OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Al Attles, a Hall of Famer who coached the 1975 NBA champion Warriors and spent more than six decades with the organization as a player, general manager and most recently team ambassador, has died. He was 87.

The Warriors announced Wednesday that Attles died in his East Bay home a day earlier, surrounded by family. The team did not disclose a cause of death.

Nicknamed “The Destroyer” for his physical style of play, the Warriors were his love and his only team after they selected him in the fifth round of the 1960 draft. He remained employed by Golden State until his death, with his 64-year stint the longest with a single franchise for one person in league history.

Attles, one of the first Black head coaches in the NBA, was witness to some of the greatest games spanning different eras. He played in Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game for the Philadelphia Warriors in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on March 2, 1962. Attles made all eight of his field goal tries for 17 points.

He also coached Hall of Famer Rick Barry the day he scored 64 against Portland on March 26, 1974, then watched Klay Thompson drop 60 points over three quarters in December 2016.

“My heart is heavy today with the loss of my mentor and friend. Al was my roommate during my rookie season in the league. He taught me valuable lessons on being a professional that couldn’t be learned on the court,” Barry said in a statement released by the Warriors. “Later, as our coach during the 1975 championship season, he exemplified leadership, togetherness and a keen strategic ability that enabled us to succeed at the highest level.”

His loss is another blow for the Bay Area sports community after the recent deaths of Giants baseball Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda.

Attles coached the Warriors to their first championship since moving West in 1975. Golden State finally won again 40 years later in 2015. His 557 coaching wins are the most in franchise history.

Attles never compared all the great performances he cherished getting to see up close. Different basketball times, different challenges. So many special milestones to celebrate and appreciate, he insisted.

“I’ve seen a 100-point game,” Attles said from his seat during a late timeout on Thompson’s big night. “Rick was such a great player and he cared about winning. In order to score the number of points he scored you have to have help from your teammates. I try to look at them individually because once you start comparing, someone is always going to be No. 2. Let’s give him his credit.”

Attles would joke how he passed to Chamberlain for all those points. He actually had six assists, while Guy Rodgers had 20 of the team’s 39 overall in the 169-147 win against the Knicks.

“I think 50,” Attles said with a chuckle of his assists total in the record-setter. “I don’t know. Guess what? We won the game. That’s all that matters.

“Because I played with Wilt, people always ask, ‘What do you think about Wilt scoring 100 points?’ I say, ‘Give him credit for what he did then.’ It’s like apples and oranges. They’re both good fruit. It’s a matter of what you like. I was very close to Wilt, but you have to enjoy what they did that night. I enjoy any great performance.”

As a player, Attles averaged 8.9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 11 seasons with the Warriors.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame honored him with the John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

In the months leading up to his Hall of Fame enshrinement as part of the Class of 2019, Attles remained his usual modest self. He always preferred to give out the compliments, not accept credit for his own accomplishments.

“They made a mistake,” Attles joked with a big grin, still showing that quick wit. “They haven’t caught up to me yet.”

Long known for his fashionable suits on the sidelines and even later once watching in the stands, Warriors coach Steve Kerr once paid tribute to Attles by wearing one.

“He’s the face of the franchise,” Kerr said. “He’s been so for 60 years, so he’s an incredible presence.”

After missing games for most of the 2018-19 season — his smiling face had been such a reliable part of the team’s former Oracle Arena — Attles returned for Game 4 of the 2019 NBA Finals against Toronto to cheers and fanfare.

It wasn’t the same when Attles was away.

Former center Clifford Ray considered Attles a “father figure to all of us,” and noted that Black NBA players often felt more comfortable learning from the coach because of their similar cultural background.

“He made things easy and simplified things,” Ray said. “He also didn’t inundate us with a lot of technical things and paperwork. It was very structured. We knew what we were doing.”

Born on Nov. 7, 1936, in Newark, New Jersey, Attles was a co-recipient of the 2017 National Basketball Coaches Association’s Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award and he also joined the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1993.

