MALIBU, Calif. -- The Pacific Ocean is out his office window, but Pepperdine coach Paul Westphal rarely looks. Riviera Country Club is down the road, but he never plays.
"No time," he says.
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| Pepperdine coach Paul Westphal has the Waves poised to challenge mighty Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference. (Getty Images) |
And as for Riviera? It's true, Westphal isn't sure he wants to invest half a day to play a game he hasn't mastered. But it's also true Riviera is a private club, and Westphal isn't a member.
"I don't have a hook-up there," he said, too unassuming to get the bigger picture.
When you're Paul Westphal, you don't need a hook-up. You are a hook-up.
When you're Paul Westphal, you are also painfully honest. It is in his wiring, something that might have cost him his last job in the NBA and definitely has derailed the publishing of his book. But Westphal can live with the tradeoffs.
"I say the same things all the time," he said, smiling, "so it's easy to keep my story straight."
It makes for great conversation. During an hour with SportsLine.com in his office -- the one overlooking the Pacific; damn right we looked -- he touched several untouchable topics: cheating in college basketball, the hypocrisy of the NCAA and shoe companies, and his readiness this spring to leave Pepperdine if the Boston Celtics had asked.
First, the Celtics. When the coaching job opened this spring, Boston executive Danny Ainge called Westphal -- Westphal had coached Ainge a decade earlier with the Phoenix Suns -- and told him he was the No. 2 choice. Ainge's preference was to hire Doc Rivers, but he wasn't sure he could get him. He could.
As it became clear Boston was going to get Rivers, Westphal could have publicly "withdrawn from consideration" -- saving face and giving him the chance to tell potential recruits he's not going anywhere. Nope. Not Westphal. Not then, and not now.
"I'd have taken that job," says Westphal, whose fourth team at Pepperdine looks loaded for a run at perennial West Coast Conference champion Gonzaga. "Not that I'm looking to leave, because I'm not -- I'm very happy here.
