Legendary NBA player and coach Don Nelson died Sunday morning at the age of 86, his family announced in a statement.
“On Sunday morning our beloved husband, dad, grandfather and great-grandfather Don Nelson peacefully went to be with the Lord, surrounded by his loving family,” the family wrote, per NBA insider Marc Stein. “Throughout his last week, friends and family encircled him with love, sharing the blessing of his friendship and revisiting treasured memories.”
Nelson won five NBA titles as a player with the Celtics, and the team retired his No. 19 jersey in 1978. Shortly after his playing days were over, he began an illustrious career in coaching, as well, which he finished with three Coach of the Year Awards. To this day, he remains the second-winningest coach of all-time, a record Gregg Popovich surpassed in 2022.
Overall, Nelson’s coaching career spanned 34 years, from 1976 to 2010, and left a lasting legacy on the modern NBA (and not just because he led Stephen Curry during the latter's rookie season).
“One of the big reasons I was drafted by the Warriors was because of Don Nelson,” Curry said in a team-issued statement on Sunday. “The story is he never liked rookies, but from Day 1 he challenged me and gave me an opportunity to be my best self on the court. He taught me a lot during our one season together and I’ll never forget the night he became the winningest coach in NBA history in Minnesota. We were so happy for him. He had an immeasurable impact on the sport and will go down as one of the greatest minds in the history of the game.”
Nelson boasts a 1,335–1,063 coaching record, which covers 11 seasons apiece at the head of the bench for the Warriors and the Bucks, plus eight seasons with the Mavericks and part of one with the Knicks. What’s remarkable is that he nearly didn’t become a coach; he didn’t know what he was going to do when he retired, never gave coaching a thought and even tried refereeing in Summer League, according to an interview with ESPN in 2012.
Thank goodness, though, he ended up an assistant coach with the Bucks the season after he hung up his playing jersey, and ultimately made a profound impact on both endless NBA legends and the game as a whole. In fact, whether you realize it or not, Nelson’s influence permeates every NBA game to this day—here’s how.
Positionless basketball and the point forward
Nelson pioneered the concept of the “point forward” in the early days of positionless basketball. In his days with the Bucks, he put the ball in Paul Pressey’s hands, and the 6'5" forward, who had a huge wingspan and excelled at passing over others, became the first true point forward. In Pressey’s third NBA season, his assists ballooned from 3.1 to 6.8 per game. He then averaged a career-high 7.8 dimes per night the following season in 1985–86.
Del Harris, an adviser to Nelson and former Bucks and Lakers coach, was key in founding the thought with Rick Barry and Robert Reid. He helped Nelson figure out what to do with Pressey, according to ESPN, which is what popularized the movement. From Scottie Pippen and Grant Hill to LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo, the innovation lives on each time the ball is brought up the floor by a nontraditional guard.
Up-tempo “Nellie Ball”
“Nellie Ball,” the fast-paced style that Nelson often employed, also left a significant mark on the modern NBA. It is essentially quick and exciting small ball, where players play out of position (in Nelson’s own words).
“You only play Nellie Ball when you don't have a very good team, or when you have a bunch of good small players and not many good big players,” he said in 2012. “When you have bad teams, you’ve got to be creative to win games you’re not supposed to win.”
Nelson mucked up the game to give his team the best shot to win, and he was pretty darn good at it. He coached the “Run TMC” Warriors with Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin to a pair of playoff upsets thanks to the mismatches created with an undersized lineup. He used “Nellie Ball” with the Mavericks by playing Dirk Nowitzki at center alongside Steve Nash and Michael Finley, then again with the Warriors by playing Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington at center alongside Baron Davis and Jason Richardson. (Of course, that came before Golden State’s dynasty, during which Steve Kerr often played Draymond Green as a small-ball center alongside Curry and Klay Thompson.)
Embracing the international movement
Nelson was no stranger to investing in international talent as a coach. While with the Mavs, he brought superstars Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash to Dallas, which helped turn the franchise around a quarter-century ago. (His son, Donnie, was in the Mavs’ front office for 24 years and later drafted Luka Dončić, who wrote Sunday that Nelson’s death marked a “sad day for basketball.”)
Nelson had Nowitzki play around the three-point line as a center, which stretched out defenses and allowed the 2007 NBA MVP, as well as his team, to thrive. Before he stepped down as Dallas’s coach, the Mavs enjoyed five straight seasons with 50 wins or more with Nowitzki, Nash and Finley at the center of the operation.
Nellie… You didn't just draft me. You believed in me. You saw things in my game before I ever realized I could do them. I've said it a million times and I will always say it: I don't think my career could have turned out how it did without you being my first coach and giving me…
— Dirk Nowitzki (@swish41) August 9, 2026
Šarūnas Marčiulionis, the first Soviet NBA player, was a key part of “Nellie Ball” in a guard-heavy lineup during Nelson’s first stint with the Warriors. Manute Bol, the first NBA player from present-day South Sudan, shot threes at his towering height of 7'7" for two seasons with Nelson’s Warriors, too. Bol’s shooting was an abnormality at the time (floor-spacing bigs are now a key piece of the current NBA).
The Nelsons also brought Wang Zhizhi, the first Chinese player, to the NBA when the Mavericks selected him with the 36th pick in the 1999 NBA draft.
The popularization of “Hack-a-Shaq”
While in Dallas, Nelson introduced the “Hack-a-Shaq” strategy, where his team intentionally fouled a bad free-throw shooter in an effort to get the ball back faster and limit the opponent’s points per possession. It’s said that teams employed a similar tactic against Wilt Chamberlain in his playing days; Nelson used it against Dennis Rodman and Shaquille O’Neal.
Since then, “Hack-a-Shaq” has remained in the NBA, and has been used against players like DeAndre Jordan, Ben Simmons, Andre Drummond and, most recently, Mitchell Robinson.
Listen to SI’s NBA podcast, Open Floor, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s YouTube channel.
