Pat Sullivan (basketball)


Patrick Sullivan is an American basketball coach, currently an assistant for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association. He played college basketball for the North Carolina Tar Heels, where he was a part of three Final Four teams, including their 1992–93 national championship team.

Playing career

Sullivan was born in New York City and was a highly-recruited high school player at Bogota High School in Bogota, New Jersey, where in 1990 he was named a third-team high school All-American by Parade Magazine. The small forward ultimately chose to play for coach Dean Smith at North Carolina, choosing the Tar Heels over Duke, Virginia, Providence and Seton Hall. Sullivan was a bench contributor and sometime for his most of career, and was on the floor for Chris Webber’s infamous “time-out” at the end of the 1993 national championship game. He then redshirted what would have been his senior season in 1993–94. This allowed Sullivan to join the 1994–95 Tar Heels, where he was able to become the first Tar Heel to play in three Final Fours since 1969.

Coaching career

In 1997, Sullivan was hired as an assistant coach at his alma mater, UNC under Bill Guthridge. He served in this role until 2000, when Guthridge retired and new coach Matt Doherty chose to bring in a new staff. Sullivan was then an assistant women's coach at UNC Wilmington for two seasons before leaving in 2003 for a video coordinator role with the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association. After being a part of the staff for the NBA champion 2003–04 Detroit Pistons, Sullivan was promoted to a full assistant for the following year. Sullivan then held assistant roles with the New Jersey Nets, a repeat run with the Pistons, the Washington Wizards and Los Angeles Clippers before joining the staff of new New York Knicks coach David Fizdale in 2018.