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Jack McKinney is a former college and professional basketball coach. He has served as head coach for three NBA teams—the Los Angeles Lakers, the Indiana Pacers, and the Kansas City Kings. In addition, he served as an assistant for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Portland Trail Blazers.
McKinney took the helm of the Lakers for the 1979-80 NBA season, but only 19 games into the season, he suffered a near fatal head injury after falling while bicycling. His assistant, Paul Westhead, was named as the team's interim head coach while McKinney tended to recovering from his accident. However, the length of the recovery and lingering doubts about the complete return of McKinney's mental faculties, combined with the team's level of success under Westhead, ultimately meant that McKinney would never get the chance to return to the job. After the Lakers' advance to that year's NBA Finals, McKinney was fired in favor of Westhead and the team went on to win the 1980 NBA Championship.
McKinney went on to win the NBA Coach of the Year Award the next season at Indiana, leading the Pacers to the playoffs for the first time since the ABA-NBA merger brought the team from the American Basketball Association to the NBA in the summer of 1976. Over the next three seasons, however, the team's performance regressed, and McKinney was fired after the Pacers posted the league's worst record in the 1983-84 season. He was soon hired as the head coach the Kansas City Kings, but resigned from the position on November 18, 1984 after the team started with a 1-8 record in the 1984-85 season.
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