Don Nelson Honored at Dallas Memorial by NBA Greats
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- Don Nelson died Sunday at age 86, and a celebration of life was held Thursday at a Dallas church attended by high-profile figures from across basketball.
- Steve Nash spoke at the service, crediting Nelson—his coach for six seasons with the Dallas Mavericks—with changing the direction of his life, and shared a letter from Dirk Nowitzki, who couldn't attend due to a family commitment in Europe.
- Nowitzki's letter called Nelson a "legend" and "one of a kind," writing that "when he came into a room, everything lit up," while also quipping that Nelson "loved my dad more than he loved me."
- Nelson finished with a 1,335-1,063 regular-season record across 31 seasons coaching the Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors (twice), New York Knicks, and Mavericks, retiring with the most coaching wins in NBA history—a mark broken by Gregg Popovich in March 2022.
- Rick Carlisle praised Nelson as an innovator whose "Nellie Ball" style pioneered small ball, stretch-bigs, and positionless basketball, terms "everyone else figured out" years later; Nelson won three Coach of the Year awards.
- Popovich, who was an assistant under Nelson with the Warriors before his own Hall of Fame run, also spoke, as did Nelson's son Donnie Nelson, players Sidney Moncrief, Tim Hardaway, and Chris Mullin, and actor Owen Wilson via video.
- Nelson was also a five-time NBA champion as a player for the Boston Celtics, whose No. 19 jersey was retired in his honor in 1978.
Why it matters: Nelson's death closes a chapter on the most influential coaching innovator in NBA history—his positionless, small-ball concepts are now league-wide orthodoxy, meaning every modern coach is working in a framework he built decades before anyone else adopted it. The gathering of nearly 50 years of basketball greats at one service underscores how singular his impact was on multiple generations of players and coaches.
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