Don Nelson: the first Warriors coach I ever knew

From the Oakland Coliseum Arena, to We Believe, to the Steph Curry-era modernizing basketball as we know it, Nellie connected three generations of my Warriors life.

March 30th, 1992. Sixers at Warriors. That day I was a four year old rapscallion and it was the first time basketball asked something of me.

There was a massive scoreboard, hanging colorfully and ominously over the Oakland Coliseum Arena. The numbers on it kept changing; I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the heck was going on. Those grown men leaping about on the hardwood, tossing the ball through the net, while gradually flipping those big numbers in the sky. My father’s stepdad chilled next to me in the stands while I pestered him with the kind of maddeningly relentless questioning that is enough to drive anyone bonkers.

I distinctly remember Charles Barkley was going nuts that night, and whether you were 4 or 400 years old it was clear he was getting busy and putting in work. Everytime he snatched a big rebound or scored on a putback I’d leap up and scream because he was the only name I already knew walking in. My grandfather let this go on for the better part of three quarters before he finally leaned over and dropped the single most devastating piece of information anyone had given me in my five years on Earth: that guy’s not on our team. What?!

Barkley was clearly the best player in the building and I wasn’t allowed to like him anymore: stunning and disappointing to say the least. I hadn’t even learned my own team’s players’ names yet and the Warriors were already breaking my heart.

Thankfully Tim Hardaway was putting on a show for my actual team though. Golden State just ran Philly out of the building that night. Once I figured out who I was allowed to root for, I turned to my grandfather in the fourth quarter and asked him for the coach’s name. He absentmindedly told me it was Coach Don Nelson, but everybody calls him Nellie.

Fast forward to college in Savannah, Georgia in 2007 where I was a young art student trying to figure out life in the South. I was hooping five days a week, balling like a young Anthony Randolph, running with some dudes from the Eastern time zone who didn’t care anything about the Golden State Warriors.

I’d bring the team up and get the same response every single time. Wait where’s Golden State? That’s by LA, right? And then the conversation would just drift right back to Kobe and LeBron like I hadn’t said a word. I was one guy repping a team that, to everyone around me, felt like a rumor.

Then the We Believe Warriors happened, and suddenly I had proof of life of the Bay’s basketball genius.

You remember that eight seed sneaking into the playoffs, drawing the 67-win, top-seeded Mavericks in round one? Yea that matchup should have been terrifying for the Dubs on paper. Hall-of-Famer Dirk Nowitzki was the MVP that year, formerly mentored by Coach Nelson in Dallas.

My mom mailed me a We Believe shirt and I wore that thang out watching Golden State snatch the series. There was Baron Davis going bananas while Nellie just decided you know what, we’re getting even smaller. By playing without centers he forced Dallas to bench their own starting big man just trying to keep up; absolutely diabolical.

When Golden State vanquished the #1 seed with contempt, and Roaracle basked in the glow up, I literally burst into tears as my boys went crazy in my dorm room. Don Nelson, that crazy mad scientist, had done the unthinkable: made the Warriors relevant again.

In 2009, the We Believe magic had turned into ash. Gone were Baron Davis and Jason Richardson, Monta Ellis and Stephen Jackson weren’t moving the needle, and the Warriors drafted a skinny young lad from Davidson named Stephen Curry. My group chat’s reaction was immediate and unanimous: Curry’s nice with it, but we already got Monta! And here we go with this small ball stuff again! Didn’t work with Run TMC and didn’t fully work with We Believe either. Now we’re doubling down on small again?

Even Monta himself made it pretty clear around media day that he didn’t love the idea of running two small guards out there in a conference full of big backcourts. And for a while, the record backed him up completely. The Warriors were still terrible.

But Nellie had spent his whole career being the one coach in the building willing to ignore the size chart on the wall. In his very last season on a bench, he pointed that same stubbornness at that rookie Curry. Once that kid got rolling around January, he was putting up rookie numbers that were putting him into the conversation for best prospects. He broke the rookie record for triples with 166.

Nellie had seen something in Curry years before he became the most terrifying force in basketball history. And when he retired in 2010, Coach Nelson had left the Warriors with a franchise shifting player, a guy who would change basketball forever.

Here’s where I’d like to now bring up my other sports fanatic grandfather aka Papa. Remember my dad’s stepdad was the one who casually handed me the Coach’s nickname in the fourth quarter. The other one, my mom’s dad, spent decades arguing with everything that name Nellie stood for. He. Absolutely. Hated it. Every single time the Warriors got out-rebounded or bullied in the paint, he’d give the same explanation like clockwork: That’s that silly Don Nelson ball. We need a big man!!

And here’s the part that still cracks me up thinking about it. Even after the Warriors won it all multiple times he never fully let it go. Papa would watch them hoist a trophy after destroying their opponent and still shake his head and mutter you can’t win a championship playing like that, especially chucking up threes the way they do.

My grandfathers are gone now. Grandpa told me the name of the coach who revolutionized the game of basketball. Papa spent every phone call and every Christmas Day game reminding me that Don Nelson was a fool who never won a championship because he refused to obey the laws of Big Man Basketball. Nowadays, Nellieball has caught like wildfire.

The speed and creativity that goes into positionless basketball has shifted the game forever. Watch any possession in today’s NBA and Nellie’s fingerprints are all over it. Papa would still probably call it terrible and I’d still chuckle lol. Coach Nelson’s basketball philosophy in the Bay gave plenty of material for my grandfathers to connect with their precocious grandson. It gave both of them (and myself) something to believe in and something to argue about. I miss all of it.

Rest in Peace Coach Nellie, and thank you for everything.