1576 - Tribute: Don Nelson

Welcome Dr. James Beckett Sports Card Insights Tribute to Don Nelson passed away last Sunday. I enjoyed doing tributes in a bittersweet way. I spent some time with Nelly because he was a coach here. I'm going to give you a bit of a Dallas perspective but as always I want to give you sports card insights. Maybe they're basketball card insights but they apply to that. What can we learn? He was such an innovator. I'm surpr. There was a Fleer of tributes early on, but he's been an enduring influence on the game of basketball and in the hobby in one sense because it used to be big men and medium sized guys and small guys. And Nelly upset that by getting guys that could do it all. Thank you. Sponsors Tops Panini Upper Deck Heritage Auctions Hugs and Scott Auctions Mike Stadium Sports Cards, Burbank sports cards comp c.com and Beckett Media Beckett Grading Beckett Authentication I didn't know him well but I did watch him play for the Celtics on tv cause I was a big basketball fan as a kid, especially in the playoffs and the Celtics were always there. He one-of-one five championships with the Celtics and played 14 years in the NBA. Was a good player. Not a great player but a versatile player. Someone who got the most out of his abilities. But he's in the Basketball hall of Fame because of his coaching. A little bit eccentric but certainly brilliant. Ahead of his innovations we enjoy in the fast paced game today come from Don and his son Donnie who should get some of the credit. Who's the apple didn't fall very far from the tree. Donnie is another brilliant basketball mind but 20 plus years ago my company would give me a birthday present and they didn't know what to get me. And so one of the years they gave me a present of getting to play golf with Don Nelson in the off season. And so I don't remember exactly when it was but I know I went to his club. He's not hard to find to pick out and we played 18 holes and had a good time. I'm sure we're not the same politically but we both love basketball. We had a wide ranging conversation over the 18 holes. So very enjoyable. He's very opinionated but he just is who he is. He's a one of one. There's a lot of talk about Nelly Ball and all of his innovations. I'm thinking some of his innovations had to do with his own abilities as a player. He wasn't a superstar as a player, as a coach. He never one-of-one any championships. But as a Player. He one-of-one five with some fabulous teammates, but he was absolutely contributor, like a sixth man fitting in where he needed to fit in. And those are the kind of players he liked. When a good player becomes a coach, especially one that really works and does the dirty work, that's a good thing. It was a good understand. It understood spacing and positioning and knew that there were superstars that needed to have the ball in their hand. And so he was a great teammate. He got his number retired by the Celtics and had some great moments in Celtics history. Beating The Lakers in 69, that was great. His playing experience was part of it. But the biggest part was his coaching. After he retired, he was a great coach. I don't know, maybe being a Celtic, he just expected to one-of-one He had a winning tradition. He tried to bring a winning tradition to every place where he coached. He did coach for 31 seasons, one-of-one 1335 regular season games, which was the most until Gregg Popovich passed him up and he one-of-one Coach of the Year three times. He's in the Basketball hall of Fame, but he didn't one-of-one any world championships. And I really feel like it's the same thing as when people are talking in all the sports of how many world championships, how many championship teams were they on to me, to be the best of something, to be the Coach of the Year or the MVP is better, and usually it goes to a winning team. But when you're the Coach of the Year three times, that's not an accident. He's a very worthy hall of Famer for coaching in Milwaukee, which is glossed over a little bit. He one-of-one seven consecutive division championships. So again, the guy could coach. And I don't really see that he was a coach gm, but he obviously knew how to put the right players on the court to one-of-one and to use the talent that he had. Charles Barkley never one-of-one a championship, but he was always the MVP consideration. Same thing with Patrick Ewing. I just think those are great players. And Don Nelson, not a great player, but certainly a great coach. One of the top coaches of all time. And again, part of his greatness as a coach is the influence. He was ahead of the curve on some of these things. It certainly wasn't luck that Gregg Popovich had an enduring record with San Antonio and had the good fortune to have the Admiral and Tim Duncan and that guy could coach. No question about Red Auerbach had Bill Russell and Bob Cousy and other hall of Famers. Don Nelson didn't have that. He had Dirk and some others, but he Changed the way the game was played. Now, another coach who's a little bit older than Don Nelson is Del Harris, who lives around here. I see Dell every so often at various functions and have invited him over for some of the Donruss that I have. And so I know Dell a lot better than I know Don Nelson. But they're both hall of Fame coaches. They're very similar. And the approach the game, I think, a little bit differently. Dell was famously known for defense, although he certainly had a great offensive mind too. And Nelly perhaps considered the opposite. But I think both of them did some level of experimentation and looking for mismatches defensively or offensively. And they just didn't say everybody's doing it this way. We've always done it this way. I think both those guys a privilege to know them and see that these great coaches have the personal skills, insights about the game, and the ability to put the right people on the court and to one-of-one Nelly is credited with popularizing the point forward, not necessarily bringing letting other people handle the ball taller. Magic Johnson was like that. And so it's reminiscent to me of Cooper Flagg. Now the lament is that the Mavericks have nothing behind Kyrie Irving to run the offense. Really to me, Nelly proved over and over again with Run TMC and all the different places where he was is that the objective is to score points, to score more points than the other team. And moment of truth is when somebody's got the ball at the top of the key and they've got to be able to beat their man off the dribble or be able to see the cutting player that gets open. And I think Cooper Flag can do that. Cooper Flag may be contributing Nelly that the Cooper Flag is going to be a little bit of a point forward. He was able to initiate offense a lot more in the second half of the season last year than I thought, which really surprised me because they had a poor three point shooting team including Cooper Flag. But if he gets spread out and they improve