Brian Winters

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title: "Brian Winters" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1952-births", "living-people", "20th-century-american-sportsmen", "american-basketball-scouts", "american-expatriate-basketball-people-in-canada", "american-men's-basketball-coaches", "american-men's-basketball-players", "american-women's-basketball-coaches", "archbishop-molloy-high-school-alumni", "atlanta-hawks-assistant-coaches", "basketball-coaches-from-new-york-(state)", "basketball-players-from-queens,-new-york", "charlotte-bobcats-assistant-coaches", "cleveland-cavaliers-assistant-coaches", "denver-nuggets-assistant-coaches", "golden-state-warriors-assistant-coaches", "golden-state-warriors-head-coaches", "indiana-fever-coaches", "indiana-pacers-scouts", "los-angeles-lakers-draft-picks", "los-angeles-lakers-players", "milwaukee-bucks-players", "nba-all-stars", "nba-players-with-retired-numbers", "new-york-nets-draft-picks", "princeton-tigers-men's-basketball-coaches", "shooting-guards", "small-forwards", "south-carolina-gamecocks-men's-basketball-players", "vancouver-grizzlies-head-coaches"] description: "American basketball player and coach" topic_path: "science/astronomy" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Winters" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American basketball player and coach ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox basketball biography"]

Field	Value
name	Brian Winters
height_ft	6
height_in	4
weight_lb	185
birth_date
birth_place	Rockaway, New York, U.S.
high_school	Archbishop Molloy
(Queens, New York)
college	South Carolina (1971–1974)
draft_year	1974
draft_round	1
draft_pick	12
draft_team	Los Angeles Lakers
career_start	1974
career_end	1983
career_number	20, 32
career_position	Shooting guard
coach_start	1984
coach_end	2013
years1
team1	Los Angeles Lakers
years2	–
team2	Milwaukee Bucks
cyears1	1984–1986
cteam1	Princeton (assistant)
cyears2	–
cteam2	Cleveland Cavaliers (assistant)
cyears3	–
cteam3	Atlanta Hawks (assistant)
cyears4	–
cteam4	Vancouver Grizzlies
cyears5
cteam5	Denver Nuggets (assistant)
cyears6	–
cteam6	Golden State Warriors (assistant)
cyears7
cteam7	Golden State Warriors (interim)
cyears8	2004–2007
cteam8	Indiana Fever
cyears9
cteam9	Charlotte Bobcats (assistant)
stats_league	NBA
stat1label	Points
stat1value	10,537 (16.2 ppg)
stat2label	Rebounds
stat2value	1,688 (2.6 rpg)
stat3label	Assists
stat3value	2,674 (4.1 apg)
cstats_league1	NBA
cwin1	36
closs1	148
cstats_league2	WNBA
cwin2	78
closs2	58
::

| name = Brian Winters | image = | width = | caption = | height_ft = 6 | height_in = 4 | weight_lb = 185 | birth_date = | birth_place = Rockaway, New York, U.S. | high_school = Archbishop Molloy (Queens, New York) | college = South Carolina (1971–1974) | draft_year = 1974 | draft_round = 1 | draft_pick = 12 | draft_team = Los Angeles Lakers | career_start = 1974 | career_end = 1983 | career_number = 20, 32 | career_position = Shooting guard | coach_start = 1984 | coach_end = 2013 | years1 = | team1 = Los Angeles Lakers | years2 = – | team2 = Milwaukee Bucks | cyears1 = 1984–1986 | cteam1 = Princeton (assistant) | cyears2 = – | cteam2 = Cleveland Cavaliers (assistant) | cyears3 = – | cteam3 = Atlanta Hawks (assistant) | cyears4 = – | cteam4 = Vancouver Grizzlies | cyears5 = | cteam5 = Denver Nuggets (assistant) | cyears6 = – | cteam6 = Golden State Warriors (assistant) | cyears7 = | cteam7 = Golden State Warriors (interim) | cyears8 = 2004–2007 | cteam8 = Indiana Fever | cyears9 = | cteam9 = Charlotte Bobcats (assistant) | highlights = As player:

• 2× NBA All-Star (, )
• NBA All-Rookie First Team ()
• No. 32 retired by Milwaukee Bucks | stats_league = NBA | stat1label = Points | stat1value = 10,537 (16.2 ppg) | stat2label = Rebounds | stat2value = 1,688 (2.6 rpg) | stat3label = Assists | stat3value = 2,674 (4.1 apg) | cstats_league1 = NBA | cwin1 = 36 | closs1 = 148 | cstats_league2 = WNBA | cwin2 = 78 | closs2 = 58 Brian Joseph Winters (born March 1, 1952) is an American former basketball player and coach.

