Celtics’ 6th man Don Nelson passes on: 5-time champ retired as NBA all-time winningest and most innovative coach

By Professor Parquet for www.celticsblog.com
A.k.a. Cort Reynolds

“What is this garbage, man? You playin’ like Don Nelson, man. Like a chump.”

So go the very opening paragraphs of the seminal 1980 playground basketball bible, “The In-Your-Face Basketball Book,” written by Alexander Wolff and Chuck Wielgus.

The scene is a fictional one-on-one game featuring the accompanying trash talk a presumably urban player jibes the Nelson imitator with as “Don” slowly backs the defender towards the hoop.

“Remember when it was a compliment to be told you played like Nelson, the poker-faced, fundamentally sound former Celtic forward?” the book goes on. Not anymore.

Think of Don Nelson, and several images come to mind, many of an innovative mindset. His accurate one-handed, bouncing shot put free throw style; constantly sweeping his blonde hair back with his hand; riding a tractor throughout the Midwest in the off-season to connect with Buck fans; the fish ties he designed and wore along with black tennis shoes on the sideline in Milwaukee; the small-ball style prevalent today that he pioneered via the Mullin-Hardaway-Richmond “Run TMC” Golden State teams back in the 1990s; and his entertaining, effective Nash-Nowitzki clubs at Dallas in the 2000s.

And of course, winning big regularly as a player and head coach.

Don Nelson died Sunday at age 86, leaving a legacy of unconventional and effective coaching, as well as a long and underrated playing career. One that ended with his number 19 hanging from the rafters of the Boston Garden, probably the most unlikely player to receive such an honor.

Boston and Red Auerbach picked Nellie up off the scrap heap after the Lakers released him in 1965. All he did over the next 11 seasons was contribute heavily to five NBA champions, win a field goal pct. title, and pay the Los Angeles back by hitting the winning basket in the dramatic seventh game of the 1969 Finals, won by Boston 108-106.

His late foul line jumper hit the back of the rim, bounced high in the air above the top of the backboard and came back down cleanly through the hoop to clinch Boston’s 11th title in the swan song of Russell and Sam Jones, foiling his old team once again.

A very smart player with solid skills and a soft mid-range jumper, Nellie won his five NBA titles mostly as a key reserve. Had the sixth-man award been given back then, Nelson probably would have won a few on the great Celtic teams of the early and mid 1970s. He went on to win a league-record total of regular season games (1,335, plus 75 more in the playoffs) as a head coach.

At Milwaukee from 1976-87, he set a club record for wins as he rang up a regular season record of 540-344. Nelson also won seven division titles, 42 playoff games and seven post-season series during his first stop there in a storied 31-season career on the bench.

Oh, and he was also voted NBA Coach of the Year twice with Milwaukee (1982-83, 1984-85), and once at Golden State (1991-92). Still in mid-career in 1997, he was named to the NBA’s top 10 all-time coaches list.

Plus, at age 35, in his penultimate season of 1974-75, Nelson had arguably his best season as he averaged 14 points and 5.9 rebounds a game in just 26 minutes per outing. Nice numbers, you might say, yet nothing special?

But consider that at 35, as primarily a jump-shooting 6-6 forward, Nelson led the NBA in field goal percentage at 53.9 percent. Think about that for a moment. No one as old and short has won that title since then, and probably not before unless you go back to the very earliest days of the NBA.

In addition to winning that season-long accuracy individual title, normally reserved for younger big men who attempt almost all their shots very close to the basket, the 6-6 Nellie accomplished the feat mostly from the perimeter in limited minutes during his 13th season - 10 years after the Lakers cut him.

But just four years after he retired as a player and the ABA had merged with the NBA in 1980, it was very uncool to be thought of as being like Nelson, even though he played 14 effective yet unflashy seasons in the NBA.

The fact that he was referenced in the book by the trash talker as the very essence of anti-playground basketball illustrates the sea change in the game, and how his unspectacular (but effective) style was regarded by the new wave.

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