Don Nelson: “full court game, bigs never won; smalls always won”
[video/transcript from NBCA 🏆]
Congrats to Don Nelson for winning the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Basketball Coaches Association last week.
Just a wealth of little anecdotes from his Q&A before Game 2 of the OKC-Indiana NBA Finals. See full transcript at the end of this post, per usual. My favs:
While playing for the Boston Celtics under Red Auerbach, they would have bigs versus smalls full-court scrimmages and the smalls always won.
Nellie exploited his own illegal defense rules, which Cotton Fitzsimmons actually never partook in the creation of, and let Manute Bol shoot only those “hand grenade” (my adjective, not his) 25-foot threes.
The funny stories on how he and his son Donnie Nelson tried to hide Dirk Nowitzki from the San Antonio Spurs before the 1998 Draft.
He loved Paul Pierce as a college player, but had no choice but to pass as Pierce was available at No. 9 in that Draft, due to their commitment to Dirk, after “hiding him in Donnie’s basement.”
Although the Golden State references were few and far between, as the podium session was moderated by former Dallas Mavericks champion head coach Rick Carlisle, whom I was shocked to find out played with Ralph Sampson, it occurred to me how lucky we are to have these all-time coaches who found their way to the Warriors.
I’m sure one of these days when losing a basketball game is no longer possible for Steve Kerr, even the most competitively addicted fanatics will take a moment to appreciate how blessed we are.
Here’s the epic Q&A that Nellie shared with Stephen Jackson and Jason Richardson on a visit to Oracle in 2019:
And as we’re taking a walk down memory lane, from March 2017 here’s one Wardell Stephen Curry on Nellie calling him the best passer in his Draft class:
The full Q&A that day from morning shootaround:
And here’s the full transcript of the NBCA Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance from last week:
00:00 DAVID FOGEL, NBCA: The National Basketball Coaches' Association and all of our coaches would like give a special thank you to the NBA for providing us with this really unique platform. Special thank you to Commissioner Silver, Mark Tatum, Mike Bass, Byron Spruell, Michael Levine, Tim Frank, Paul Benedict, Dan Rube, so many others. And just a big thank you not just for this platform, but for everything we work on throughout the year. We are especially proud of the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award which honors the memory of Hall of Famer Chuck Daly who, over an outstanding career, set their standard for integrity, competitive excellence, tireless promotion of NBA basketball. Chuck was an incredible mentor to so many coaches and players in our league including Coach Carlisle and our winner tonight, coach Nelson. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to NBCA President Coach Rick.
00:55 RICK CARLISLE, NBCA PRESIDENT: Yeah, thanks David. First, we want to thank our committee. Our selection committee's been in place since 2009, Lenny Wilkens, Donnie Walsh, Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson, Joe Dumars, Billy Cunningham, and Bernie Bickerstaff. Our past winners, first winner, was Tom Heinsohn, then Tex Winter, Jack Ramsey, Lenny Wilkens, Pat Riley, Bill Fitch, Bernie Bickerstaff, Dick Motta, Jerry Sloan, KC Jones. Hubie Brown, Al Attles, Doug Moe, Frank Layden, Del Harris, Larry Brown, Mike Fratello, Rick Adelman. And then last year it was Rudy Tomjanovich. This is a crescendo year, having this guy here. This is the most packed we've ever had, a press conference in anticipation of this. So thanks for everyone for being here. Don Nelson changed the game. I'll read off his accomplishments: 31 years, 1,335 victories, second all-time. He was the all-time leader for many years until one of his coaching tree, Gregg Popovich, finally passed him a year or two ago. Three-time Coach of the Year, gold medal winner in the FIBA World Championships in '94, multiple 60-win seasons, multiple All-Star Game appearances as the head coach, five-time champion as an NBA player, highlighted by the shot in 1969 to hit the back of the rim, bounced straight up in the air and came down. And when the Haliburton shot happened in the New York series, it reminded me of that moment, right away, so that was pretty cool. And an All-American at Iowa. Coaching tree, two guys that really come to mind: Gregg Popovich, who I mentioned, Del Harris, who was a winner of this award a couple of years ago. And one thing about Nellie, I came into this profession in the early 2000s and Nellie was certainly in his prime for many decades, but when you played Nellie's teams, there was always apprehension. You were always wondering, "Am I gonna be able to play my big guys? Am I gonna — what am I gonna do about these guys running around and just shooting threes from everywhere and making them?" And so he changed the game and he always lobbied for the game to be what it was today, no illegal defense, facilitate more ball movement, be able to play any defense. It would make the game better. It would make the players become guys that were higher basketball IQ players that would learn how to play the game and make plays rather than just have coaches call plays. And a lot of us were very nervous about that, but this was a guy that had amazing foresight and he absolutely changed the game and was a big influence on the game we have today. And I'll mention one other record that I think will never be broken. Nellie has the record for the most ejections. And I was looking this up on the internet and there's some different numbers that are thrown around, so I'll take the highest one that I saw, 79, which is a record that I'm particularly in awe of. With no further ado, I'd be honored to present the 2025 Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award to the great Don Nelson. It's all yours, Nellie.