Career

Winters attended academic and athletic powerhouse Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens, New York, graduating in 1970. He then played collegiately with the University of South Carolina, scoring 1,079 points over his career. While playing for South Carolina, Winters was hampered due to both a severe case of mononucleosis and a series of knee injuries. He was the 12th pick in the 1974 NBA draft, taken by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Winters made the NBA All-Rookie Team with the Lakers before he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks as part of the deal that brought future Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the West Coast, which Abdul-Jabbar had demanded. On April 18, 1976, in the first playoff series of his NBA career, Winters scored 33 points and recorded 5 assists in a 107–104 Game 3 loss against the Detroit Pistons. On November 30, 1976, Winters scored a career-high 43 points in a 115–106 victory over the Trailblazers. The following season, on December 16, 1977, Winters scored 24 points and made a game-winning jumpshot during a 152–150 triple overtime win against the New York Knicks. On March 19, 1978, Winters scored 22 points and recorded a career-high 18 assists in a 117–106 victory against the Washington Bullets.

Overall, he had a productive nine-year career that included two appearances in the NBA All-Star Game and six in the playoffs, and was a fan-favorite during the years that the Bucks struggled through immediately following the aforementioned Abdul-Jabbar trade. Winters averaged 16.2 points and 4.1 assists over his career, with his best years coming from 1975–76 to 1979–80, when he averaged 18.7 points. 4.7 assists and 1.4 steals per game. His game declined in the 1982–83 season, however, when he shot a career-worst 43 percent in the field, after which he retired at 31 years of age. The Bucks organization retired his number 32 on October 28, 1983, he was the third player in franchise history to be honored with a jersey retirement.

In a 2005 interview, Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan singled out Winters as the best "pure shooter" in history, claiming that "he had the most beautiful stroke of all the people whom [he could] think of."

After retiring from the NBA, Winters became an assistant coach for two years under legendary coach Pete Carril at Princeton. From there, he moved on to become an assistant coach under Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens with the Cleveland Cavaliers for 7 years and Atlanta Hawks for two more. Next he was the inaugural coach for the Vancouver Grizzlies for a year and a half. Later Winters coached with the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors. He was formerly the head coach of the WNBA's Indiana Fever, leading them to their first ever consecutive-year playoff appearances.

On October 26, 2007, Winters option wasn't picked up by the Indiana Fever, ending his four-year tenure with the club. He compiled a 78–58 record in the regular season to go with a 5–7 playoff record. He was a scout for the Indiana Pacers for several seasons until he was let go during the NBA lockout in August 2011. He spent the 2012–13 season as an assistant coach with the Charlotte Bobcats.

Winters has been a talent scout for the Indiana Pacers since 2014. He played a role in convincing the Pacers to draft Myles Turner.

Head coaching record

NBA

|- | style="text-align:left;"|Vancouver | style="text-align:left;"| |82||15||67|||| align="center"|7th in Midwest|||—||—||—||— | style="text-align:center;"|Missed playoffs |- | style="text-align:left;"|Vancouver | style="text-align:left;"| |43||8||35|||| align="center"|(fired)|||—||—||—||— | style="text-align:center;"|— |- | style="text-align:left;"|Golden State | style="text-align:left;"| |59||13||46|||| align="center"|7th in Pacific|||—||—||—||— | style="text-align:center;"|Missed playoffs |- class="sortbottom" | style="text-align:left;"|Career | ||184||36||148|||| ||—||—||—||—||

