Kings Pick Up English for Coaching Staff

Alex English, an eight-time NBA All-Star and member of the NBA Hall of Fame, is the new assistant coach of the Sacramento Kings. On Friday, January 13, head coach Keith Smart said that he hired English because he believed the players could benefit from having a former elite player working on the team.

With a career total of 25,613 points, English is the NBA’s 13th highest scorer of all-time. After playing for the University of South Carolina, he was a second-round draft pick in 1976 for the Milwaukee Bucks. In 1978, the Bucks traded him to the Indiana Pacers, turning him into one of the troubled team’s top scorers. Midway through the 1979-1980 season, the Pacers traded him to the Denver Nuggets.

English played for the Nuggets for 10 seasons, averaging almost 30 points in the 1985-1986 season. During this period, the Nuggets won two Midwest Division titles and made it to the 1985 Western Conference finals. Though he was the highest-scoring player of the decade, he never sought the same level of fame of his more publicized contemporaries. In 1990, he left Denver for the Dallas Mavericks where he lasted only a year; he played one season with Italy’s Basket Napoli before ending his playing career for good. He remains the top scorer in the Nuggets’ history.

English took a position as assistant coach on the Philadelphia 76ers and the Atlanta Hawks for a season each before he moved to the Toronto Raptors, serving as their assistant coach from 2004 to 2011.