I'm Retired! Now what?

August 9, 2026

Today we lost the first NBA coach that I ever paid much attention to, as the great Don Nelson left us at the age 86.  When I started going to Dallas Mavericks games back in the mid 1990’s I always entered the games assuming that the home team was going to lose because they always did.  Then one day I wandered into Reunion Arena to see the Mavericks take on the New York Knicks.  That week the Mavericks’ general manager Don Nelson had given the boot to the team’s coach and assumed the role as the head coach himself.  And low and behold, that was the first time I had ever been to a Mavs’ game when they actually won!  Some of the players were even hugging Nelson after that game.

As a player Don Nelson won FIVE NBA championships with the Celtics, but that was a bit before my time.  I just remember him as the top guy for the Mavericks, or “the Don” as some called him.  As a general manager the guy had a thing for foreign players, and I could almost hear the commentators groaning before the Mavericks’ pick in the NBA draft every year because they knew some player was coming up who they couldn’t pronounce his name.  I remember Nelson getting a lot of heat back in those days when he picked an unknown named Dirk Nowitzki over Kansas star Paul Pierce.  They were both great players.

My favorite memory of Nelson was during a game I actually attended.   Nelson wasn’t a small guy, and when he got ticked off, everyone felt it.  After thinking his team got a bad call, he snatched the ball from the official, walked out onto the court, and drop kicked the ball up into the rafters of the American Airlines Center.  And of course, he got tossed out of the game, but such made for good sports theater.  During a Mavericks vs. Bulls game the sixty something Nelson shouted out to Michael Jordan, “If I got away with all the things you get away with, I could still be playing!”  One season the coach got suspended for a game, but instead of getting ticked off, Nelson threw on a striped prison uniform and invited all the fans to join him at a sports bar to watch the game and have a brew!

As a player he got to play with all those legendary players of the 1960’s Boston Celtics.  However, he was drafted by the Chicago Zephyrs.  Yea, I’d never heard of them either, but according to legend he learned how to play basketball in the family chicken yard where he had nailed an old spokeless bicycle wheel to the side of a shed for a basket.   Whatever works!  Apparently, Don’s father didn’t think he had a future in basketball and wanted his son to become a watch repairman.  Sometimes father doesn’t always know best.  R.I.P. Don Nelson.