The Speed Game

My Fast Times in Basketball

By: Paul Westhead

Narrated by: Chaz Allen

Paul Westhead was teaching high school in his native Philadelphia when he was named La Salle University’s men’s basketball coach in 1970. By 1980 he was a Los Angeles Lakers assistant, soon to be hired as head coach, winning an NBA title with Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and rookie guard Magic Johnson. After compiling a 112-50 record, he was fired in November 1981. After a short stay as coach of the Chicago Bulls, Westhead reemerged in the mid-eighties as a coach at Loyola Marymount in California, where he designed his highly unusual signature run-and-gun offense that came to be known as “the system”.

The Speed Game offers a vibrant account of how Westhead helped develop a style of basketball that not only won at the highest levels but went on to influence basketball as it’s played today. Known for implementing an up-tempo, quick-possession, high-octane offense, Westhead is the only coach to have won championships in both the NBA and WNBA.

Westhead speaks candidly here about the feathers he ruffled and about his own shortcomings as he takes readers from Philadelphia’s West Catholic High, where he couldn’t make varsity, to the birth of the Showtime Lakers and to the powerhouse he built nearly ten years later at Loyola, where his team set records likely never to be approached.

The book is published by University of Nebraska Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

“His accounts of his time with the NBA will be rewarding for hoop fans and all of us book worms.” (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)

"It may be a surprise to readers to learn how graceful and interesting a writer he is...." (Wall Street Journal)

"His memoir is both proud and self-effacing, candid and evasive, an artful nod to Shakespearean comedy and tragedy." (New York Journal of Books)

©2020 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska (P)2021 Redwood Audiobooks

Fast, faster, and fastest

Paul Westhead became the poster boy for the fast break system. As Westhead states in "The Speed Game," he was never afraid to experiment, and push the envelope. The coach was told he had to be crazy to fully embrace the fast break, an exciting system Westhead learned in Puerto Rico. A division II coach would fully train Westhead to integrate the fast break, a system designed to shot the ball in five seconds.

Interestingly, Westhead tried out for his high school's basketball team year after year, but never made the roster. However, Westhead became a high school basketball coach, and he sited a Bobby Knight coach clinic that helped mold him as a better coach. After a stint as an assistant coach with St. Joseph's, he became the head coach at LaSalle, a catholic university in his hometown of Philadelphia.

In a strange twist, Westhead led the Los Angeles Lakers, which included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and a rookie Magic Johnson, to the NBA championship in 1980, however, would be fired just eighteen months later. In the book, Westhead reveals what he was told the reason for his firing, and the coach lists the reasons he thinks he was ultimately let go. Westhead would go on to also coach the Chicago Bulls and the Denver Nuggets.

Westhead achieved fame while using his fast break system at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, where transfers Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble lead a potent offense that averaged 122 points per game. Westhead led the 89-90 team to the Elite 8 in the NCAA tournament, as the team dedicated their run to Gathers, who was lost in March due to a heart condition. He won a WNBA championship in 2007 with the Phoenix Mercury.

Westhead was always a fun character to watch on the sideline, and his teams were often times scoring machines. I enjoyed reliving his basketball teams in this entertaining biography. Chaz Allen also provides outstanding narration.

Worth the read

Paul Westhead is a crazy genius, and I Love any glimpse I can get into his world. Some of the stories sound like sour grapes, but it’s about the journey. The narration is not bad but needed better directing and recording location; it sounds tinny. Still, a good book.

Life in the Fast Lane

I’ve followed Coach Westhead for many years and dreamed of running his system. This book is a fantastic read that is very interesting, insightful and enjoyable not just for fans of him and his system, but any basketball fan.