04:56 DON NELSON: It's a little harder to get up than it used to be. Thank you. I just would like to say that what a great honor it is to have this Chuck Daly Award. I knew Chuck before we had our private planes. We were going commercial. Teams would always come in, you had to stay over, take the first flight out the next day and Chuck always, after the game, win or lose, we'd always go out to Victor's Bar & Grill after the game, sit and talk story, talk about the game, talk about the game of basketball, the game we had just played. And that's the kind of guy he was. And so I'm so proud to be one of the many who have already received this award. Gregg Popovich called me right after Rick did and I hadn't talked to him since he had his stroke for a month or two, so I was happy to get his call and I said, "Pop, I got the Chuck Daly Award." He said, "I know I'm on the Board." So I figured that's the reason I got it or at least one of them. He's my dear friend and one of my best friends in my life. I'm really proud to be here and to share this award. I made the Hall of Fame in 2012 and this is certainly as important to me as that award was. I dunno exactly what else to say. I'd be glad to take questions, if you have any.
06:31 First question on the right, Jeff in the second row.
06:33 Jeff Zillgitt, USA Today. Rick just mentioned your influence on the game and I want to know what shaped your offensive philosophy, what made you see the game the way you did and want to see it played that way?
06:48 When I played with the Celtics and I played for Red Auerbach for one year and then Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Russell. After that, we always played a game, bigs against small and in the full court game, bigs never won. Smalls always won. The halfcourt game, bigs always won, but you get 'em in the full court, they can't dribble, they can't pass make plays, so the small teams always won. So I always thought in the full court game, if you made it a fast game, not a slow game, you could beat the bigger teams. I also figured out that there are hundreds of small guards who can just shoot the shit out of the ball, not necessarily can be point guards — they maybe can't make plays — but they could all shoot. And if I had a forward that was just an average shooter, like a Paul Pressey, and I ran my offense through him, I could run picks for these small guards, get them open in the corner pretty easy because they're all quick, they could all shoot. And I think that helped me beat a lot of bigger teams that I was playing against. I was never blessed with having talented big people. I finally got Bob Lanier for a couple years at the end of his career. That was the most talented big man I'd ever coached and still is today, but I only had him for a few years, so I had to figure out ways to stay competitive with smaller teams because the hardest guy to find is a big man in the league. The easiest guy to find is a small guy who can shoot, so that was part of my philosophy, those two things. Thanks for the question.
08:29 Steve, on the right, second row.
08:31 Hi, Steve Ashburner with NBA.com. Hi, Nellie. I hate to break the news to you, but Victor's closed its doors on New Year's Eve, so Tom Inman wanted you to know that.
08:42 Okay.
08:44 The question I have for you is, I was around you a lot in the '80s in Milwaukee and your defensive style was a calling card for you. Then later it became a trademark that your offense was better known. How would you like those teams in Milwaukee to be remembered? How do you remember them in terms of what they achieved without being able to beat both the Sixers and the Celtics in the same postseason?
