Basketball mourned Don Nelson Thursday as Hall of Famers, former players and coaches gathered at a Dallas church for a celebration of life honoring the man who compiled more regular-season coaching wins than anyone in NBA history except Gregg Popovich, who died Sunday at 86.
Among those who spoke was Hall of Fame guard Steve Nash, who was coached by Nelson with the Dallas Mavericks for six seasons. Nash expressed gratitude to the family for sharing him with the basketball world, and specifically for sharing him with Nash himself. He said the coach functioned as a mentor and significant presence in his life who helped change its direction. He said he will never forget what Nelson meant to him.
Nash also read a letter from Dirk Nowitzki, who could not attend because of a family commitment in Europe. The letter included a playful acknowledgment about their relationship. He described the coach as someone whose presence transformed any room he entered, calling him funny, loud and genuinely one of a kind. He called him the ultimate players’ coach.
Rick Carlisle, who has since passed him as the winningest coach in Mavericks history, described his predecessor as a basketball innovator whose fingerprints are visible across the modern game. He credited the late coach with inventing concepts that have become standard vocabulary across the league, including small ball lineups, stretch-big positioning, point-forwards, positionless basketball and cross-matching. Carlisle said the basketball world took years to recognize that the style he pioneered was actually the direction the game should have been heading all along, and that in the history of human innovation, the most significant thinkers often arrive with something deceptively simple that others cannot yet see clearly.
Gregg Popovich, who worked as an assistant under him with the Golden State Warriors before going on to his own Hall of Fame coaching career with the San Antonio Spurs, spoke about the peculiarity of gatherings like this one. He said it was obviously sad, but also emblematic of what the man did for the people in that church, touching almost everyone who was present.
Who was in the room
The service brought together a cross-section of the basketball world that reflected four decades of relationships in the game. His son Donnie Nelson spoke. Former players including Sidney Moncrief, Tim Hardaway and Chris Mullin addressed the gathering. Actor Owen Wilson submitted a video message.
The presence of Popovich, Nash, Nowitzki’s letter and Carlisle in the same church service illustrated how deeply his reach extended across different generations of the sport. He coached players who became Hall of Famers and coaches who became Hall of Famers.
The career being honored
Nelson coached for 31 seasons across five franchises, including the Milwaukee Bucks, the Golden State Warriors in two separate stints, the New York Knicks and the Dallas Mavericks. He compiled 1,335 regular-season wins, a record when he retired that Popovich surpassed in March 2022. Before his coaching career, he won five NBA championships as a player with the Boston Celtics, who retired his No. 19 jersey in 1978.
He won three NBA Coach of the Year awards and shaped the way professional basketball is played. The concepts Carlisle described are now part of every coaching playbook in the league. The innovation was evident long before the league caught up to it.
He died Sunday at his farm in Maui, Hawaii. He was 86.
