a different animal than he was able to be here. My job is to get to channel as much of that person as I can because that was a masterful job that I watched him do.
“That was never an idea to move on from [Gentry]. When you’re starting what we’re starting with the cultural identification piece, you want to start with people who speak the same language.”
Before taking the Pelicans' head coaching job in 2015, Gentry was an associate head coach for the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors team that won the NBA title.
Prior to that, he served as head coach of the Phoenix Suns from 2008 to 2012. In the 2009-10 season, Gentry led the rising Suns to a 54-28 record and onto the Western Conference Finals. Unfortunately, they fell to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Gentry has not had much success since moving to New Orleans, compiling a 145-183 win-loss record in his first four seasons. Fortunately for him, he has solid young pieces in place this time around.
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