WNBA

|- | align="left" |IND | align="left" | |34||15||19|||| align="center" |6th in East||—||—||—||— | align="center" |Missed Playoffs |- | align="left" |IND | align="left" | |34||21||13|||| align="center" |2nd in East||4||2||2|| | align="center" |Lost in Conference finals |- | align="left" |IND | align="left" | |34||21||13|||| align="center" |3rd in East||2||0||2|| | align="center" |Lost in Conference semifinals |- | align="left" |IND | align="left" | |34||21||13|||| align="center" |2nd in East||6||3||3|| | align="center" |Lost in Conference finals |-class="sortbottom" | align="left" |Career | ||136||78||58|||| ||12||5||7||||

NBA career statistics

Regular season

|- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers | 68 || – || 22.3 || .443 || – || .826 || 2.0 || 2.9 || 1.1 || 0.3 || 11.7 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee | 78 || – || 35.8 || .464 || – || .829 || 3.2 || 4.7 || 1.6 || 0.3 || 18.2 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee | 78 || – || 34.8 || .498 || – || .847 || 3.0 || 4.3 || 1.5 || 0.4 || 19.3 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee | 80 || – || 34.4 || .463 || – || .840 || 3.1 || 4.9 || 1.6 || 0.3 || 19.9 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee | 79 || – || 32.6 || .493 || – || .856 || 2.2 || 4.8 || 1.1 || 0.5 || 19.8 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee | 80 || – || 32.8 || .479 || .373 || .860 || 2.8 || 4.5 || 1.3 || 0.4 || 16.2 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee | 69 || – || 25.7 || .475 || .353 || .869 || 2.0 || 3.3 || 1.0 || 0.1 || 11.6 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee | 61 || 13 || 30.0 || .501 || .387 || .788 || 2.8 || 4.1 || 0.9 || 0.1 || 15.9 |- | style="text-align:left;"| | style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee | 57 || 12 || 23.9 || .434 || .324 || .859 || 1.9 || 2.7 || 0.8 || 0.1 || 10.6 |- class="sortbottom" | style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| Career | 650 || 25 || 30.7 || .475 || .363 || .842 || 2.6 || 4.1 || 1.2 || 0.3 || 16.2

|- class="sortbottom" | style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| All-Star | 2 || 1 || 15.0 || .417 || – || – || 3.0 || 1.0 || 0.5 || 0.0 || 5.0

Playoffs

|- |style="text-align:left;"|1976 |style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee |3||–||42.0||.629||–||.800||2.3||5.0||1.7||0.7||27.3 |- |style="text-align:left;"|1978 |style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee |9||–||33.9||.497||–||.741||3.3||6.4||1.3||0.9||20.4 |- |style="text-align:left;"|1980 |style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee |7||–||38.3||.460||.429||1.000||3.0||5.3||1.6||0.0||15.9 |- |style="text-align:left;"|1981 |style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee |7||–||25.9||.459||.333||.750||3.3||3.1||1.4||0.1||10.0 |- |style="text-align:left;"|1982 |style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee |6||–||38.7||.494||.500||.833||2.5||4.7||1.3||0.2||16.8 |- |style="text-align:left;"|1983 |style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee |9||–||26.7||.429||.273||.824||2.4||3.6||0.7||0.4||9.9 |- class="sortbottom" | style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| Career | 41 || – || 33.0 || .490 || .396 || .808 || 2.9 || 4.7 || 1.3 || 0.4 || 15.5

References

References

1. "South Carolina basketball: Brian Winters still helps in NBA {{!".
2. "Detroit Pistons at Milwaukee Bucks Box Score, April 18, 1976".
3. "Portland Trail Blazers at Milwaukee Bucks Box Score, November 30, 1976".
4. "Bucks Beat Knicks in 3 Overtimes (Published 1977)".
5. "Milwaukee Bucks at Washington Bullets Box Score, March 19, 1978".
6. "Archived Document".
7. "Retired Numbers".
8. Jordan, Michael. (August 2005). "One-on-One with Michael Jordan". [[Cigar Aficionado]].
9. [http://www.wnba.com/fever/news/071026_winters.html "Fever declines option on Winters contract"]. Wnba.com, October 26, 2007. Retrieved March 3, 2012.
10. "Pacers cut 3 scouts".
11. "Charlotte Bobcats Name Assistant Coaches".
12. "Brian Winters, Indiana Pacers, Scout – RealGM".

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