Warriors staff played hilarious, Pelicans-related prank on Alvin Gentry

11 years ago

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Call it one last reminder of the life he's leaving behind in the Bay Area.

While the Golden State Warriors are entirely supportive of assistant coach Alvin Gentry jumping at the opportunity to coach superstar Anthony Davis and re-enter the league's head coaching ranks, they weren't going to let him go without a razzing.

Gentry, who was announced as the new head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans over the weekend, spent his Sunday breaking down Cleveland Cavaliers game film. Per the team's process, he sent his clips to video coordinator Nick U'Ren, who would put them together at the team's Monday film session.

But Gentry's clips didn't make it to the session as originally constructed. The Warriors staff opted to crack wise at Gentry's expense, as detailed by ESPN's Ramona Shelburne:

"I start in like, 'Guys, here are some of the plays we ran against them that really worked well,'" Gentry says. "And I look at the screen and it's all a bunch of fricking Pelicans highlights.

"They've got captions under the plays like, 'Boy, this team has a lot of potential.' There's this play with Anthony Davis dunking and the caption says, 'God, this guy is GOOD!'"
...
"At the end of the tape, there's a milk carton with my picture on (it) that says, 'Have you seen this guy? He's been missing in action,'" he says.

Gentry looked at U'Ren and Kerr and shook his head.

"Everybody was laughing their ass off," Gentry says. "I'm like, 'OK, Y'all got me good. OK.'"

Got him good they did. Not that this is new.

Shelburne also detailed earlier pranks from throughout the season, with the entire team getting roasted individually at some point. And yes, that includes the players.

This type of light atmosphere has become a staple of the Warriors machine to outsiders. One of the greatest teams in league history if they can win the NBA championship, they always appear to be having a blast and are rarely rattled or engaged in apparent in-fighting.

For a rookie head coach to pull this off speaks not only to Steve Kerr's affability and efficacy, but to the value of organizational culture. That's surely a lesson Gentry has learned well and will look to take with him to New Orleans.