Alex English


Alexander English is an American retired basketball player. He was most recently an assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association. He played college basketball at the University of South Carolina.
Upon his arrival in Denver in 1980, English commenced an assault on the NBA scoring books. With the erratic, fast-paced, and high-scoring Nuggets, he averaged 21 points through the final 24 games of the 1979–80 season, then proceeded with averages of 24, 25, 28, 26, 28, nearly 30, 29, 25, 27, and 18 points per game during his decade-long scoring spree. He also led the Nuggets to nine consecutive playoff appearances, two Midwest Division titles, and the 1985 Western Conference Finals. English set 31 team records throughout his decade with the Denver Nuggets and was the leading scorer in 55% of the games he played for the Nuggets.
In total, English played 15 seasons in the NBA for four teams, averaging 21.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game during his NBA career. He was named to eight NBA All-Star teams and made the All-NBA Second Team three times. His number 2 jersey was retired by the Denver Nuggets in 1992 and 5 years later he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997. Alex English scored the most points of any NBA player during the decade of the 1980's.

Early life

English was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina. For some of his childhood, he and his siblings lived with their grandmother while their parents worked in New York. During this time, English often subsisted on a single meal per day.
English attended Dreher High School in Columbia. On January 31, 2020, his number 22 jersey was retired by the high school.

College career

English attended the University of South Carolina in Columbia from 1972 to 1976. He started every game over a four-year career and was arguably the first African-American sports star at the school. He scored a record 1,972 points and was only the third player at the school to record over 1,000 rebounds and connect on better than 50% of his field-goal attempts. English was selected to two independent All-America teams in 1975 and 1976. In the academic realm, English "developed interests that he still maintains in art, sculpture, literature, and, especially poetry." He graduated with a bachelor's degree in English in 1976.

Professional career

Milwaukee Bucks

English was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the 1976 NBA draft with the 23rd pick.

Indiana Pacers

English signed with the Indiana Pacers as a free agent after the 1977–78 season. English became a starter in Indiana and began to establish a reputation as a scorer, averaging 16 points per game during the 1978–79 season on another rebuilding team.

Denver Nuggets

English was traded to the Denver Nuggets midway through the 1979–80 season for George McGinnis, a former Pacers star from their ABA days. Though coming off of an All-Star season in 1978–79, McGinnis was only a shadow of his former self and was out of the league by 1982.
In his first full season with the Nuggets in 1980–81, English averaged a then-career high 23.8 points.
In the 1981–82 season, English averaged 25.4 points and the team advanced to postseason play. He earned a position on the All-Star Team and All-NBA Second Team. The following year, in 1982–83, English won the league scoring title with an average of 28.4 points per game, while teammate Kiki Vandeweghe placed second averaging 26.7 points. Then in 1983–84 English placed fourth in the league in scoring.
In the 1984–85 season English raised his scoring average to 27.9 points to pick up some of the slack from Kiki Vandeweghe's departure. Denver won its division and secured the second seed in the Western Conference. In the 1985 playoffs, English averaged 30.2 points as the Nuggets defeated the San Antonio Spurs and Utah Jazz to meet the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, where they would fall to the eventual NBA-champion Lakers in five games. English suffered a right thumb injury in Game 4, which required surgery and rendered him unable to play for the rest of the series. With the Nuggets already dealing with injuries to other players, English's injury was thought by some to have nearly ensured a Laker victory in the series. English later stated in a 2006 interview that "I think that if I had not broken my thumb we had a chance to beat the Lakers."
English recorded his career-best average of 29.8 points per game in the subsequent 1985–86 season, finishing third in the league behind Atlanta Hawks Dominique Wilkins and Utah Jazz Adrian Dantley. In the 1986 NBA All-Star Game, English set his All-Star career-high by scoring 16 points on 8-of-12 shooting in 16 minutes off the bench for the West squad.
After the 1989–90 season, in which English's scoring average dipped to 17.9 and he largely struggled to maintain his level of play compared to previous seasons, English became a free agent, and the Nuggets elected not to re-sign him.

Dallas Mavericks and Basket Napoli

At age 36, English signed a one-year contract with the Dallas Mavericks where he once again played off the bench, this time averaging just under 10 points per game. No other NBA team signed him for the next season, and after a stint in Italy with Basket Napoli, English decided to retire.

Post-retirement and legacy

When English left the Denver Nuggets, he was the holder of nearly every team record, including most career points, assists, games and minutes in a Nuggets uniform, along with the highest career scoring average with the team of any player. The Nuggets retired English's number 2 jersey in 1992., English's career 25,613 points place him 19th on the NBA's all-time career scoring list. English was the first to achieve eight straight 2,000-point seasons, and he has the distinction of being the top scorer in the 1980s. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997.

Coaching career

English began his coaching career in the National Basketball Development League as the head coach of the North Charleston Lowgators in the 2001–02 season. The Lowgators tied for the best record during the regular season and were eliminated in the championship series during the playoffs.
Before the 2002-03 NBA season, English joined the coaching staff of the Atlanta Hawks. The following year, he was hired by the Philadelphia 76ers as an assistant coach.
coaching staff
English then joined the Toronto Raptors in 2004 to serve as assistant coach and director of player development. On June 5, 2009, it was announced that English would stay with the Raptors as an assistant coach. On July 13, 2011, with the team heading in a new direction after the hiring of new head coach Dwane Casey, English was not given a new contract, and his services were not retained.
On January 13, 2012, he was added to the Sacramento Kings coaching staff under head coach Keith Smart. On June 5, 2013, new Kings coach Michael Malone announced that the 2012–13 assistant coaches, including English, would not be retained for the 2013–14 season.

Post-coaching

It was announced that Alex English was added as a color analyst on SEC Network on November 11, 2014.
Since 2014, English has also been an active participant in the SportsUnited Sports Envoy program for the U.S. Department of State. In this function, he has traveled to Italy, the Republic of Korea, and Chile, where he worked with Nykesha Sales and Candace Wiggins to conduct basketball clinics and events that reached more than 1900 youth from underserved areas. In so doing, English helped contribute to SportsUnited's mission to reach out to youth populations in order to promote growth and a stable democratic government.

Acting career

Alex English has dabbled in acting. His debut came in the 1987 motion picture Amazing Grace and Chuck, playing a fictitious Boston Celtics star. He then had roles in the television series Midnight Caller in some 1989 episodes and played the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers in Eddie. He also played a role as "The Premiere" in the 1997 film The Definite Maybe.
English later acted in a 2007 film called Lumera for which his son Alex Jr. was the producer and executive director. In 2013, he appeared on a half-hour TV special called The Nothing But Net Show, which was also directed by his son.

NBA career statistics

Regular season