Nellie Ball

PARIS (George Eddy's International Show) - If ever there was someone deserving of a spot in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, it was Don Nelson.

Among the 12 recent inductees, he stands out as a winner of five NBA titles as a sixth man - bridging the gap between the Boston Celtics of the Bill Russell and Dave Cowens eras along with John Havlicek - but even more so, as one of the most inventive and innovative coaches of all time.

He, more or less, invented the role of point forward, running the half-court offense through a passing forward like Paul Pressey or Anthony Mason.

He liked using a three-guard offense and uptempo, high-scoring pace which became known as 'Nellie Ball' with Steve Nash in Dallas or Run TMC with Golden State.

A lot of today's small ball tendencies were influenced by Nelson's creative coaching with high-speed play, quick shots, spacing and spreading the court, dribble drives and numerous possessions leading to prolific scoring.

Nelson said that throughout his career it was always the smaller, quicker teams that won the scrimmages even when Bill Russell was the adversary.

He did coach some very tall centers like Jack Sikma, Manute Bol, Shawn Bradley and Raef LaFrentz but he liked to put them out at the three-point line to shoot and draw the opposing center away from the lane to open up drives for his guards.

He was famous for many 50-win seasons with four different teams and playoff spots but also for early exits due to the stiff competition from the 1980s Lakers and Celtics , 1990s Bulls or the Lakers and Spurs in this millenium.

Nelson was always an iconoclast in the NBA microcosm and along with his son Donnie was a pioneer for scouting and recruiting international players like Sarunas Marciulionis and Dirk Nowitzki. Remember how people laughed at the Nelsons for trading for Dirk's draft rights before he became one of the greatest players of all-time!

They also went along with the wild idea that Dirk was a seven-foot forward and three-point specialist way before the modern-day fashion of long-range shooting fours.

To say that Don Nelson was way ahead of his time is evident. His Milwaukee team played in the first McDonald's Open and he also coached Dream Team II to gold at the 1994 FIBA World Championship in Toronto.

Nelson loved to do the unexpected on and off the court. In Dallas he chose his successor, Avery Johnson, and fixed the timetable for his taking over the reins. Then he beat his old team, Dallas, in the 2007 playoffs in one of the biggest upsets of all time since Dallas was the number one seed and Golden State only eighth. This was sweet revenge for Nelson who had a financial disagreement brewing in the courts at that time with his former owner, Mark Cuban.

He was a coach who liked to run the show, choose and change his players according to gut instinct and he didn't hesitate to ruffle some feathers along the way.

In the end, he will be remembered as the winningest NBA coach of all-time, a three-time winner of the Coach of the Year award and one of the key inventors of modern basketball.

Nelson said he hopes that now that the Hall of Fame gig is over he won't ever need to wear a tuxedo again and he invites everyone to come to his coffee shop in Maui to banter about basketball.

Hey, that sounds like enlightening fun!

George Eddy

FIBA

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