Nelson, Don

Don Nelson, byname of Donald Arvid Nelson, also called Nellie, (born May 15, 1940, Muskegon, Michigan, U.S.), American professional basketball player and coach who amassed a record 1,335 National Basketball Association (NBA) coaching victories and was named the NBA Coach of the Year three times (1983, 1985, and 1992). For over 30 years, Nelson was the NBA’s resident mad scientist of a coach. Guiding three teams (the Golden State Warriors twice) for extended turbulent stints, Nelson made a point of innovating. Often reckless and at other times revolutionary, his squads tended to be high-scoring, loose, and less-than-enthusiastic about defense. However, he was responsible for popularizing such now-familiar aspects of the game as the “point forward” (a forward who handles the ball and runs the offense) and the tactic of “small ball” to use speed as an advantage.

Nelson may have been a highly unorthodox coach, but in his years as a player he was notable mostly for his reliability. After playing college ball at the University of Iowa, Nelson was drafted by the Chicago Zephyrs in 1962 but he is best remembered for his play with the mighty Boston Celtics teams of the 1960s and ’70s. He spanned two dynasties, earning five championship rings between 1966 and 1976 while coming off the bench as one of Boston’s chief reserves.

Soon after retiring in 1976, Nelson became the head coach and, later, the general manager (GM) of the Milwaukee Bucks. He quickly remade the roster in his own image—or, rather, in the image of a team that reflected his philosophy. Frequently brilliant and sometimes baffling, his moves gave him teams he could work with on his terms. The Bucks were a play-off team for most of Nelson’s 11 seasons with the club. He left Milwaukee in 1987, became the GM of Golden State later that year, and, in 1988, added the role of Warriors head coach to his responsibilities.

During Nelson’s first years with the Warriors, he was responsible for the “Run-T.M.C.” teams, which comprised stars Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin. (The name was a play on that of Run-D.M.C., the iconic rap group of the ’80s.) The Warriors scored in bunches and ran the floor at a breakneck pace. They immediately became one of the league’s most popular teams, despite their inability to ever attain elite status. Throughout his coaching career Nelson was haunted by the perception that his teams, while exciting and tooled for short-term success, were not built for the long haul. At worst, he was accused of mere gimmickry.

In 1995 Nelson moved on after having failed to connect with Chris Webber, Golden State’s new franchise player. For a coach who gave players such free rein to operate, Nelson had a surprising amount of conflict with them through the years, presumably over his leadership style. There was a forgettable brief tenure as coach of the New York Knicks before Nelson went to the Dallas Mavericks in 1997. There, history repeated itself as he let the team run free and oversaw the development of burgeoning superstars Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. By the end of his time there in 2005, Nelson had continued to change the face of basketball but failed to capture a championship.

Next came another stop in Golden State, where general manager Mullin, his former player, brought Nelson in to revitalize a moribund franchise. Here was perhaps the greatest victory of Nelson’s career. In the first round of the 2006–07 play-offs, the Warriors faced the top-seeded and highly favoured Mavericks, who were coming off an appearance in the NBA finals and were picked by many to win it all that year. Nelson shocked his former team by guessing the Mavericks’ every move and then matching them with bursts of wild expressive basketball. The Warriors pulled off one of the biggest upsets in play-off history but then lost in the second round, and Nelson was fired by the Warriors’ new ownership in 2010. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012. There is no question that, if a legacy is judged by its influence as well as by win/loss record, then that of Nelson looms as large as that of any other coach the game has known.