Don Nelson’s fingerprints are all over the modern NBA, and they’re not fading anytime soon.
The Hall of Fame coach and former Celtics standout died Sunday morning at 86, his family said in a statement shared by NBA insider Marc Stein. “On Sunday morning our beloved husband, dad, grandfather and great-grandfather Don Nelson peacefully went to be with the Lord, surrounded by his loving family,” the family wrote. “Throughout his last week, friends and family encircled him with love, sharing the blessing of his friendship and revisiting treasured memories.”
Nelson’s résumé already reads like a life spent inside the sport’s inner circle. He won five NBA titles as a player in Boston, had his No. 19 retired by the Celtics in 1978 and later built a coaching career that ended with three Coach of the Year awards.
His 1,335 wins put him second on the all-time list, a mark Gregg Popovich passed in 2022. Nelson coached for 34 years, from 1976 to 2010, and the game still carries pieces of what he built.
Stephen Curry, who played for Nelson during his rookie season, credited him in a team-issued statement Sunday. “One of the big reasons I was drafted by the Warriors was because of Don Nelson,” Curry said.
“The story is he never liked rookies, but from Day 1 he challenged me and gave me an opportunity to be my best self on the court. He taught me a lot during our one season together and I’ll never forget the night he became the winningest coach in NBA history in Minnesota.
We were so happy for him. He had an immeasurable impact on the sport and will go down as one of the greatest minds in the history of the game.”
What makes Nelson’s story even more striking is how close he came to never coaching at all. He told ESPN in 2012 that he had no idea what he would do after his playing career ended, never seriously considered coaching and even tried refereeing in Summer League. Instead, he became an assistant with the Bucks the season after retiring and eventually shaped the way teams play today.
One of Nelson’s biggest breakthroughs came with the “point forward.” In Milwaukee, he handed the ball to Paul Pressey, a 6-foot-5 forward with long arms and real passing instincts, and turned him into the first true version of that role.
Pressey’s assists jumped from 3.1 per game to 6.8 in his third season, then climbed to a career-best 7.8 in 1985-86. Del Harris, an adviser to Nelson and former Bucks and Lakers coach, helped form the idea with Rick Barry and Robert Reid, and Nelson’s use of Pressey helped push it into the mainstream.
From Scottie Pippen and Grant Hill to LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo, the template is still everywhere.
Then there was “Nellie Ball,” Nelson’s fast, strange, creative version of small ball. In his own words, it was about playing out of position.
“You only play Nellie Ball when you don't have a very good team, or when you have a bunch of good small players and not many good big players,” he said in 2012. “When you have bad teams, you’ve got to be creative to win games you’re not supposed to win.”
He used it to maximum effect. The “Run TMC” Warriors of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin took down higher-seeded teams because of the mismatches created by the undersized lineup.
In Dallas, he played Dirk Nowitzki at center next to Steve Nash and Michael Finley. He did something similar later with the Warriors, using Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington at center alongside Baron Davis and Jason Richardson.
That style predates the Warriors dynasty, but it helped pave the road for the small-ball looks Steve Kerr would later use with Draymond Green as the center next to Curry and Klay Thompson.
Nelson also understood the value of international talent before it became standard practice. In Dallas, he helped bring Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash to the Mavericks, and the move transformed the franchise. His son, Donnie, spent 24 years in the Mavs’ front office and later drafted Luka Dončić, who said Sunday that Nelson’s death was a “sad day for basketball.”
The Mavericks used Nowitzki around the three-point line as a center, stretching defenses and helping the team thrive. Before Nelson stepped down in Dallas, the Mavericks posted five straight 50-win seasons with Nowitzki, Nash and Finley at the center of it all.
Nelson’s Warriors years also included Šarūnas Marčiulionis, the first Soviet NBA player, in a guard-heavy setup, and Manute Bol, the first NBA player from present-day South Sudan, even launched threes at 7-foot-7 over two seasons in Golden State. That kind of floor spacing from a giant was an oddity then. Now it’s part of the league’s language.
He also helped bring Wang Zhizhi, the first Chinese player, to the NBA when the Mavericks took him with the 36th pick in the 1999 NBA draft.
And then there was “Hack-a-Shaq.” In Dallas, Nelson introduced the tactic of intentionally fouling poor free-throw shooters to get the ball back quicker and limit scoring.
The idea had earlier echoes against Wilt Chamberlain, but Nelson applied it to Dennis Rodman and Shaquille O’Neal. Since then, teams have used it against DeAndre Jordan, Ben Simmons, Andre Drummond and, most recently, Mitchell Robinson.
Don Nelson didn’t just coach games. He changed how they’re played.
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