Don Nelson: A coffee pot at practice, barefoot golf in Maui, and basketball brilliance

He kept a coffee pot plugged in alongside the practice court in Oakland. He played golf barefoot in Maui.

And not the least, Don Nelson was a winner in basketball, both as a player and a coach.

Nelson died Sunday in Hawaii, where he lived after leaving the game. He suffered a stroke three weeks ago and had been in hospice care. He was 86.

A sports columnist, even older (blush), has his own memories of Nelson, who, playing for the University of Iowa, scored 32 points against Cal in a game that went four overtimes, December 28, 1960, at the long-gone Los Angeles Basketball Classic.

Iowa won that game by three points, 86-83. Nelson had made an impression on Southern California. And an area he would bedevil again as a member of the Boston Celtics against the Lakers. 

The numbers are outstanding. Nelson won five NBA titles in 11 seasons with the Boston Celtics. He never made it to the top as a coach either for the Milwaukee Bucks, or as we are most familiar, the Golden State Warriors. Still, he left his imprint on the sport.

The 2006-07 Warriors made history by becoming the only eighth-seeded team to win their first-round matchup. That team, led by guard Baron Davis, earned the “We Believe” nickname, which remains even now. What Nelson believed was that all his players should contribute. So, his teams had versatile athletes who could shoot, rebound, and defend. 

That style would become the essence of the Warriors in subsequent years when Steve Kerr became head coach, and championships were added with players such as Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson.

“Don Nelson was an innovator whose influence on the game of basketball is still felt today,” said Kerr, the current Warriors coach.

“He consistently challenged conventional thinking, experimented with different lineups and styles of play and saw possibilities in the game that others often did not. So much of what is now commonplace in the modern NBA can be traced back to the way Nellie approached the game.” 

It was the summer of 1989 when Nelson brought in a relatively unfamiliar Lithuanian,

Sarunas Marciulionis, who provided quickness and, for those who made up the lineups, a spelling problem.

Nelson was never reluctant to take a chance, and that philosophy carried over when in the 2009 draft he went after a guard who for some was a question. But Steph Curry more than verified Nelson’s selection. 

“The story is he never liked rookies,” Curry said in a social media post. “But from day one, he challenged me and gave me an opportunity to be my best self on the court.”

We know how that turned out.

Don Nelson had both foresight and skills worthy of his place in the Basketball Hall of Fame.