09:11 If you remember when I coached Milwaukee, I led the league in defense several years — anyway, I don't know how many — but that was our calling card. We had a great defensive team and we could really defend. Now, I also learned that you had to coach with the talent that you had. When I went to some other teams, like Golden State for example, we had a really good offensive team, but they couldn't guard anybody and so it was a chore to figure out exactly what to do. So we led the team in offense and we struggled on the defensive end, though part of a coach's job is to get the most talent out of what you have, so that's what I tried to do.
09:56 Nellie had — he had coaches so distracted with angst. One moment you're trying to figure out how you're gonna chase around all these guys that could really shoot and the next moment you're trying to figure out how am I gonna get the referees to call the illegal defenses on all these different defenses that you're seeing out here? And it was maddening and he made teams uncomfortable for decades and it was amazing to watch. And now, the league is a league of playmakers largely because of his influence.
10:32 I have to tell you, Rick — I don't know if you remember this or not — but I was selected by the commissioner at that time to write the rules for illegal defense and Cotton Fitzsimmons and I wrote the rules and it's hard to get Cotton to any sort of a meeting, so it was pretty much up to me to write the rules. So I had a little edge going into a few of the games early, anyway, on how to defeat my rules.
10:58 Which commissioner was this?
11:00 Stern, with Stern. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, that's when I had isolation basketball where I could take a guy like Manute Bol and isolate him up on top and some guy had to go with him. He couldn't sag off into the paint and so I could put Manute Bol out there and let Manute Bol shoot a three every now and then from 25 feet, when the clock started running down. We'd — that was his cue that if the ball got to you, you could shoot that three, otherwise you'd never shoot. And we found ways to get around the rules and maybe to win quite a few games during those times. Now, it's a little harder to do that. Now, everybody's got the rules down.
11:42 If I could mention a couple other people here. Nellie's son, Donnie is here. Donnie, I had the pleasure of working for Donnie for 13 years in Dallas. He has the distinction of a lot of great Drafts, but he drafted Luka Doncic and Jalen Brunson in the same Draft. And, great that you could be here. And our friend Tim Headington, who is a big part of the logistics of this, so thanks for helping out.
12:09 Next question —
12:09 My wife, Joy, there and Tom Kartsotis who started Fossil Watch in Dallas and is my dear friend.
12:17 Third row on the right, Mike?
12:18 Donnie, or Don, question from your Dallas year, you were one of the first believers in Steve Nash and obviously had so much success those early years in Dallas. What did you see and what — do you see anything about that combination, Steve and Dirk, that you has evolved into what we see in the NBA now?
12:43 With Dirk Nowitzski, are you talking?
12:46 (Inaudible) believer in Steve Nash, when you had him in Dallas and pairing him with Dirk, obviously, was a very modern-seeming offense at the time.
12:55 Dirk was the most talented big man I'd ever seen. He was close to seven feet tall and he played like a small forward. Donnie found a way to isolate him from most of the NBA scouts and they played in the World Games, European against our American players, down in San Antonio. But Donnie got him to train in Dallas and they trained in the YMCA and only two people were allowed in there. That was me and Donnie. So I got a chance to watch him for a week and nobody — no other scout could come in. And I begged his friend Holger (Geschwindner), who was with him for his lifetime, I begged him not to go down to San Antonio. I didn't want anybody to see him 'cause I liked him that much. And he went down and ended up scoring like 35 and 15 rebounds or some number and I said, "Oh man, we're not gonna get him now. Everybody's gonna see him." But they only saw him the one time and he started slipping in the Draft. We kinda knew where he was. We actually went from 6 to 9 and got him and made enough money so we were in the black that year, instead of the red. Ross Pearl, Jr. liked that and we took a gamble on him. And I have to say in that Draft, Paul Pierce was my favorite player and we had Paul Pierce going Top 3, so we didn't even consider that he would be there. Wouldn't you believe it, when No. 9 came up, Paul Pierce was there and Dirk Nowitzki. And I looked at Donnie and I said, "Oh shit, Paul Pierce is my favorite player. He's gonna be a star." And Donnie says, "Come on, Dad, you know what we've been doing for the last (inaudible)." We were hiding him in Donnie's basement so nobody else could interview him. Anyway, I said, “You know what? You're right. We've made a commitment and we'll stand on it.” And we took Dirk. Now, it was tough for a while in Dallas. People thought I was a mad scientist. They may have been right. I don't know about that one. But anyway, we stuck with him and then we got Nash in the trade and then history can answer the rest of it, for sure.
