Paul Silas, ex-NBA All-Star, head coach from Oakland, dies at 79
Oakland’s Paul Silas, who ushered in the most dominant high school basketball era in California history on his way to becoming a three-time NBA champion, has died, his family announced Sunday. He was 79.
The family revealed the death through the Houston Rockets, for whom Silas’ son, Stephen, is a second-generation NBA head coach after serving as a Warriors assistant. The Boston Globe first reported Silas’ death, and no official cause was immediately announced.
“Our heartfelt thoughts are with Stephen and his family during this difficult time,” the Rockets said in a statement.
Silas, a 12-year NBA head coach, which included being LeBron James’ first coach in the league.
Silas began his career as a head coach with a three-year stint leading the then-San Diego Clippers starting in 1980. After spending more than a decade as an assistant, he returned to being a head coach and spent time with the Charlotte Hornets, the New Orleans Hornets, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Charlotte Bobcats.
He took four of those teams to the playoffs, winning exactly 400 games — 387 in the regular season, 13 more in the postseason.
“Paul made a huge contribution to the game of basketball and will be sorely missed!” Hall of Fame guard and Los Angeles Lakers great Magic Johnson wrote on Twitter.
Long before Silas’ successful NBA career, which included two All-Star appearances and five appearances on the All-Defensive team, he was a standard of excellence in West Oakland.
Silas’ death comes less than five months after the death of NBA legend Bill Russell, another former McClymonds star.
Picking up where Russell left off six years earlier at McClymonds, the 6-foot-7 Silas never lost a high school game, leading the Warriors to a 68-0 record and three years of being California’s No. 1 ranked team from 1958-60.
Silas and McClymonds started a run that saw the Warriors enjoy winning streaks of 68 and 42 games on their way to a 110-1 record. Mack went on to an unprecedented six-year run that featured a 126-4 record with six consecutive Tournament of Champions titles (there were no state playoffs), five No. 1 rankings in the state and four undefeated seasons. The incredible run earned McClymonds the nickname of “The school of champions,” which they displayed proudly for years.
Silas’ star-studded McClymonds teammates included 6-foot-10 Jim Hadnot (drafted by the Boston Celtics, played with ABA’s Oakland Oaks), Joe Ellis (8-year NBA career with the San Francisco/Golden State Warriors), Wendell Hayes (NFL fullback with Chiefs and Broncos) and Aaron Pointer (3-year MLB career with Houston, 16-year NFL head linesman and brother of the Grammy Award-winning Pointer Sisters).
In his senior season, Silas was named California State Player of the Year while averaging 30.2 points and nearly 25 rebounds per game. One of the nation’s top recruits, Silas went to Creighton University, where he was an All-American while setting the NCAA record for most rebounds in three seasons. His 631 rebounds as a senior in 1963-64 remains the most by any college player since 1960.
Silas’ career average of 21.6 rebounds per game are the third-most in NCAA history and he’s just one of five players – including Russell and Julius Erving — to average more than 20 points and 20 rebounds per game in his collegiate career.
He was voted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.
Stephen Silas got into the NBA world when his father was coaching in Charlotte, starting as an advance scout and eventually serving as an assistant on his father’s staff with the Hornets in 2000. It took Stephen Silas two decades to get a chance to be a head coach, including five years spent as a Warriors assistant (2006-10). Houston hired Silas as head coach in 2020.
“My dad, obviously, he was my No. 1 mentor, someone who I could lean on, ask questions and he asked questions of me,” Stephen Silas said in a 2021 documentary produced by the Rockets about his coaching journey. “He really valued my opinion, which was kind of weird to me, me being so young and not having much experience.”
Stephen Silas persevered for a long time before getting his big chance. He saw his father wait a long time for the job he wanted as well. Paul Silas was fired by the San Diego Clippers in 1983 and wouldn’t have a head coaching opportunity again until 1999 — coming when Dave Cowens, for whom Paul Silas was an assistant, stepped down in Charlotte after a 4-11 start to the shortened 1998-99 season.
Eventually, Silas would take over in Cleveland. He got there in 2003, the same year the Cavaliers drafted James.
“I coached LeBron for two years, his first two years, and LeBron was unbelievable,” Paul Silas said. “At 18 years old, he knew about Bill Russell, he knew about a lot of players who came through that most players his age don’t even know. And he understood the game. I made LeBron a point/forward because I didn’t have one when he first started. He didn’t say a word to me. He just took over the game and we did well.”
In time, James would become a champion. It took Paul Silas a few years to get to that level as a player as well.
He was a five-time All-Defensive team selection who averaged 9.4 points and 9.9 rebounds in 16 seasons with the St. Louis and Atlanta Hawks, Phoenix, Boston, Denver and Seattle. Silas won two titles with the Celtics — the first coming in his 10th season as a player — and claimed a third with the SuperSonics. He averaged 12.8 points and 13.8 rebounds in the 1976 Finals for Boston against the Suns.
“Paul Silas was a giant in basketball circles,” former NBA player Rex Chapman wrote Sunday on Twitter. “A great man. Was fortunate to spend a couple of seasons with Paul when he was an (assistant) coach with the Suns. I don’t know anyone with a bad word to say about him — ever. A sad day.”
Associated Press contributed to this report.
