Paul Westphal, who had such a wonderful basketball life, in gyms and out of them, on the court as a player and on the sideline as a coach, died early Saturday morning.
He was 70. He had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, a brain cancer, about a year after being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. And as great a player as he was, in Boston and Phoenix and even with the Knicks one time when he was Comeback Player of the Year, you need to know he was a much better man.
“He wasn’t just as good as you think he was,” Charles Barkley, who nearly won his title with the Suns when he played for Paul in the ’90s. “He was better. I’ve been around the NBA since 1984, and there are very few people I would consider selfless. But Paul was one. He never cared who got the credit. He just loved this game.”
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