Don Nelson's family confirmed Sunday that the Hall of Fame coach passed away, surrounded by loved ones after a difficult final week. "On Sunday morning our beloved husband, dad, grandfather and great-grandfather Don Nelson peacefully went to be with the Lord," the family said in a statement, adding that friends and family spent his last days "revisiting treasured memories."
Nelson's basketball life split into two acts. As a player, he won 5 championships with the Celtics dynasty of the '60s and '70s. As a coach, he became the second-winningest in NBA history with 1,335 regular-season wins across 31 seasons — a mark he held for nearly 12 years before Gregg Popovich edged past him in 2022. He bounced through Milwaukee, New York and Dallas before landing twice in Golden State, where he built his legacy as the godfather of small-ball, an approach everyone just called Nellie Ball: undersized, fast, mismatch-hunting lineups that the league eventually caught up to and copied.
That style is exactly why Golden State's tribute hit different. Nelson took a flier on a skinny 7th overall pick out of Davidson in 2009 named Stephen Curry, and the rest is history nobody could have scripted. Curry didn't hold back on what that meant.
The tributes poured in from every corner of the league. Adam Silver called Nelson a coach who "revolutionized NBA basketball through his fearlessness, ingenuity and deep conviction" over a career that spanned nearly 50 years in the NBA. Even Luka Doncic, who never played for Nelson but crossed paths with him in Dallas circles, sent his own message, praising how Nelson "believed in international players" — a nod to Nelson's role in bringing Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash into the league's mainstream.
For all the wins, Nelson never got the ring as a coach — his playoff record sat at 75-91 across 18 postseason trips, and a championship stayed just out of reach. But that never seemed to be the point with him. He was a maverick until the end, still needling the league about his old Dallas trade and showing up to award shows in Luka's sneakers just to make a point. The Nelson family announced a Celebration of Life for Thursday, August 13, at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas, with an ashes ceremony for friends and family to follow in Maui at a later date.