Don Nelson did not win a title as a coach, but he won more games than any other NBA coach.
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Don Nelson will bring his more than 1,300 NBA wins with him to the Hall of Fame.Editor’s note: This is the fourth story in a series profiling the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2012.
Don’t hate on Don Nelson after reading about the life he has led and is still leading.
An early investor in the Hawaiian Island of Maui where he owns beachfront and farming real estate and lives fulltime, Nelson spent 50 years in the NBA as a player and a coach.
Now he’s going into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Nelson and the rest of the class of 2012 will be Enshrined on Friday at Symphony Hall, a moment the man known as “Nellie” never thought would happen.
“I was nominated four times and got rejected four times so I figured it wasn’t going to happen,” Nelson said. “I had this wonderful friend of mine who died this year, Jim Fitzgerald, who wanted me to be in so bad. He kept putting my name in I guess.
“But I never really thought I was that worthy of going in,” Nelson added. “I never won a title or anything like that and usually that’s pretty important for getting in.”
What he did win was 1,335 NBA games, putting him second to none for coaching wins in the NBA. He coached 31 years in the NBA, beginning with the Milwaukee Bucks for the first 11. He coached Golden State for a total of 11 years over two stints, spent eight years in Dallas and coached one year in New York.
And while a title eluded him, Nelson garnered three Coach of the Year Awards, joining Pat Riley as the only ones to accomplish the feat.
Nelson wasn’t the kind of coach who wanted him next job to be an easy one. Building a team and making it into a competitor was more his speed.
“That’s really what I enjoyed the most, taking a bad team and making a good one out of it,” Nelson said. “I also coached some good teams and it’s a heck of a lot easier to do it that way, everybody knows what you’re doing. My teams at Milwaukee, once we built the team up we were good for a long time.
“But what I did was go to franchises and find ways through the draft, trades whatever to get them up to the top,” he added.
Nelson said the only job he tried for and did not get was the Minnesota gig two years ago.
“I really thought I would be a good fit because I loved their team, they were young and struggling and it was kind of the perfect scenario for me for what I was used to doing and I thought I could do it again there,” Nelson said. “I tried for that job and didn’t get it so I just retired.”
There was one other job Nelson said he could have had but chose not to go for it out of loyalty to the Bucks and their owner.
That job would have been to coach the Boston Celtics and a guy named Larry Bird.
“I was coaching in Milwaukee and we swept the Celtics and after we won the series Red (Auerbach) came by and just the two of us after the game, not many people around and asked me if I would ever be interested in coaching the Celtics,” Nelson recalled. “And I said ‘You know Red, I would love to, it would be a dream job but Jim Fitzgerald, the owner of the team, has been so good to me I just couldn’t.’
“I just had a handshake, I didn’t have a contract. I could have gone,” Nelson added. “Career-wise I should have because they won title after title and they were so good. We just got lucky in one series and beat them. But Tim Fitzgerald was my best friend in life and I just couldn’t do that, but it was a great career opportunity that I missed.”
Nelson’s playing career was spent mostly in Boston, playing 11 seasons with the Celtics and helping them win five NBA titles. His No. 19 hangs in the rafters of the TD Garden.
The entrepreneur has a lot of things happening right now with businesses, rental property, farming and business enterprises, but what he doesn’t have is any regrets.
“I enjoyed every part of my NBA career for almost 50 years,” Nelson said. “Even the bad moments were good.”