Bill Blair (basketball)

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Template other William Henry Blair Jr. (born May 17, 1942) is an American former basketball coach and player. Blair attended the Virginia Military Institute for college basketball. As team captain of the Keydets, he helped lead the team to their first Southern Conference championship in 1964, which saw them attend their first ever NCAA Tournament. He was drafted by the St. Louis Hawks in 1964 but did not play. He became a coach in 1967 and was hired by VMI to serve on their staff in 1970 and became their head coach in 1972. After three middling seasons, he led them to a conference championship in 1976 that saw then go to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament. He left for the University of Colorado after the season ended. He coached five seasons before he was fired.

Blair then worked twenty seasons in the National Basketball Association, beginning in New Jersey with the New Jersey Nets, and continuing to the Chicago Bulls, under Kevin Loughery, helping to draft Michael Jordan. He then moved to the Washington Bullets under Wes Unseld, and next the Indiana Pacers under Larry Brown—coaching spectacular teams with Reggie Miller at the helm. In 1993, he became the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, then returned to the Pacers, and finally finished his career under Randy Wittman at the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Head coaching record

NBA

Legend

Regular season	G	Games coached	W	Games won	L	Games lost	W–L %	Win–loss %
Playoffs	PG	Playoff games	PW	Playoff wins	PL	Playoff losses	PW–L %	Playoff win–loss %

Template:NBA coach statistics start |- | style="text-align:left;"|New Jersey | style="text-align:left;"|1982–83 |6||2||4||.333|| style="text-align:center;"|3rd in Atlantic||–||–||–||– | style="text-align:center;"|L New York 0–2 |- | style="text-align:left;"|Minnesota | style="text-align:left;"|1994–95 |82||21||61||.256|| style="text-align:center;"|6th in Midwest||–||–||–||– | style="text-align:center;"|Missed playoffs |- | style="text-align:left;"|Minnesota | style="text-align:left;"|1995–96 |20||6||14||.300|| style="text-align:center;"|(fired)||–||–||–||– | style="text-align:center;"|– |- class="sortbottom" | style="text-align:left;"|Career | ||108||29||79||.269|| ||–||–||–||– |}