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Paul Silas, a member of three NBA championship teams as a player and LeBron James‘ first coach in the league, 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 head coach.
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.
Paul 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.
The Rockets were playing host to Milwaukee on Sunday night. It was not immediately clear how long Stephen Silas would be away from the team; the Rockets were planning to have John Lucas lead the team on an interim basis while the Silas family grieves.
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.
