George Lynch (basketball)


George DeWitt Lynch III is a retired American professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association from 1993 to 2005. He holds the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill basketball record for most career steals.

Early life

Lynch was raised in Roanoke, Virginia, and played basketball at Patrick Henry High for coach Woody Dean. Lynch was part of the 1988 Virginia State Champion Team at Patrick Henry. For his senior year, he transferred to Flint Hill School, a prep school located outside Washington, D.C. to better his chances at college prospects.

Professional career

After leading North Carolina to an NCAA title in 1993, he was selected by the Los Angeles Lakers with the 12th overall pick in that year's NBA draft. Lynch was traded to the Vancouver Grizzlies along with Anthony Peeler in 1996 in order to open up salary cap space to sign Shaquille O'Neal. He joined the Philadelphia 76ers as a free agent in 1999.
With Theo Ratliff, Tyrone Hill, Eric Snow, Dikembe Mutombo, Allen Iverson, and coach Larry Brown Lynch helped form one of the better defenses in the league.
After playing with the 76ers for three seasons, he was traded to the Charlotte Hornets in a three-way trade also involving Derrick Coleman, Jérôme Moïso, Robert Traylor, and Vonteego Cummings, among others, in 2001, retiring after 2004–05.

Post-playing career

On December 20, 2006, he joined the Southern Methodist University men's basketball staff under head coach Matt Doherty, who was part of the 1981–82 NCAA championship team. Lynch became the team's administrative assistant/graduate manager. He moved on to be founder and director of Flight Nine Basketball from 2006 until 2010, then spent 2010–2012 at UC Irvine as a strength and conditioning coach for basketball and an assistant athletics director for community relations before re-joining the SMU men's basketball staff in 2012 under head coach and fellow UNC alum Larry Brown. In April 2018, Lynch was named head coach of Clark Atlanta University.