Sources: Don Nelson named Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award winner by National Basketball Coaches Association
Nelson talks about the honor, his career and this "last hurrah" in an exclusive interview with The Stein Line ... AND dishes on a statement he hopes to make with his attire about the Luka Dončić trade
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Indiana Pacers never would have reached the NBA Finals to steal Game 1 against the heavily favored Oklahoma City Thunder if Tyrese Haliburton hadn't already rattled in one of the most miraculous shots in NBA history.
Surely you haven't forgotten the highly fortuitous l-o-n-g two that Haliburton drained to force overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals at Madison Square Garden … his stepback hoist at the regulation buzzer that bounced straight up into the air off the back of the rim before dropping straight back through.
It was the NBA's modern-day homage to Don Nelson.
"I thought for sure the announcers would say something about it because it was very similar," Nelson told me the other day, reflecting on the decisive Game 7 shot he sank in the 1969 NBA Finals. "But they didn't mention it. It was kind of funny to me because that's the first thing I thought about.
"His shot was a lot longer and it went way higher than mine though," Nelson added with a laugh.
No. 19's right elbow jumper that caromed home in that "very similar" way off the unexpectedly kind iron of the old Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles helped the Boston Celtics become the first team in Finals history to swipe a Game 7 on the road and plunge yet another Finals dagger into the Jerry West-led Lakers. In the first-ever Finals to feature a Finals MVP, West would be named as the first and only Finals MVP recipient in league history from the losing team. The Celtics, with Bill Russell as player-coach, wound up winning their 11th championship in a span of 13 seasons.
Yet Nelson, in truth, is known far more for his coaching résumé than his playing achievements. He is the second-winningest coach in league history (1,335) behind only his good friend Gregg Popovich (1,422), was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame for his X-and-O nous in 2012 and — specifically because of his many successes and bench longevity with the Bucks, Warriors, Knicks, Mavericks and Warriors again — will serendipitously find himself in the same building as Haliburton on Sunday night.
Nelson, you see, is the 2025 winner of the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award presented annually by the National Basketball Coaches Association, league sources say. NBCA president Rick Carlisle comes to the NBA Finals every year to hand-deliver the award to its honoree before Game 2 ... but he'll have to do so this time while coaching Haliburton and the Pacers in the Finals.
"I think it's one of the best honors I ever had," Nelson said this week upon returning from his Hawaii residence to the mainland. "I'm very proud to get it.
"I haven't had shoes on for six years. And I haven't been on a plane for about seven. But I figured that this would be something I should probably be there for."
Nelson has been celebrating all week with old friends in Dallas and is openly referring to the whole experience as "my last hurrah." He recently celebrated his 85th birthday on May 15 and has indeed been difficult to lure away from his Maui base in his 80s, but there was no keeping him away from Sunday's ceremony.
On Tuesday night, Nelson joined his former Milwaukee Bucks star Sidney Moncrief and a large group of friends for a meal at Dallas' venerable Bob's Steak & Chop House. On Wednesday, after a couple pesky interviews, Nelson had breakfast with another mainstay from his old Bucks teams — Paul Pressey — before he was feted as the guest of honor at a party thrown for him at the old Sears complex in town.
So it's been a week of considerable reflection and gratitude for Nelson. He coached those four different franchises for 31 seasons. He was running the Mavericks' front office in June 1998 when his son Donnie co-orchestrated the draft-day trades that brought Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash to Dallas on the same day and had a loud voice in support of then-Warriors general manager Larry Riley in June 2009 when Golden State drafted a slight guard out of Davidson with the No. 7 overall pick named Stephen Curry.
As a coach, Nelson absorbed no shortage of criticism for failing to make it all the way to the championship summit that he reached five times as a Celtics player. Nowitzki and Curry both achieved their championship glory after he had moved on. Yet Nellie, as he is universally known among his peers, is a three-time Coach of the Year winner who will forever be regarded as one of the foremost innovators in the coaching business. He's known to this day for his ability to find and exploit matchup advantages … and his willingness to lean on small-ball lineups branded Nellie Ball and push the pace with the Run TMC Warriors ... and his wholly untraditional belief that Nowitzki could revolutionize the power forward position if given the freedom to pull away from the paint and shoot liberally from deep.
