This is Don Nelson's 29th season as an NBA head coach. Only two players on the Golden State Warriors roster were even alive when Nelson began his career in Milwaukee in 1976. He was 97 wins shy of being the all-time winningest coach in NBA history when the Warriors took the floor last night against the Celtics. He's still 97 shy after the Celtics' 105-82 victory.
You could stock a pretty large trophy case with Nellie hardware. There are three Coach of the Year awards, from 1983, 1985, and 1992. Only one other coach, Pat Riley, has won that many. There's the gold medal from the 1994 World Championship team, which cruised through the competition in Canada. That remains the last United States gold medal-winning World Championship team. Only Lenny Wilkens has won more games and only Riley has had more 50-win seasons. When the NBA selected the 10 greatest coaches in league history in 1997, Nellie was one of the chosen.
He's an innovator - remember 7-foot-6-inch Manute Bol shooting 3-pointers? He says he's still enjoying what he does because, well, "it's what I do." He's challenged the rules. (Remember his "switching man-to-man" defense, a.k.a. zone, in Milwaukee?) He defines and redefines positions - the point forward, for instance - and his style of play has a name all its own: Nellieball.
"He does it his way," said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "He is unconventional at times, but it's the way he does it. He's not trying to be someone he isn't. Some guys try to be unconventional, but Nellie just tries to be Nellie. He's as comfortable with who he is and his own skin as about anybody you know. He reminds you a little bit about Al McGuire in that way. He's comfortable with who he is and he doesn't care if you like it or not."
And that attitude may explain one of the many injustices that can be traced to the people who pick the members of the Basketball Hall of Fame. There is no rational or reasonable explanation for Nellie not being there. He's more than met the qualifications (25 years). His record speaks for itself. How can the man who has won more games than anyone not named Lenny Wilkens not be in the Hall of Fame?
He was asked about that before last night's game.
"When I was younger," he said, "I cared about it. Now, at this point in my life, it's really not on my mind at all. If it happens, it happens, that's the way I look at it."
And whatever happens won't affect his view from the house in Maui?
"You got that right," he said.
Wilkens is in the Hall of Fame. Of the other coaches who made the NBA's top 10 in 1997, the only two besides Nelson who aren't in Springfield are Bill Fitch and Riley (who is eligible this year and should be a slam dunk). Fitch is another slight; he coached a lot of bad teams, but he's Larry Bird's favorite and that's good enough for me. Larry Brown, Doggie Julian, Kenneth Loeffler, Frank McGuire, and Bill Sharman are all in Springfield for what they did as NBA head coaches. None was deemed to be top-10 worthy when the NBA made its list 10 years ago.
What else does Nelson have to do? OK, he's never won an NBA title, but neither had Brown when he was inducted in 2002. Wilkens and Jack Ramsay have won one NBA title each, so it's not like winning titles is a prerequisite. It's about coaching and success and how many have done it any better?
"I spent three years with Nellie," recalled Celtics assistant general manager Dave Wohl. "And I can remember sitting in his office and we'd have this one play we'd go over for maybe 45 minutes to an hour. He would break it down so many ways - do we run a full screen, a stagger screen? Do we have the center do it or the power forward? Do we move the screen? The whole idea was to make it so you'd finally come up with something that put the defense in a tough position. It was such a good education for me. He was brilliant at that, absolutely brilliant."
Last year, Nelson returned for a second stint as coach of the Warriors. Golden State had not been to the playoffs in 13 years, or since Nellie was there the last time, winning with the Run TMC unit led by Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin, the latter of which is currently Nellie's titular boss. The intervening years had not been kind to the Warriors and there had been some grisly basketball in Oakland. Five main coaches - Rick Adelman, P.J. Carlesimo, Dave Cowens, Eric Musselman, and Mike Montgomery - came and went, none winning more than 38 games in a season.
Then Nellie returned, basically promised a playoff berth in the brutal West, and delivered. His team won 42 games, including eight of its last nine, to sneak into the No. 8 spot. Then Nellie engineered one of the greatest playoff upsets in NBA history, knocking off his former team, the Dallas Mavericks, in the first round.
Nelson toyed with retiring at the end of the season (he's 67) but he's back, lured by the money, the nightly challenge, and because he's doing what he loves and what he's good at. It's not the same team. Jason Richardson was traded for Brandan Wright, a 20-point scorer dealt for a rookie who rarely plays. Stephen Jackson just returned from a seven-game suspension. Last night, Al Harrington and Matt Barnes were not in uniform for personal reasons.
"I'd like to see how good we can be when we get all our weapons," Nellie said. "But one or two guys always seem to be out. It can make things hard."
Boston, of course, was where Nelson turned himself into a very serviceable, respectable NBA player. His No. 19 is retired. He was a member of five NBA championship teams. It's a shame - a travesty, really - that the people down I-90 in Springfield can't bring themselves to see the guy in a similar light.
He deserves to be there.
Peter May can be reached at p_may@globe.com.
