The Basketball Hall of Fame will announce its Class of 2011 next
week, and Don Nelson won’t be part of it. The NBA’s all-time
winningest coach wasn’t even among the list of finalists from which
the inductees will be selected.
The Basketball Hall of Fame will announce its Class of 2011 next week, and Don Nelson won’t be part of it.
The NBA’s all-time winningest coach wasn’t even among the list of finalists from which the inductees will be selected.
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There was a time when I understood this because I viewed Nelson through the same zoom lens evidently used by the members of the honors committee, the secret society that ultimately determines who is or is not fit to be in the Hall.
They can’t get past his warts.
And Nellie, vain exhibitionist that he is, can’t bring himself to stop revealing them.
Nelson, 70, was at it again this week, venturing onto the “Chronicle Live” set at the Comcast SportsNet studios in San Francisco on Monday night and spreading enough disingenuousness behind his customary earnest facade to remind everyone why he has so few allies in basketball.
Recalling his 34-year coaching career during a one-hour interview with host Greg Papa, the former Warriors coach discussed his all-time favorite players, presented his side of the devastating conflict with young Chris Webber and provided a flippant explanation for his dismissal from the Warriors last year.
Because, he says, he asked Andris Biedrins to shoot free throws underhanded.
Nellie also addressed, in his own way, why he never has won NBA championship.
Did you know he was denied an opportunity to win multiple titles in San Antonio? In the wake of the Webber debacle in 1994, when Nelson realized his time in Oakland was short, Spurs general manager Gregg Popovich — a former assistant coach to Nelson — offered his old boss the coaching job.
Nelson wanted out, but Warriors owner Jim Fitzgerald held him to his contract.
“I begged him to keep Chris Webber and to let me go,” Nelson said. “I said keep Webber, keep the player, get a new coach and release me. I told him I had the job. And (he) wouldn’t do it. As a result, Popovich is still coaching, with four titles. I could have had Tim Duncan.”
You may have known Nelson “had another great chance to win titles” in Boston. A young coach in Milwaukee, his Bucks had swept the Celtics out of the 1983 playoffs, which led to a recruitment attempt by Boston boss Red Auerbach.
“After the last game, walking out of the locker room, I saw Red Auerbach,” Nelson recalled. “He said, ‘Would you be interested in coaching the Celtics?’ And I said, ‘Red, Jim Fitzgerald (then the Bucks owner) has done so much for my career, so much for me as a person, I won’t be able to leave him.’
“Bad decision by me. They go on with Larry Bird and win four more titles.”
In short, Nelson’s best chances to reach full potential as a coach were sabotaged by his loyalty to Fitzgerald and shortchanged by the stubbornness of Fitzgerald.
By the way, Nellie, who became the Knicks coach in 1995, suggested he was backstabbed by his front office, which after a private discussion informed star center Patrick Ewing that Nelson wanted to move him to make room for a free agent named Shaquille O’Neal.
Such implications are subtle, unless you know how Nellie’s mind works; there is a point to everything he says.
His problem, as it relates to his Hall of Fame candidacy, is that too many — including the honors committee of the Hall board — know how his mind works.
So Nelson, who in the past has been a finalist, fails those final tests presumably required by the anti-Nellie faction, certain individuals within the voting membership. Like the character test. And the likability test. And the respect test.
I get it. Nelson is selfish and fiendish, ruthless in pursuit of whatever his goal happens to be at that particular moment.
His statistical achievements can be described as the product of endurance; he began coaching at 36 and bounced around until he was almost 70. He has an insatiable appetite for intrigue, playing mind games with players and coaches and owners and even so-called friends. He established a pattern of placing his ego and personal desires — usually financial and authoritative — ahead of the franchise by which he is employed.
By suing owners, feuding with players and burning bridges built by others, Nellie has provided ammo for those who want to keep him out of the Hall. I once bought into this line of thinking.
I was wrong. Nelson belongs in the Hall for several reasons, the first being winning more games (1,335) at basketball’s highest level than anyone who ever drew up a play on a clipboard or a chalkboard or the dry side of a cocktail napkin.
His character warts are visible, especially if you know his history. But they’re not relevant to his qualifications. And they shouldn’t deny him his due.
— Column by Monte Poole, The Oakland Tribune