15:15 My recollection on all that was that these guys got everybody to believe that even if they drafted Dirk, he wasn't gonna come over for two or three years and so a lot of people passed on him and they made it happen. And the results were historic.
15:32 What a player, huh? What a human being. I'm so proud of him and Luka, too, my dear friend. As a matter of fact, I want everybody to know I'm wearing Luka's shoes, his new shoes from Nike. They just got on the market. And I'm wearing them in protest for the trade from Dallas. I think it was a tremendous mistake by the Dallas franchise to trade him and I want to — I want everybody to know that because I learned from the best. I played a year for Red Auerbach. I played under him for Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Russell. And I had the opportunity on my way, 'cause I always went to the games early to sit and talk with Red, philosophy. And his philosophy was when you have a great player, Bill Russell, Havlicek, Sam Jones, you name 'em, you never lose that player. You keep him for a lifetime. You put his number up and you honor that player. And this has been my philosophy. If you look at the players that I've had over the years, Dirk and Moncrief and all the rest of 'em that I've coached — Nash was the exception because we were supposed to sign him and didn't, probably destroyed my relationship with Mark Cuban at the time, because he was prom — I was promised that we were gonna sign Nash. I thought we would be winning titles there for a few years. I thought we had a chance to win three or four titles in a row, but losing Nash set us back a little bit. But anyway, my philosophy was always to honor the great players, not trade them away, but to add pieces to that player and make him and your franchise the best that it could be. So anyway, next question.
17:19 Tim, here in the second row.
17:20 Tim Reynolds with the Associated Press. Nellie, congratulations.
17:23 Thank you.
17:24 You said that this means as much to you as the Hall of Fame. The fact that Rick has a mildly important basketball game to go coach in about half an hour and he's sitting here, that it was coaches like Rick and Riles (Pat Riley) and Pop and others on the committee that wanted you to have this. What does that mean to you that this was your peers that chose that you had to have this award?
17:46 Rick is unique. He's been the head of our Coaches' Association for as long as I can remember. He's just done a remarkable job as far as our pensions and things that maybe a lot of you don't even know about, that he's added to the coaches and our abilities to survive after coaching. My hat's off to Rick and what a job that he's done. I forgot the rest of your question.
18:11 Just the fact that it's your peers.
18:13 Oh yeah. Yeah, the fact that you're selected by your peers really means a lot more to me than anybody else that selects you. Whether it's a vote by the fans or the number of stats or something like that, that people might be reading that you did or didn't do. When your peers select you, it's just a special thing and that's the way that I regard this honor.
18:37 Last question, Howard in the back left.
18:40 Howard Beck from the Ringer. Hey Nellie, over, here. You were an innovator in your time and a lot of the things that seemed like you really believed in, in the game, that the things that were considered cutting edge at the time now feel like it's the norm in today's league. I'm wondering how you feel about the way the game looks and has played today and especially how Rick's team looks and is playing.
19:01 I'm enjoying this Finals as much as any that I've ever remembered watching because they're playing the style, the same styles, really, when you think about it. It is two really talented teams and they play the style that I enjoy the most. Of course, it is a fast-paced game. I'm enjoying this very much. Both teams are just wonderful to watch. I'm a fan of both of them, really. Oklahoma City, I've been rooting for all season and watching them especially close because of what way they play defense and the thing they've done over the last couple of years and the way that they play the game. And Rick's team plays very similar. I enjoy it more than most Finals, that's for sure.
19:47 Congratulations, Don, and thank you everyone for joining us. We'll do a brief photo up here.
19:53 Thank you.
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