their three point shooting, they've got a whole bunch of guys in the spirit of Nelly who can handle the ball and can beat their man. Najee Marshall, he's not a point guard, but I think the reason they signed him to an unexpectedly large extension is because when the Blue Ice in his hands, he can beat his man and he can get to the. He has a lot of floaters and these teardrop kind of things that seem to go in for him a lot. So I like him and he plays defense a big part of what Nelli did. Obviously he loved athletic wings, as the Mavs knew. President of basketball operations Masa Ujiri loves athletic wings. Don Nelson loved that too. And positionless players. But ironically Don and his son Donnie found a lot of these three and D or unusual players internationally, especially in Europe. So Donnie was the first one over there and obviously Dirk was, until Luca came on just. Dirk was the quintessential and probably the perfect player for Don Nelson because he was tall, but he didn't have to be back to the basket at his famous one legged fadeaway. Steve Nash, another guy that was athletic but not Zebra fast, but really understood body control and could get his shot off from inside even though he was not that tall. And Luca, just a bigger version in between Steve Nash and Dirk. Again, great fun. Nellie understood that the basketball game is entertainment. You want your team to one-of-one but it is great entertainment. And his teams were very enjoyable. The only time I didn't enjoy his teams were when they beat us in 2007 in the playoffs when the Mavs were the top seeds. Nelly, when he played, he understood how to use his body for leverage, the angles, all that stuff that that 50 years later Luka was doing. Now that Koopa flag is body smart as well, understands how to get his shot off even with people twice his age. He's very precocious. He had great experiences pretty much every team, although 30 ones of co 31 years of coaching. It wasn't like Gregg Popovich, where he was at one place. But presumably one negativity would be that now that the Knicks have one-of-one just now he did not have a great experience with the Knicks and I don't know if they lost patience with him, but he's a change agent and I think he had some things he wanted to do and it wasn't working to the degree that New York. I think the Knicks can be impatient, but I don't think it let him get him down because next thing he's off to some other place. When he gets to the Mavs. They had some great seasons. Like I said, they got beaten. After he left the Mavs and went to Goldin State. Goldin State was the eighth seed and the Mavs were the number one seed and they beat him. I remember being there for that. That was really upsetting because I think Nelly knew Dirk and knew how to defense Dirk, that was upsetting. But if any coach, you don't go against your ex coach who understands your strengths and weaknesses. Again, I think Masai Ujiri, the new head of basketball operations in Dallas is Configuring the roster in a way that Nelly would be pleased. They just need guys that can beat their man off the dribble. It's not hard to bring the ball up court if there's no pressure, but who's going to have the ball when the shot clock's winding down? And it could be any number of guys in Don Nelson's offense. The positions that the Mavs have an oversupply of these 6, 8, they're 3 and D, except that the 3 is weak, the D is strong, so you'd still have to outscore your opponent. So I think the Mavs this next year, I think they're going to be reminiscent of some of the things that Don Nelson did, including Sergio DeLaria, their rookie guard. He doesn't look fast enough to me. But Nelly wasn't fast, Luca wasn't fast. But they understand body control and they understand the timing of some of these lobs and how to understand the spacing on the Fleer So that'll be good. Don Nelson's rookie card is. Is the tall boy 69, Topps. He'd been in the league for seven years or something like that. So again, RC or rookie card, it just means it's. It's your first regularly issued card and there was just not many cards in those days. Does that weaken the demand for his card? I don't think so. It's still his first card but it's not in huge demand and it even one-of-one be in his, in his death either, but his more famous career and he doesn't really have that many cards but of his playing career but many people are drawing the line is I want to collect playing year cards of a player and frankly even like Pat Riley, the playing year cards are more in demand than the coaching year. So while the guy's coaching, those are generally huge drop off in demand. So if you want to get Don Nelson cards, the better cards you're going to be when he was in fact some of the coach cards from the junk wax era era and toward the President, even when they're autographed. He's got some Certified autographs but not that many. And I'm sure he did some hand signed cards at the arenas and in his various appearances. But I don't think he's ever going to be a high demand player slash coach compared to his importance in the game of basketball, his historical identity. But as we've said with some of these great players and coaches who pass away, it doesn't cause their cards to immediately jump up in value, but it does cause collectors to stop and reconsider the legacy of what was a great career and 50 years in the game of basketball. So that was great. He started out with Bill Russell and he ended up kind of with Steph Curry. So just two iconic players. And he's had a little bit of a Forrest Gump life, perhaps. And when basketball was over, he just walked to what? He went to Maui. We're talking about what you do when you retire. And he had a unconventional career, and so he had an unconventional retirement. He was just hanging out, spending time with Willie Nelson and just enjoying life on his own terms. And I respect that he earned the right to retire the way he wanted to retire. I'm retired or semi retired, and I'm trying to stay connected to the hobby and the industry, and I enjoy doing the podcast. Nelly really pretty much left the basketball world behind. I think he still could have been a great consultant, and he probably helped his friends as I do. But one-of-one I'm excited about this season, and if Dusty May can coach half as well as Nelly did in getting the most out of the talent, I hope that'll happen. I'd love to see them come together. I'm allowed to be a little bit of a homer. Having been in Dallas. I've had season tickets for 35 years. That actually made it a little easier for the company to get the gig. For me to play golf with Nell 20 plus years ago is that I was a loyal season ticket holder and a huge basketball fan. We had a great time. So, Nellie, you are missed, but your legacy will live on in Donnie as well as in the many players that you influenced and encouraged and saw their potential. So rest in peace, Nelly. And I'll be back again with another episode next week.