Hall of Famer Don Nelson dies at 86 years old

[ASFN Admin]

Marc Stein: Hall of Famer Don Nelson, three-time NBA Coach of the Year and five times a champion as a player with the Boston Celtics, has died at age 86. The family has issued this statement: “On Sunday morning our beloved husband, dad, grandfather and great-grandfather Don Nelson peacefully went to be with the Lord, surrounded by his loving family. Throughout his last week, friends and family encircled him with love, sharing the blessing of his friendship and revisiting treasured memories.”

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More on Don Nelson: Recent HoopsHype Rumors​

NBA draft night mostly was a blur for Warriors superstar Steph Curry. But he does remember the first thing he did when Golden State selected him with the No. 7 overall pick in 2009. "Getting that call from Larry Riley, the GM at the time, Don Nelson, who was the coach at the time, getting that call and being like, 'Hey, we're looking forward to having you, we're excited.' And then me quickly looking at my phone trying to figure out exactly where Golden State was," Curry recalled on WNBA star Azzi Fudd's "Fudd Around And Find Out" podcast. — 5/15/2026 NBC Sports Bay Area

Nelson understood this decades before anyone had a spreadsheet to prove it. He watched Russell make everyone around him better and stored it away. Nelson didn’t have the data to prove it. He didn’t need it. He built teams around it — point-forwards, three-guard lineups, a 7-footer launching threes — because he understood that a player’s value lived in what he made possible, not what he produced. The first analytics revolution gave basketball the language to challenge inherited thinking about individual players. The next one has to measure the whole sentence. — 4/14/2026 New York Times

Mike Curtis: Final: #Mavs 123, #Nets 114. Dallas wins its 2nd straight despite traveling on a game day. Bagley led the Mavs with 22 points. Marshall had 21 pts, 5 rebs & 7 asts. Williams added 19 pts & 10 asts. Jason Kidd also secured his 200th win as Mavs coach, joining Rick Carlisle, Don Nelson and Dick Motta. — 2/24/2026 x.com

Q. There was a moment they were they could have traded Stephen Curry. They were going to choose between him and Monta Ellis. Anthony Morrow: Yeah. Q. Was the belief when you were in practices, was the energy like, they fully have bought into Steph or was it kind of like we don't know, it's a little wobbly, like do they believe in him? I know Mark Jackson eventually did, but what was it like those early years? Was it like you could tell that he's kind of like a trial run with them or was it like he's the face of this franchise? Anthony Morrow: Day one. They started him first game of the season against Houston. He played well. It's like he had like 17, but he had like a terrible turnover that lost the game. And like I remember all the vets like he ain't ready to play, he ain't this, he ain't that. I'm like Don Nelson is not turning his back on him. He chose him. He's not turning his back, and it was just part of the game. Like in the process, in the journey. I was like, he turned his back on this boy, man. The way he played, Don was opening him up like play yourself like you did at Davidson, and it is what it is and I remember the whole sh*t going on with him and Monta, well it wasn't him and Monta, it was like the media and everybody else and Monta, with Steph and Monta, and I mean Monta is a hell of a player bro, he was super underrated, still my guy, he was cold and I think that the way they played they had, was too small of a back court for back then. — 2/15/2026 YouTube

Doncic, 26, whom Donnie Nelson acquired in a draft-night trade with the Atlanta Hawks in 2018, is part of his group of investors, sources in American and European basketball with knowledge of Nelson’s plans told The Athletic. While the Milan-based sports publication La Gazzetta Dello Sport reported that Dirk Nowitzki was also a part of Nelson’s group, his spokesman, Scott Tomlin, said that was not the case. According to one of the sources, Rimas Kaukenas, a Lithuanian legend as a player who was a longtime star in Italy, is also part of the group. — 2/11/2026 New York Times

Lakers star Luka Doncic is part of an investor group headed by former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson that is seeking to bring a team to Rome as part of NBA Europe, three sources told The Athletic. Nelson, 63, the son of legendary former NBA coach and executive Don Nelson, has a preliminary agreement in place to purchase an existing basketball team from northern Italy, Vanoli Basket Cremona, to potentially set up a much larger play of entering a team into NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s new European league. — 2/11/2026 New York Times

Luka Doncic is part of an investor group headed by former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson that is seeking to bring a team to Rome as part of NBA Europe, three sources told The Athletic. Nelson, 63, the son of legendary former NBA coach and executive Don Nelson, has a preliminary agreement in place to purchase an existing basketball team from northern Italy, Vanoli Basket Cremona, to potentially set up a much larger play of entering a team into NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s new European league. — 2/11/2026 New York Times

While the Lithuanians had hoop skills, they didn’t have enough money to compete as an independent nation four years later in Barcelona. To get his team into the Games, Sarunas Marčiulionis, who signed with the Golden State Warriors in 1989, began fundraising in the Bay Area with then-Warriors assistant Donnie Nelson (son of legendary head coach Don Nelson). The Grateful Dead — formed in Palo Alto, Calif., in 1965 by Weir, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Ron McKernan and Bill Kreutzmann — saw an article about the fundraising efforts in the San Francisco Chronicle and decided to help. Through the band’s nonprofit, the Rex Foundation, they gave the Lithuanians $5,000 and a box of tie-dye T-shirts. — 1/17/2026 New York Times

Mark Cuban: It was like — I had Yahoo stock at the time. If it went up 20 bucks, that paid for the Mavs — just like that. I remember, I was on the bus going to a game — going to the arena — sitting by Don Nelson and Del Harris, our coaches. And they’re like, because it was the most paid for any team at the time: Don Nelson and Dell Harris were like: “Why’d you spend so [expletive] much?” I go, “Nelly, the stock just went up. Yahoo stock went up 20 bucks today. That paid for the whole thing — right there.” Like, I didn’t have to stress over it at all. So I was like, “Let’s go.” — 11/24/2025 YouTube

Stephen Curry: Don Nelson, he went in the weight room cuz to your point, I came in 180 lbs maybe. They're trying to get me in the weight room doing all these lifts and stuff. I'm shooting like trash in training camp like the first week. He walked in there and cussed out everybody in the room. He was like ‘y’all killing his shot! He's lifting too much weight’. And to me, I didn't know that as a concept cuz like I always just wanted to get stronger. Like most of it was just vanity (Laughs). Well, I didn't even think about it in terms of shot. I know that there's a range of like body composition that matters to making sure everything moves right. So, if you're doing a big transformation, you can't change how your body moves. I never thought I could get to that point, but then when he caught it out, I was like, wait, are they really messing up my shot? — 11/4/2025 YouTube

This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Hall of Famer Don Nelson dies at 86 years old

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