Former Dallas Mavericks head coach and NBA legend, Don Nelson, sadly passed away on Sunday August 9, 2026. As would be expected, an outpouring of tributes has made their way to social media, and we’ve curated a few of them here.
In what really amounts to only a small snippet of comments from those who knew him well, we learn so much about how he positively impacted the lives and careers of so many people and franchises. If you find yourself scrolling X or any other social media site of your liking,
search “Don Nelson” and experience a bittersweet read from names both familiar and surprising. In the meantime, we’ve gone about selecting a few from various aspects of Nellie’s near half-century involved in the game of basketball.
The league and teams
The NBA
As both a player and a coach, Nelson spent decades of his life involved with the NBA. He currently sits in the number two slot for most winningest coaches (second only to Gregg Popovich) and was awarded NBA Coach of the Year three times (1983, 1985, 1992) and took home the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award (2025). During his 14-year NBA playing career of which he spent the final 11 seasons with the Boston Celtics, he won five championships. The landscape and history of the NBA would look quite different without him.
The Dallas Mavericks
Nelson was steering the ship when Dallas finally pulled out of a decade-long doldrum to become one of the winningest franchises in sports during the 2000’s. He was an innovator, or maybe a mad scientist depending on whom you asked, that proved to be well ahead of his time. Nelson basically invented the point forward position – a forward who could handle the ball, shoot and orchestrate an offense – which in some part surely contributed to the positionless basketball we see nightly in the modern era. He and his son Donnie are responsible for bringing Dirk Nowtizki into the fold, forever changing the course of the Dallas Mavericks.
The Iowa Hawkeyes
Nelson played four years of college ball with the Buckeyes, however his stats register for only the final three (freshmen were not allowed to play varsity at the time). In those three seasons, he averaged 21.1 points and 10.9 rebounds per game.
The Boston Celtics
The Celtics were where Nelson spent the majority of his career and where he found his most playing success, by far. From 1965 to 1976, he called Boston home. He complimented legends like Bill Russell and John Havlicek and ended his career with a fistful of championship rings (1966, 1968, 1969, 1974, 1976). In game seven of the NBA Finals in 1969, with the Celtics leading the Los Angeles Lakers 103-102, Nelson hit a shot clock-beating jump shot to give Boston a cushion en route to a road win. His number 19 hangs in the rafters with other Boston greats such as Russell, Havlicek, Larry Bird, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Kevin McHale and others.
The Milwaukee Bucks
Nelson started his coaching career as an assistant with the Bucks in 1976. 18 games later, he took over as head coach and held that position for the next 11 seasons. In nine of those seasons, he led the Bucks into postseason play, making the team a perennial powerhouse with seven 50-win seasons in that stretch.
The Golden State Warriors
Nelson’s first stint with the Warriors lasted seven seasons. His run-and-gun style of innovative basketball was on full display during the Run TMC era (TMC stood for Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin and was a play on the popular hip-hop trio Run DMC, mixing flashy on-court play with pop culture outside of the sport). He then finished his coaching career with four more seasons on the Warriors’ sideline, the final of which coincided with Steph Curry’s rookie year.
The players
Dirk Nowitzki
Nowitzki is the adopted son of Dallas, leading the Mavericks to their greatest heights in 2011. Nowitzki has often credited Nelson with seeing something in him that no one else saw – a theme that recurs frequently with many players that called Nelson coach. If it weren’t for Nelson and his son Donnie, it’s nearly impossible to think of how different the Mavericks franchise would be without their insistence on getting Nowitzki on that fateful draft night in 1998.
Steve Nash
Nash was part of a Big Three in Dallas right as that concept was gaining popularity in a big way. Along with Nowitzki and Michael Finley, Nash helped turn the franchise around under Nelson’s unconventional wisdom. Like Nowitzki, Nash is keen to point out that Nelson saw things in him, and brought things out of him, that no other coach was likely to.
Michael Finley
Completing the trifecta, Finley shares a similar sentiment as his running mates Nowitzki and Nash. Finley was the star of the team when Nelson took over and largely held that moniker until he passed the baton to Nowitzki. Under Nelson, the trio took down the Utah Jazz in a first round, best-of-five Playoff series after trailing 2-0. Finley dropped a game-high 33 points in the deciding game of the Mavericks return to the Playoffs for the first time since 1990, kicking off a 12-year Playoff streak.
Memento mori
Nelson left an indelible mark, not only on the league, but on the sport as a whole and on many of the games’ greats (and surely those who may not be on an all-time list as well). For half a century and more than half his life, he was involved with basketball at the highest level. He is a big reason the game expanded globally and his innovations are felt to this day. If your fandom began just prior to, or during, the Nellie era, you likely revere him as the mad scientist who made the Mavericks fun again. The crazy uncle who innovated right before your eyes. The hardcore hippie who truly cared about the game and the players who played it.
Memento mori is a Latin phrase serving as a reminder of one’s own mortality. I have no idea if Don Nelson knew the meaning, but it seems evident he was aware of the concept given how he made the very most of his 86 years. He spent decades around the game of basketball accumulating accolades, all while impacting the lives of so many. Quoting Michael Finley:
“Thank you, Coach, for believing in me and for the impact you had on my career and my life.”
That part about life really says it all. Not only did Nelson help players develop their game, he helped them in the broader sense, like only the best of the best coaches do. Echoing Finley, I too want to thank coach Nelson for the hilarious one-liners, for punting balls into the stands, for “clown basketball,” for introducing us all to the Pismo Beach Panthers and of course for helping to usher in a new world order for the Dallas Mavericks, all while mentoring and nurturing players along their own lengthy journeys in the NBA sphere and life in general.
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