“Alvin’s name has become synonymous with the Warriors franchise after dedicating his entire adult life to our organization, dating clear back to our final seasons in Philadelphia,” Warriors owner Joe Lacob said upon Attles’ Hall of Fame announcement. “He has flourished in every role and responsibility over the last 60 years, from player to coach to general manager and, most recently, as an ambassador. And, he’s done it with an incredible amount of class and humility.”

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Isaiah Wilkins scored a tiebreaking three-point play with 1:02 remaining, Mamadi Diakite added a key basket in the final minute, and the 12th-ranked Cavaliers held off Cal 56-52 Wednesday night to snap the Golden Bears’ school-record 27-game home winning streak.

“That’s what we’ve been looking for,” Bennett said. “Both of these teams have lost some key firepower guys, so we’re still kind of forging our identities. In games like this, plays have to be made, big shots have to be made, big defensive plays, just key plays. You can only find that out by being in these spots.”

Kyle Guy scored 17 points, including seven straight during a big second-half run and two free throws with 15.9 seconds to play, and London Perrantes added 14 points.

The Cavaliers (10-1) won their third straight since a loss to West Virginia on Dec. 3 that snapped U.Va.’s 24-game winning streak at John Paul Jones Arena.

“We talk about fighting every single day,” said Perrantes, a Los Angeles native who had close to 30 family and friends in the stands. “We just gutted that win out.”

Cal’s Jabari Bird scored 15 points and Ivan Rabb had 12 rebounds and nine points in a matchup of two top defenses. The Golden Bears (9-3) had the fourth-longest home unbeaten run in the nation and were handed their first defeat at Haas Pavilion since Feb. 25, 2015, against Oregon.

While it was just the second meeting between the schools, both have been tight, defensive games. The Cavaliers, then ranked fifth nationally, held off Cal 63-62 in overtime last season in Charlottesville.

“It was just one of those games where hopefully it revealed some good things we can build on,” Bennett said.

Virginia answered Cal’s early spurt out of halftime with a 17-2 run when the Cavaliers briefly went to a four-guard lineup.

But the Bears stayed in it until the waning moments.

Perrantes hit a 15-footer with 1:50 to go, but Sam Singer’s three-point play moments later tied it at 49.

“We definitely felt we could have beat them. It doesn’t really matter about the ranking,” Rabb said. “We had a lot of positives, but down the stretch we made a lot of silly mistakes, stuff we did on our own to give the game away.”

With the Cavaliers’ large contingent of fans in Berkeley, they held Cal to 35.3 percent shooting and 5 for 23 on 3-point attempts. Virginia entered the game with the nation’s top scoring defense, allowing a school-record low 46.7 points per game. The Cavaliers have held nine of their first 11 opponents to 52 or fewer points.

BIG PICTURE

Virginia: Center Jack Salt had his family at the game from New Zealand. Cal was one of 13 games for the Cavaliers against teams in the 2016 NCAA tournament.

California: The Bears haven’t beaten a top-25 opponent since Feb. 11, when they defeated No. 11 Oregon. Cal was trying for its best nonconference finish since the Bears went 11-2 under head coach Mike Montgomery in 2008. Third-year coach Cuonzo Martin is 24-3 in non-conference play.

CHEERING SECTION

Boosting Perrantes’ already large cheering section were players from his high school, Crespi Carmelite from Southern California. They took up much of Section 7 in one upper corner of the arena.

The program scheduled a game Thursday afternoon against Bishop O’Dowd around the chance to be in the Bay Area to see the school’s former star play. Members of the varsity, junior-varsity and freshman teams were in attendance.

Bennett drew up a play for him out of the gates.

Perrantes gets to root on all the kids Thursday, staying in town until after the games. He also greeted everybody on the court afterward Wednesday.

Coach Russell White brought 45 kids and seven coaches, a 5 1/2-hour bus trip in the works for two years.

“It just seemed right,” he said. “London changed our program. This is an opportunity to show our former players we still support them, and it’s an opportunity to show our current players what’s out there for them if they work for it.”

UP NEXT

Virginia: Opens the Atlantic Coast Conference schedule next Wednesday at No. 10 Louisville.

California: Hosts No. 18 Arizona on Dec. 30 to open Pac-12 play.