Rick Carlisle

Richard Preston Carlisle (born October 27, 1959) is an American basketball coach and former player who is the head coach for the Indiana Pacers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

He has previously served as head coach of the Detroit Pistons and Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

As a player, Carlisle played for the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, and New Jersey Nets.

He is also one of only eleven people to win an NBA championship both as a player and as a coach.

Carlisle was raised in Lisbon, New York.

He attended Lisbon Central High School, then spent a year at Worcester Academy.

He played two years of college basketball at the University of Maine from 1979 to 1981, before transferring to the University of Virginia.

Carlisle was a starter for the 1982–83 Virginia Cavaliers team that featured the three-time college player of the year Ralph Sampson.

UVA was the number one ranked team in the country prior to being defeated by Chaminade on December 23, 1982.

In the 1983 NCAA tournament, UVA was the number one seed in the West and made it to the Elite Eight before losing to eventual NCAA national champion North Carolina State.

Carlisle was the co-captain on the 1983–84 Cavaliers team and helped lead them to the Final Four where they lost 49–47 in overtime to the Houston Cougars team led by Hakeem Olajuwon.

Carlisle averaged 12.5 points and 3.3 rebounds per game during his college career.

After graduating in 1984 Carlisle was selected 70th overall by the Boston Celtics in the 1984 NBA draft, where he played alongside Larry Bird.

In a limited reserve role from 1984 to 1987 Carlisle averaged 2.2 points, 1.0 assists and 0.8 rebounds per game.

He then played for the Albany Patroons of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) under Bill Musselman.

He then signed as a free agent with the New York Knicks, where he played under coach Rick Pitino alongside emerging star Patrick Ewing.

Under Celtics' coach K. C. Jones he won the NBA championship in 1986 and lost in the finals in 1985 and 1987.

In the 1986 NBA finals series, in limited playing time, Carlisle made every shot he took (3 for 3).

In 1989, Carlisle played in five games with the New Jersey Nets under Bill Fitch.

Later in 1989, he accepted an assistant coaching position with the Nets, where he spent five seasons under Bill Fitch and Chuck Daly.

In 1994, Carlisle joined the assistant coaching staff with the Portland Trail Blazers under coach P. J. Carlesimo, where he spent three seasons.

In 1997, Carlisle joined the Indiana Pacers organization as an assistant coach under former teammate, Larry Bird.

During his time as Pacers assistant coach, he helped the Pacers to two of their best seasons ever.

First, in 1997–98, the Pacers stretched the Chicago Bulls to the limit, narrowly losing the deciding seventh game of the Eastern Conference Finals to the eventual NBA champion.

Then, in 1999–2000 season, the Pacers made the NBA Finals for the first time, ultimately losing to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Bird stepped down as coach, and pushed for Carlisle to be selected as his replacement, but Pacers team president Donnie Walsh gave the job to Isiah Thomas.

For the 2001–02 season, Carlisle was hired by the Detroit Pistons to be their new head coach.

In two seasons as Pistons' head coach, Carlisle led the team to consecutive 50–32 records (.610) with Central Division titles and playoff appearances.

He was named Coach of the Year in 2002.

However, the Pistons fired Carlisle after the 2002–03 season with a year remaining on his contract and hired Larry Brown.

Friction between Carlisle and team ownership was cited as one of the primary reasons for the firing.

Carlisle's Pistons had just dispatched Brown's Philadelphia 76ers in the Conference Semifinals before being swept by the New Jersey Nets in the Eastern Conference finals.

For the 2003–04 season, Carlisle returned to the Pacers as head coach (Isiah Thomas had been fired, almost immediately after Larry Bird was brought back as the new President of Basketball Operations).

In his first season, Carlisle led the Pacers to the Central Division title and NBA's best regular-season record at 61–21 (74.4%), setting a franchise record for wins (both in the NBA and ABA).

In the playoffs, the team eliminated both the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat, before losing to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals.

That year, he coached the East All-Stars at the All-Star Game.

In 2005, the Pacers roster was decimated by injuries (most notably, those of Jermaine O'Neal, Stephen Jackson and Jamaal Tinsley) and suspensions that were meted out after the Pacers–Pistons brawl at The Palace of Auburn Hills, which resulted in Ron Artest being suspended for the rest of the season, Jackson being suspended for 30 games and O'Neal being suspended for 15 games.

However, Carlisle was still able to rally the Pacers to the NBA playoffs that season.

As the sixth seed, they again defeated the Boston Celtics in the first round, before being defeated once again by the eventual Eastern Conference champion, the Detroit Pistons.

The Pacers slipped to a .500 record in 2005–06 and barely made the playoffs, losing in the first round.