Don Nelson

Donald Arvid Nelson ( born May 15, 1940 in Muskegon, Michigan ) is a retired American basketball coach and players. As a player for the Chicago Zephyrs Nelson, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics was active, with whom he won the championship five times. As a coach, he oversaw the Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks, Dallas Mavericks and a second time the Golden State Warriors. He also coached the U.S. national team at the 1994 World Cup.

Playing career

Nelson was 1962-1976 in the NBA active, including the years from 1965 with the Boston Celtics. There he was to be a solid substitute an important relief to the forward positions and was eight years in a row ( 1967-75 ) achieved a double-digit points per game average. Overall, Nelson won five NBA championships with the Celtics.

Career as a coach

The first club of Don Nelson were the Milwaukee Bucks, which he coached from 1976 to 1987. In the ten years, the Bucks managed seven times more than 50 wins in the regular season. In the years 1983 and 1985 Nelson was awarded the NBA Coach of the Year Award. From 1988 to 1995 he was coach of the Golden State Warriors, where he was elected for the third time Coach of the Year in 1992. In 1994 he won the "Dream Team II " the gold medal at the FIBA World Championship in Canada. After an argument with Chris Webber, he left the Warriors and trained from July 1995 to March 1996, the New York Knicks, where he had problems with the players despite relatively good results. In 1997, he coached the Dallas Mavericks and managed with them more than 50 victories in four consecutive years, but without reaching the final round. On March 19, 2005 Nelson resigned as coach. As of August 30, 2006, he coached for the second time the Golden State Warriors, which under his leadership for 13 years again reached the playoffs in 2007 for the first time. There they beat, set at eight, which at one seeded former Nelson team the Dallas Mavericks 4-2, but dropped out in the second round against the Utah Jazz from.

In an occasion of the 50th anniversary of the NBA conducted in 1996 among sportswriters poll Nelson was voted one of the ten best coaches of all time. With victories in 1335, he is the most successful in this respect coach of all time. On 7 April 2010, he had replaced the previous record coach Lenny Wilkens ( 1332 ). In contrast to the players career when Nelson had brought with Boston five league titles, neither get him a championship in his 31 years as a trainer, however, still a final. On September 7, 2012, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Reputation as a coach

Nelson is known for his unconventional approach. During his coaching career he always put back on player positions, for which they seem unsuitable due to their anatomy and their abilities. He also experimented frequently with the tactical position and is considered the inventor of the position of point forward. The Hack -a- Shaq tactic he developed a tactic that relies on the selective use of intentional fouls. The team of Don Nelson is often said they would play on the offensive a run-and -gun basketball and neglect the defensive work tends to be.