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His fingerprints are all over the NBA's best offense. A year ago, as an assistant coach, he jumped and cheered and showered in champagne after they had won it all. So perhaps Alvin Gentry can still enjoy watching the Golden State Warriors play basketball, even though he is now the head coach somewhere else.
Maybe? Possibly?
"We've played them twice," Gentry said with a chuckle before his New Orleans Pelicans played in Salt Lake City on Saturday. "I take joy in the fact that we don't have to play them but one more time. That's what I take joy in."
A perfect 18-0 to begin the year, the Warriors have had a way of making a lot of teams miserable of late.
There has been no hangover from that champagne celebration last June after the Warriors won their first championship in 40 years. Each victory now just adds to their record-breaking start and the questions that keep creeping up are no longer about a "jump-shooting team" and its chances at being great, but whether this jump-shooting team might be one of the greatest to ever play the game.
Could these Warriors beat the "Showtime" Lakers of the '80s?
How about Michael Jordan and the 1996 Chicago Bulls?
The Warriors are living in a world where water-cooler talk bleeds into tangible goals. Already, Golden State could be eying that Bulls team's NBA record 72 wins in a season, as well as the 1971-72 Lakers' record 33-game winning streak.
"We talk about 33," point guard Stephen Curry said last week during a conference call with international reporters. "I think I've probably talked about it more than anybody else on the team just because I know about the history and just really how hard it is."
So far, no one has been able to top them. But the Warriors, who could be without injured starting forward Harrison Barnes for an extended period, are about to embark on one of their toughest stretches of the season: a seven-game, 15-day road trip.
And the Utah Jazz will be the next team that tries to slow their path toward history.
"It's exciting," Jazz forward Trevor Booker said. "No pressure on us."
Knowing the Warriors would be in Salt Lake on Monday night, Utah forward Joe Ingles said he'd recently begun to hope that Golden State's undefeated streak would be intact. "The last kind of couple games, you kind of hope they keep it so you can be the first team," he said.
Interim coach Luke Walton, who has surely earned Coach of the Month honors while letting Steve Kerr recover from back surgery, doesn't want his players focused on chasing records.
"It definitely can be a distraction," he told reporters last week. "… The 72-win thing is far, far away and we shouldn't be spending any time thinking about that."
Focused on winning a championship over setting another record, there will be nights the Warriors rest players and limit minutes.
And, eventually, they will lose.
"There is going to be a night where we just don't make any of our shots down the stretch and another team gets hot and that is going to happen," Walton told reporters last week. "That's the way it is in this league, but it's nice that it hasn't happened yet."
The Jazz, of course, hope it's Monday. They beat the Warriors last year in Utah, thanks to some cold shooting from the visitors, who hit on just 8 of 27 attempts from 3.
But these aren't last year's Warriors. Somehow, they're better.
"Am I surprised? Yeah, I guess so," Sacramento Kings coach George Karl told reporters Saturday, shortly before his team became the Warriors' latest victim. "I think there's a cockiness that comes from winning a championship that usually brings complacency with it. But they're playing at a high level and Steph is video game-ish."
A season ago, Golden State won a remarkable 67 games and Curry averaged better than 23 points and seven assists a game en route to a championship and an MVP trophy. Curry, who is putting up nearly 32 and six this year, might have a shot at winning his second MVP award — as well as the award for Most Improved Player.
Golden State is beating teams by an average of 16 points per game, up from 10.1 last year. The Warriors lead the league in assists (29.8) and they're shooting a higher percentage from 3-point territory (42.9) than seven teams' are shooting overall.
"The big thing about that whole group is I think every single one of those guys came back better than they were last year," Gentry said. "So it doesn't surprise me where they are right now."
But it should worry everyone else around the NBA.
Twitter: @tribjazz —
Warriors at Jazz
P At Vivint Arena
Tipoff • Monday, 7 p.m.
TV • ROOT Sports
Radio • 97.5 FM
About the Jazz • Riding high after wins over Western Conference foes New Orleans and the Los Angeles Clippers. … Jazz forward Derrick Favors practiced Sunday and is expected to play Monday after missing Saturday's game due to "personal reasons." … Beat the Warriors once last year, a 110-100 win in Salt Lake City.
About the Warriors • Off to a record 18-0 start to the season and now chasing the 1971-72 Lakers' record of 33 straight wins. … Reigning MVP Stephen Curry leads the league in scoring at 31.9 points per game. … Small forward Harrison Barnes' status is unclear after suffering a sprained ankle last week.