I never understood Don Nelson. He’s been around long enough and looks like he’s got all the basketball know-how a guy needs, but at the same time something tells me he doesn’t have a clue of whats going on. His teams average 100+ ppg but yet I firmly believe he has maybe two plays in the book, if he has a book. His white hair reflects decades of experience and success but somehow he’s the last guy I’d pick to draw up a play with the team down 1 and 10 seconds left. He’s one of the greatest NBA coaches of all-time and I have no clue what got him there.

His Golden State team could’ve beaten Utah in Game 5 if only the Warriors didn’t jack up 4 straight ill-advised threes late in the fourth quarter, they even would’ve won Game 2 if the Warriors had made an effort to not have Mickael Pietrus handle the ball. If the Warriors would’ve shown even a little self-restraint in Game 4, that also would’ve been a W. My point is that late in the game the Warriors shot themselves in the foot every chance they got. After Stephen Jackson tried in vain to split his third double team leading to a third turnover you would think Nelson would’ve given him a talk about quitting his little mission of going through Utah players, but no, no reprimand or even advice was given. Same goes for pulling up for threes in transition (Jason Richardson) and stepping back to get a three when you barely have a look at a two (Al Harrington). All these silly mistakes cost the Warriors, but nobody can argue against Nelson because its this crazy philosophy of playing open basketball that got them there in the first place.

Over the last 30 years the guy has only not coached an NBA team for three of them! He’s won Coach of the Year three times so he must know what he’s doing (although Sam Mitchell winning it this year confirms that the award doesn’t mean much). A firm believer in Hack-a-Shaq, Don Nelson once tried a Hack-a-Rodman technique that almost worked but the Jordan-led Bulls prevailed in the end. He’s probably the only coach to have cost his team the game by getting a technical foul with less than a second left! I mean how many coaches that have been asked by the NBA to stop bringing beer to news conferences?

His offensive philosophy can be summed up in two words: Just shoot. Wait, lets give the man the credit due, its actually more complex than that, it’s more like: You shoot and you rebound and if you rebound you get to shoot too. As for X’s and O’s, Nellie keeps it simple enough so even Stephen Jackson can understand without consulting his agent. Nellie believes that plays are too confusing and detrimental to scoring, its much better to actually just “take what the defense gives you” on every single possession. It doesn’t matter if the defense is only giving you a 26 footer, you are obligated to shoot it if it presents itself. But maybe he’s on to something, maybe playing the Miami Heat style of basketball isn’t the way to go, who needs to dig down on defense and battle for offensive rebounds when you can just come of a screen and fire one up, why bother savoring and cradling every possession when you can just pull-up in transition with zero rebounders underneath the rim just to do a “heat check”. Is there any logic in tiring yourself with the nitty gritty aspects of fighting through picks and sticking to your man when you can just drop and play the zone? Don Nelson asks these questions in every game he coaches and usually the answers are in his favor.

Defensively his teams have never been good but the offense usually hides the glaring holes presented by the porous defense. His Dallas and Golden State teams are recent testaments to this. In both Dallas and Golden State, Nellie lacked a true big guy who could dominate the glass and provide a scoring punch inside - Shaq and Carlos Boozer ate his frontline up when it started to count in his last two playoffs runs. As I think about this more you can’t really have an amazing offensive team without having defensive gaps, Nellie has just chosen to make defense priority #2 and that’s really cost him in his recent years.

I think Don Nelson is a fine coach for a fairly mature team with decent talent, he gives free reign to his players which can be both good and bad, good because it allows a player to play his natural game and bad because it kills off the structure and discipline required to execute in the half-court set, something that is paramount in the post-season. That Jazz series really exposed Golden States inability to execute late in games, but that’s something I knew they were going to have trouble with given their coach. Don Nelson: great run ‘n gun coach, not the man you want if you want to go deep into the playoffs.

Let’s end this with a really weird and out-of-place Don Nelson quote:

Reporter: Is it important for you guys to see how your small lineup works against the Mavs?
Don Nelson: I’m impotent, too. I just went to the doctor, he told me I was impotent so I went out and bought me a new suit.

Don Nelson, the greatest coach who never had a playbook.