Bill Fitch, right, led Rick Robey, center, and Larry Bird to the 1981 NBA championship. (Peter Morgan / Associated Press)
Bill Fitch, whose 25-year career as an NBA head coach ended with a four-season stint leading the Clippers in the 1990s, died Wednesday at 89, the National Basketball Coaches Assn. confirmed.
Fitch was the NBA’s coach of the year in 1976 and 1980 and won an NBA championship coaching Boston in 1981. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019.
Indiana coach Rick Carlisle, president of the NBCA who began his coaching career under Fitch, announced Fitch’s death in a statement Wednesday.
“He died peacefully surrounded by his loving family in Lake Conroe, Texas,” Carlisle said.
The Clippers hired Fitch in 1994. After a 17-65 first season, the team went 29-53 and 36-46 the next two, including a playoff berth in 1997 — the franchise’s only appearance in the postseason between 1993 and 2005. In his final season, the Clippers went…