Taking a look at the five best Atlanta Hawks who made the leap to coach.
Almost every head coach in the NBA has played organized basketball at some level, with more than a handful being former NBA players. The Atlanta Hawks current coach, Lloyd Pierce played four years of college ball for Santa Clara, where he was teammates with Hall of Famer Steve Nash.
Pierce played a few seasons overseas before coming back to start working his way up the assistant coaching ranks.
Looking back, there are a solid amount of former Atlanta Hawks players who went on to have a successful second career as an NBA coach.
Here, we’ll be taking a look at the five best Hawks to make the leap throughout history, including a few who went on to coach the same Atlanta team they used to suit up for.
#5 – Paul Silas
Paul Silas played just one year in Atlanta but suited up for the St. Louis Hawks in his first four seasons in the league. He was good, not great for the Hawks but went on to have a very successful NBA career after leaving, winning three NBA championships, and making five All-Defensive teams.
Silas stepped right into the head coaching chair after retiring, acting as the skipper of the San Diego Clippers from 1980 to 1983. He was dismissed after going 68-136 in those three years.
A few years later he returned to the bench as an assistant coach, starting a long career as a secondary coach. From ’85-’98 he worked on the bench of four teams (Nets, Knicks, Suns, Hornets) before getting a second chance as a captain.
He took over as the Hornets head coach in the 1998-1999 season after Dave Cowens started 4-11. He found success there, coaching a team led by a young Baron Davis into the playoffs three straight years before following the team to New Orleans.
After one year in the Big Easy, Silas was fired despite a 47-35 finish and a playoff birth. He was instantly given another chance to coach, this time in Cleveland with a 19-year-old LeBron James on the roster.
He was famously fired one year later after a feud with guard Eric Snow led to a media outburst:
After a brief analyst stint at ESPN Silas returned to Charlotte to become the Bobcats head coach. In his second season as the full-time skipper, the Bobcats went 7-59, recording an all-time worst winning percentage.
If you look at that roster, however, it’s hard to blame the coach for that, and Silas proved to be a talented head man in his first tenure with Charlotte.
In total, he spent 12 seasons as a head coach, retiring with a .442 winning percentage.
#4 – Tyronn Lue
Tyronn Lue served as the Atlanta Hawks’ point guard during some of the ugliest years in franchise history. He started 46 games of the ’04-’05 season wherein they went 13-69. Lue was easily the Hawks’ best player in that disastrous season.
He spent a total of four seasons in Atlanta, the longest home of the journeyman point guard who suited up for seven teams in his 11-year career.
Shortly after retiring in 2009, Lue began climbing the coaching tree, starting in Boston before eventually being named associate head coach in Cleveland. From there, you know the story, with Lue being promoted the next season and helping the Cavs win the championship in his first season as head coach.
He coached the team for two seasons after that, with Cleveland losing in the Finals each year. After LeBron skipped town, Lue showed little interest in coaching a rebuilding team and was fired after an 0-6 start to the season. As a head coach, Lue won over 60 percent of his regular-season games.
His story is still being written, however, with Lue joining Doc Rivers‘ staff in L.A last summer after a few rumors of him becoming the head coach for the Lakers.
He continues to be in the rumor mill to take over as the Brooklyn Nets head coach next season, reuniting with Kyrie Irving.
#3 – Richie Guerin
Splitting time between the New York Knicks and the Hawks, Richie Guerin played a total of 13 seasons in the league from 1956-1970. He made six All-Star teams, three All-NBA teams and was selected to the Hall of Fame in 2013.
In his eighth NBA season, Guerin joined the Hawks and became the head coach a year later, serving as a player-coach. He averaged nearly 30 minutes per game while running the team.
He stayed on to coach the team for seven more seasons, with Guerin briefly retiring as a player before returning to his dual role after the team moved to Atlanta. He also served as the Hawks’ executive from 1972-1973 before stepping away from pro basketball altogether.
Guerin recorded a .529 winning percentage across his eight total seasons as the Hawks coach, averaging 13.0 points and 4.5 assists per game as a player.
# 2 – Lenny Wilkens
Arguably the best Atlanta Hawks coach of all-time, Lenny Wilkens also was a very good player in his time. Wilkens spent the first eight seasons of his career in St. Louis, making the All-Star team in five of those.
He left to join Seattle, where he served as a player-coach for the team before doing the same in Portland for a few years. After he retired as a player, he returned to Seattle to serve as head coach for the next eight years, including the Sonics’ NBA championship in 1979.
He eventually left and helmed the Cavs for a handful of seasons and eventually ended up in Atlanta in 1993. Wilkens spent the next seven seasons as the Hawks’ coach, making the playoffs in the first six.
Wilkens’ winning percentage in Atlanta finished at .572, the highest of his coaching career that saw him lead six different teams.
He has a double presence in the Hall-of-Fame, being inducted as a player in 1989 and a coach in 1998.
#1 – Doc Rivers
A second-round pick of Atlanta’s in 1983, Doc Rivers was able to become a competent point guard to run the offense in Dominque Wilkins’ peak seasons. He played a total of 568 games for the Hawks, starting 516 and made his lone All-Star appearance in 1988 when he averaged 14.2 points and 9.3 assists per game.
Rivers showed an elite feel for the game during his time in the league which opened the doors for him to become a head coach soon after retiring as a player. He became Orlando’s skipper in 1999 and won the NBA’s Coach of the Year award in that first season.
He made the playoffs in each of the next three years with the Magic while hovering around .500 but was fired after a 1-10 start to the 2003-2004 season. Boston scooped him right up to serve as head coach of the next season, and Rivers quickly re-established himself as one of the league’s best coaches.
He won his ring a few years later with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, winning multiple Coach of the Month Awards along the way. His value truly showed in 2013 when the Los Angeles Clippers traded an unprotected first-round pick to acquire him.
Rivers has served as the Clips coach since, sporting a .631 winning percentage since taking over.
He’s certainly the best coach to ever play for the Atlanta Hawks.
What other Atlanta Hawks players became head coaches?