Westhead Returns to Old Grounds in New Role: Visitor : Basketball: Nearly a year after leaving, Paul Westhead visits Loyola Marymount to scout talent at the Summer Pro League.

It seemed like an anomaly to see Paul Westhead in the stands at Loyola Marymount’s Gersten Pavilion, just sitting back and watching basketball.

But Gersten is no longer Westhead’s office and this was just another stop--although a sentimental one--in a busy schedule of an NBA coach. Westhead was at Loyola scouting the Summer Pro League for a potential player or two.

It has been nearly a year since Westhead left Westchester to coach the Denver Nuggets. His return to the NBA--after previously coaching the Lakers and Chicago Bulls--was a far cry from his five successful seasons at Loyola, where he started a run-and-gun revolution in the collegiate ranks.

Having recently returned from an NBA clinic in Spain with Portland Coach Rick Adelman and former NBA Coach Jack Ramsay, Westhead is in town for a week before returning to Denver to prepare for rookie camp. He is looking forward to the upcoming season despite the Nuggets’ 20-62 record last season.

Westhead’s offense of the 1990s didn’t exactly take the NBA by storm, but his appearance at Loyola this week saw most of his old staff and some former Lion players stop by and pay homage to the man they still call “coach.”

“I had a great experience (at Loyola),” he said. “It’s a part of my coaching life that will always be a good feeling. You just make a decision that it’s time to move on. I enjoy coaching in the NBA--(the losing) is something I have to work through.”

Although the Nuggets are thought to have shaky management and have traded nearly every veteran who had a hefty contract, Westhead hopes he and General Manager Bernie Bickerstaff will have time to rebuild a solid team around top draft choice Dikembe Mutombo and prove that his system can work in the NBA.

Saddled with a young, undermanned team last fall, Westhead came in for outside sniping almost from the start: He went from the Wizard of Westchester to the Dunce of Denver in a matter of games. “A month? More like two days,” he said with a grin of his fall from grace.

Westhead said the Denver media “were kind of overly critical, and I never could figure this out. But when you lose 60 games who can argue? I think a lot of the frustration was independent of me . . . then when I arrived and did something different than the rest of the NBA--and lose--it was an easy transfer.”

Westhead said he hasn’t lost his commitment to the all-out fast break, but he always said the system needs the right athletes and some time to teach them its intricacies. “I always knew you need to have the right mix of players and have them trained to do the scheme correctly,” he said.

“The problem in the NBA is when you’re trying to get it together you’re playing against David Robinson and Michael Jordan every night. It has always been a tough system. It has a great upside but if it’s not right there’s a great downside. You can play differently and still lose but keep it closer.”

Westhead said one of the bright spots was that the team hung together and tried to do what he asked despite blowout losses and criticism that followed.

“They were an incredible group of professional athletes who never blamed themselves and never blamed me,” Westhead said. “In that one way, it was one of my better years, the guys really hung in terrifically.”

Despite the frustrations of the season, Westhead has maintained his sense of humor and kept the negatives in perspective. “Because I’d been in the NBA some years prior I had a sense of the game,” Westhead said.

“The culture shock didn’t get me this time--just not being able to win a lot of games (did). I don’t think you’re ever ready to lose a whole bunch of games--I lost more in one year than the last six or seven combined. The season didn’t have a lot of humorous moments. At least I kept my 20-game winning streak alive--I just didn’t know it would take me 80 games to do it.”

Westhead has spent little time at his Palos Verdes home this summer. He held a five-week training session with Nugget players in Denver and has been globe-trotting since.

“Our returning players did three days a week working one-on-one with me and or the other coaches,” he said. “It was very intense and they worked very hard. Guys like Marcus Liberty and Anthony Cook were there all five weeks. Others like Jerome Lane came in for a week and left with a program of things to work on. Every guy on the team came in. It’s incredible how much you find out about a player and how much they learn when you work with them on an individual basis.

“It’s kind of ironic, that would be a perfect program for college players. You’d think someone like a college sophomore would really benefit from that kind of individual treatment but you can’t do it (due to NCAA regulations).”

The Nuggets, who traded leading scorer Michael Adams earlier this summer, are attempting to trade Orlando Woolridge, their top front-court veteran, so the team will be nearly as young this season as they were last.

But Westhead is clearly excited to have Mutombo, the 7-foot-2 center from Georgetown who was the Nuggets’ first draft choice and the fourth player taken overall. He is excited enough, in fact, to modify his beloved fast-break system to Mutombo’s skills, if necessary.

“The only strong feeling I have at this stage is I want to do the best job I can to make Mutombo a great player in this league,” Westhead said. “If that means making offensive and defensive adjustments from what I do, I would do that.

“Every team in this league needs a player you rally around. If you think you’ve gotten one, you try to build around that. I may make adjustments and they may be significant adjustments to help him be a force sooner rather than later.”

Although he had an assortment of standout players at Loyola, Westhead never had a true center and he’s relishing the thought of cultivating a 7-footer whose shot-blocking skills remind some observers of a young Bill Russell.

But Westhead does not expect Mutombo to immediately be on a par with the league’s elite centers.

“I hope he comes in and plays well enough that you can see, if not this year--look out next year,” he said. “I think that’s a realistic approach. By year two or the start of year three, he could be a real threat in the NBA.

“You know, this league is like an over-25 league. Guys come in at 21 or 22 and they’re talented players but after about three years . . . you can see who’s learning to play in the league. Maybe we’ll get lucky because Dikembe is 25 now.”

Meanwhile, Westhead will continue to follow Loyola. He spoke regularly with Lion Coach Jay Hillock during the season, even swapping suggestions.

“I still keep tabs (with Hillock),” he said. “Jay’s an instant idea man--five minutes into the conversation you’re talking hard-core basketball. It’s kind of refreshing. In fact, I saw something he did with (guard) Terrell Lowery on TV that I put into the offense in Denver.”

Denver will take all the help it can get, and Westhead would be happy if some of the winning ways he knew with the Lakers and Lions rub off on the Nuggets.

“It’s funny,” he said with a smile, “I came into the league (with the Lakers in 1979) and didn’t know what I was doing and won 60 games, and I came in last year as an established veteran and lost 60.”

In the coaching profession, that’s the way the ball bounces.