Don Nelson is easily the most underrated coach in NBA history. Nelson, the all-time leader in coaching victories (as well as defeats) took on renovation projects before Larry Brown made it cool. In the 70’s, he took over a fledgling Milwaukee Bucks team fresh off trading away Kareem Abdul-Jabar and made them eastern contenders for more than a decade. He took over a Warriors team in the 80’s and turned them into a highly entertaining offensive juggernaut that was only derailed in the mid-90’s because Chris Webber didn’t want to play center. He then become the coach of the Dallas Mavericks, oversaw a draft in which they traded for both Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash, and helped guide one of the most miserable franchises in basketball to contender status, before stepping away, handing the team to Avery Johnson, and rejoining the Warriors and leading them to a 2007 upset victory over Johnson’s Mavericks.
The Warriors miss Nellie more than they know
That he hasn’t been inducted into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame, despite being named one of the league’s 10 greatest coaches in 1996 and despite amassing more wins than anyone in history, is proof of that. Even the Warriors bought into Nellie being overrated, so they dumped him in the offseason and replaced him with Keith Smart. And, surprise surprise, Smart isn’t doing that great.
To be fair, Nelson’s last few years in Golden State were awful, though it wasn’t exactly his fault; last year’s Warriors missed more games due to injury than anyone else in the league. Smart, in contrast, has overseen an almost entirely healthy season from his team -- the one blip being the few weeks David Lee missed because of an infection. And yet the team is only 24-29 -- 5.5 games out of the playoff race.
Why? Is it because Keith Smart is a terrible coach? Is it because Smart isn’t coaching them with a fast pace and a mindset on offense? No. The answer is that Keith Smart is a very capable coach, and isn’t a bad successor at all to Nelson. But he lacks the one indistinguishable quality that made Nelson unique: crazyness.
An odd answer to be sure, but Smart’s reluctance to go full-throttle as Nelson used to do -- as every other coach would be reluctant to do -- personifies why the team isn’t 29-24 and in the middle of the playoff chase in the Western Conference. Don Nelson had no restrictions, taking small-ball to levels never before seen and turning the concept of defense into an afterthought. In a game against the Timberwolves in 2008, he kept Matt Barnes (who had 20 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists) on the bench in the fourth quarter, instead fielding a finishing lineup of Baron Davis at point guard, C.J. Watson at shooting guard, Monta Ellis at small forward, Stephen Jackson at power forward, and Al Harrington at center. (The Warriors lost). In a game against the Bucks in 2009, the Warriors finished with a lineup of Stephen Curry at point, Monta Ellis at SG, Anthony Morrow at SF, Stephen Jackson at PF, and the 6’6 Corey Maggette at center. (The Warriors not only lost, but also gave up 55 to Brandon Jennings.)
Nelson was a believer that if you’re going to do anything, you gain nothing by half-assing it. His teams not only played up-tempo, but were given carte blanche to take whatever shot they wanted, as many times as they wanted, so long as they played quickly and kept the score in the 110’s. He didn’t just play his stars 40 minutes a night, instead allowing his best players to play 45 or even 48 minutes of a big game, allowing the likes of Latrell Sprewell, Stephen Jackson and Monta Ellis to lead the league in minutes. Realizing that bigmen would only complicate his run-and-gun style, he did everything in his power to make his team as small and athletic as possible, explaining how someone like Maggette could wind up defending Andrew Bogut at the center spot.
Often times, his dogmatic approach was to the detriment of his own teams, such as the two aforementioned losses, or when he was mistakenly given the New York Knicks job in the mid-90’s, and tried to turn them into an up-tempo team in spite of an aging Patrick Ewing. But there were just as many success stories, such as in the 2007 playoffs, when he stuck Jackson at power forward and flustered Dirk Nowitzki to such a degree that he had only 8 points in the series-culminating Game 6. Nelson took teams with no real ambition at success and molded them into the shape he wanted, which more often than not was successful. And he deserves to be commemorated for being the only coach in the league (prior to Mike D’Antoni) with the guts to defy conventional wisdom and try to win, not with defense, but with offense.
Smart wisely didn’t make the mistake Terry Porter did when he was hired to replace D’Antoni in Phoenix. He’s kept most of Nelson’s philosophies intact, such as playing his stars an absurd amount of minutes and having them play that run-and-gun offense. Smart, though, may be too smart and too sensible for his own good. He’s trying to slow them down a bit and inject a little more defense, and he doesn’t want them to take the crazy shots they were allowed to take in Nellie’s day. And it’s for that reason that his team is a failure. A team composed of Monta Ellis, Stephen Curry, Dorell Wright and David Lee has no chance to win a conventional game against the likes of the Spurs. Their only prayer to is to play all-out, and Smart doesn’t want to do it. He’s trying to have it both ways, and the end result is neither. The Warriors aren’t bad, but they’re also an incredible disappointment for all the talent that they have.
There’s no question that Don Nelson would be running this team completely differently. Andris Biedrins, who’s moved and played like a dinosaur since coming back from surgery, would have no chance to stay in the starting lineup. Lee would be the center, Wright would be the power forward, Reggie Williams would probably be the small forward (or maybe Jeremy Lin or some other call-up, who knows?), and Curry and Ellis would be the guards. And he’d have them running and shooting three’s and defying NBA logic they way used to, and the way they still should.
And you know what? They’d be winning. For Nelson to have gotten sacked because of the Warriors’ record over the past two seasons was ridiculous. Even throwing out their injuries, which truly covered just about all of their players, Golden State’s management didn’t do a damn thing to sustain the unit he had in ‘07. Within three years, Golden State lost Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Jason Richardson, Al Harrington, Jamal Crawford, Marco Belinelli, Mickael Pietrus and Matt Barnes, and got... well, nothing for any of them, unless you think Brandon Wright has a future with the team. They should have been down on their hands and knees thanking Nellie that he even wanted to deal with them, but instead they showed him the door and they’re not getting it done. Big surprise.
(By the way, all you need to know about the Warriors’ front office is that their payroll is higher than the Miami Heat’s this year. The Heat are 39-15, the Warriors are 24-29.)