"In my opinion, Nellie was in the top echelon of all coaches in the last few minutes of the game," said fellow Basketball Hall of Famer Del Harris, who worked as Nelson's assistant in both Milwaukee and Dallas and won the Chuck Daly Award in 2020.
"The shot didn't always go in, or the stop was not always made, but he was always able to get his team the good shot or to mess with the other team's strategy," Harris said. "And players loved to play for him."
Said Nelson: "My epitaph should probably read, 'You know, he was a pretty good coach.' That's all that would matter to me. And 'loved by his family.' That's it. That'd be enough for me."
Nelson likewise insists that coaching was never the game plan. He actually tried first to extend his NBA career as a referee after his retirement following Boston's title triumph over Phoenix in 1975-76, working the famed Los Angeles Summer League in stripes. He was informed that the NBA felt he needed to put in a season of on-the-job training in the old Eastern League (which would become the Continental Basketball Association) before declaring him NBA-ready to officiate. Then came a call from former Celtics teammate Wayne Embry, who was running the Bucks' front office, asking Nellie if he was interested in working alongside Larry Costello in the days that NBA teams fielded only one assistant coach.
Then the Bucks, in their second season after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar forced a trade to the Lakers, started out a lowly 3-15. Costello abruptly resigned and Nelson, despite his scant experience, was suddenly elevated to head coach.
It was in his Milwaukee days that Nelson began to let us in on the quirky side that wasn't exactly on display as a longtime Celtic. When he wasn't putting the ball in Pressey's hands to establish him as one of the game's pioneering point forwards, Nelson was making headlines for wearing fish ties and challenging the establishment.
During the 1985-86 season, Nelson was under contract with Converse and tried to make sneakers an accepted element of an NBA coach's wardrobe. It was very un-Daly-esque, when you think about the impeccably attired coach who inspired this award, but Nelson stuck with his sneakers. He covered up the Converse logos with athletic tape when the league office policed the look … until he was finally ordered to ditch the sneaks altogether.
Nelson says he plans to pay tribute to some of his past fashion choices by wearing a pair of Luka Dončić signature shoes with a tuxedo jacket, jeans and a trademark necklace of shells from the island of Ni'ihau when he is marched onto the Paycom Center floor to receive Sunday's honor.
The footwear selection is most definitely not an accident. Donnie Nelson was at the heart of the Mavericks' draft-day trade to acquire Dončić's rights from Atlanta in June 2018. Don Nelson, who would leave the franchise in acrimony in March 2005 as his son also would in June 2021, came up with the idea to wear a pair of Luka 4s to publicly register his displeasure with Dallas' sudden decision to trade its Slovenian superstar away in February.
"Luka is my dear friend," Nelson said. "And to protest his being traded from the Mavericks to L.A., I'm going to wear a pair of his new shoes. I wanted to mention that.
"My philosophy was always, when you've got a great player, he's yours for a lifetime. You don't get rid of great players. When that happened, I was pretty disappointed."
It was the only disappointment Nelson shared in our 20-minute chat. He is thankful to Haliburton for making his 1969 shot relevant anew (see the enclosed YouTube clip to relive it) and grateful for a five-decade ride, on the court and on the bench, that he never could have imagined in his Quad Cities youth.
"As Bill Walton said: I'm the luckiest guy in the world," Nelson offered. "And I really believe that. I've just had the greatest life. I enjoyed every minute and I still do."
Full list of Chuck Daly Award winners
2009: Tommy Heinsohn
2010: Jack Ramsay and Tex Winter
2011: Lenny Wilkens
2012: Pat Riley
2013: Bill Fitch
2014: Bernie Bickerstaff
2015: Dick Motta
2016: K.C. Jones and Jerry Sloan
2017: Al Attles and Hubie Brown
2018: Doug Moe
2019: Frank Layden
2020: Del Harris
2021: Larry Brown
2022: Mike Fratello
2023: Rick Adelman
2024: Rudy Tomjanovich
2025: Don Nelson
This is why I subscribe! So few people these days have the relationships, NBA historical knowledge, and writing chops to do a piece like this. That quote about shoes is vintage Nellie. Thanks, Marc.
"I haven't had shoes on for six years. And I haven't been on a plane for about seven." GOAT quote.