Sports: Nellie hanging on to most wins.
Nellie’s NBA regular-season wins record, challenged by Popovich, may be preserved by pandemic shutdown
On April 7, 2010, the Golden State Warriors defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves by nine points, marking a career milestone for then-head coach Don Nelson.
As folks in Minnesota’s Target Center responded with polite applause, Warriors players huddled around Nelson to celebrate his becoming the winningest coach in NBA history. Nelson had coached 31 years in the NBA, winning as many as 60 games a season and as few as 14. He would retire at the end of 200910 season with 1,335 career wins — a record that stands today.
“I think it’s something that just happens if you’re in the league long enough and, if you’re able to get a bunch of wins, you got a shot at it,” Nelson said in a phone interview last week. “But a lot of guys don’t coach that long.”
A decade later, Gregg Popovich, Nelson’s former assistant and current head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, is the only active head coach within a stone’s throw of the record — 63 wins behind Nelson. But the NBA’s indefinite suspension of the season due to the spread of the coronavirus could make it difficult for Popovich to unseat Nelson as the
league’s all-time winningest coach. After 24 years, it’s unclear how much longer Popovich, 71, will continue to coach.
As Nelson, 79, approaches today’s 10th anniversary of his passing Lenny Wilkens in regular-season wins, he says he wants his longtime friend Popovich to coach long enough to claim the record.
“I hope he gets it,” Nelson said. “I hope he gets it soon.”
Under Popovich, the Spurs have won at least 55 games 15 times, but have won 63 games just once. To surpass Nelson’s mark of 1,335 wins, Popovich would likely have to coach at least two more seasons.
Nelson first noticed Popovich in 1991, when Nelson’s Warriors beat the Larry Brown-led Spurs in the first round of the playoffs. Popovich was Brown’s top assistant, and Nelson came away from the five-game series impressed by Popovich’s ability to relate to players while also commanding their respect.
A year later, then-Spurs owner Red McCombs fired the coaching staff. Hearing Popovich was in need of a job, Nelson arranged for him to fly out to the Bay Area and hired him the same day. It was the first time they’d met. “I just thought he was special,” Nelson said. “Never been around anyone quite like him.”
That started a lasting relationship. Popovich served on Nelson’s staff for two seasons before he returned to San Antonio as general manager in 1994. In his new post, Popovich wanted to hire Nelson as head coach.
“He called me up and said, ‘I want you to come here and be my coach.
If you can get out of your contract, would you consider that?’ ” Nelson recalled. “I said, ‘Well, absolutely. I’d love to because I don’t think I’m going to be here for very much longer.’ ”
Following a 34-win season, the Warriors had landed Chris Webber, a skilled, 6-foot-10, 20-year-old in a 1993 draft-night deal with the Magic. In Webber, Warriors ownership believed they had a star who could turn the franchise around.
However, Nelson and Webber didn’t get along. Nelson wanted Webber to play center in small-ball lineups and Webber wanted to play on the perimeter with the ball in his hands. Their relationship quickly deteriorated until it was irreconcilable. With Webber threatening to demand a trade, Nelson asked then-Warriors owner Jim Fitzgerald to let him out of his contract so he could take the Spurs job.
“I begged him to go ahead and let me leave,” Nelson said. “I said ‘You know it’s time for me to move on, and I have a great opportunity and I’d love to take it.’ I was rejected, so I lost that opportunity.”
So Popovich hired Bob Hill away from the Indiana Pacers. Two years later, Popovich fired Hill after a 3-15 start to the 1996-97 season and replaced him as head coach. The following summer, the Spurs drafted Tim Duncan. Over the next two decades, Popovich and Duncan would win five championships and more than 1,200 games.
“It’s kind of funny how it worked out,” Nelson said. “Just think, I had a chance to coach Tim Duncan.”
Meanwhile, Nelson coached until 2010, taking jobs with the New York Knicks, Dallas Mavericks and the Warriors for a final four-year stint. Had he been allowed out of his contract and hired by the Spurs in 1994,
Popovich wouldn’t be only 63 wins from catching him. He’d be much further behind.
When the NBA suspended the season on March 11, the Spurs were 27-36, poised to miss the postseason for the first time since Popovich took over as head coach in 1996. At their pace, San Antonio would have won eight more games this season, drawing Popovich to within 55 games of Nelson’s regular-season record.
Popovich signed a three-year extension in April, but, according to the Athletic, is “widely believed to be taking a year-by-year approach” to retirement. Bouncing back to win 55 games next season is one thing, it’s another to win 63.
Those who know Popovich, however, don’t expect the record to factor into his decision.
“I don’t think it matters that much to either one of them, in a good way,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “It doesn’t define them.”
Even with little to do, Nelson won’t celebrate the 10th anniversary of his milestone victory. Today, he is sheltered-in-place at his Hawaii home, where he grows vegetables and cannabis for personal use and waits for the golf course to reopen. He didn’t watch much of the 15-50 Warriors this season, because he didn’t enjoy seeing them lose. For people like Nelson and Popovich, losing is intolerable. That’s what all the winning is for.
“It’s hard (to keep coaching) when you don’t have a good team or you’re not a contender,” Nelson said when asked about Popovich. “It’s easy when you have a great team and you can kick butt every night.
“But I hope he coaches long enough for him to take my record. I’d love for him to have it.”