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Mike Curtis: The #Mavs announce they will honor Hall of Fame coach Don Nelson on Nov. 18, when they host the #Warriors. The celebration will feature special in-arena tributes, highlights of Nelson’s Mavericks legacy & contributions from family, former players, coaches & friends. The first 10,000 ticketed fans will receive a commemorative Nellie-inspired deck of playing cards, and players will wear special Nellie shooting shirts during pregame warmups. The Mavs will also donate $25,000 in Nelson’s name to the Humane Society of North Texas to honor his love for animals.
“There’s pieces of every team’s philosophy today that goes back to Nellie,” Kerr said before Tuesday’s preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers. “He was really the original small-ball coach. Mike D’Antoni really changed the way people thought in the modern era. Nellie was like a one-man show back in the ’80s. He was doing it on his own, and nobody was copying him. … He was constantly thinking outside the box, and the game has really evolved into something that Nellie would love.”
Dalton Johnson: How did you guys know Don Nelson was different? Stephen Jackson: “When he stopped practice because his dog took a shit on the court.”
Danny Emerman: Steve Kerr celebrating “Nellie Night” with a pregame Bud Light. Warriors honoring the late Hall of Famer in their first preseason home game.
Joseph Dycus: The Warriors are honoring the late Don Nelson tonight as Golden State hosts the Lakers in San Francisco. Last week, Steph Curry shared his thoughts on the man who coached him during his rookie season, and who retired as the NBA's winningest coach.
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The conversation took place early in the 2008-09 season, but nearly two decades later, the exact dates get fuzzy for 82-year-old Larry Riley. He chatted with Don Nelson, one of his dearest friends and his boss at the time, late into the evening. Nelson, the Warriors head coach, told his top assistant that Riley’s temperament was a better fit for the front office than the front of the bench. “I’ll never forget it,” Riley said with his Southern twang. “What he was telling me was something I kind of knew inside anyway, but it solidified what I needed to do, and it solidified the direction that I needed to take in my career.”
Riley expects his arrival at Chase Center to be far more sweet than bitter. Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes, and Chris Mullin will be among the former players and staffers in attendance to honor Nelson, who coached the Warriors from 1988 to 1995 and from 2006 to 2010. Golden State players will wear a “Nellie” memorial jersey patch on their jerseys this season. Riley, who holds no ill will toward his former franchise, anticipates a beautiful night. “The sadness part of losing Nellie has begun to dwindle, which is typical,” Riley said. “That’s what normally happens. So I think more upbeat than sadness. The way Nellie lived, he would want it that way. He wouldn’t want people moping around full of sadness. Nellie knew how to celebrate. And this is going to be a celebration. I see it more as a celebration than anything else.”
It’s curious that someone with Riley’s draft track record — he also had a hand in picking Draymond Green in 2012 — never had another crack at running a team. Riley left the Warriors in 2018 and has since served as a senior adviser to the Atlanta Hawks. He never received another GM offer, though he said he turned down other front-office opportunities around the league. “I just always felt like my age was working against me,” said Riley, who was 68 when Myers replaced him. “I understand there are times where people want to look at someone with some experience and someone who’s older, and times when people want someone younger. It seems like we were approaching an age where everybody wanted new blood, and analytics were becoming a bigger thing. I don’t want that to be an excuse, but that’s one of the things that I look at.”
As Riley continued with the Warriors, he maintained strong relationships with Myers, former assistant GM Travis Schlenk, and executive Kirk Lacob. He wasn’t surprised by the ownership group’s restructuring — decades in basketball prepare you for such a moment. “I’ll always have a strong feeling toward the Warriors, because I had a small piece — and I want you to emphasize I’m saying I had a small piece — in being able to help build championship teams. Because of that, and because of the relationships I had with people in the front office, as well as the relationships I had with some of the players, the whole thing, I feel pretty good about.”
Steve Nash on Don Nelson: "He would push you, but he also believed in you. He made me more aggressive and less shy. I grew up in an era where the point guard was to run the team, organize the team, facilitate, and he thought that was bullshit. He's like, 'You can score the ball, you can attack. I want you to attack and shoot the ball as many times as you need to shoot the ball.' And one story that I remember, and the details maybe a little fuzzy, but we played Atlanta, I think, I came out pretty passive, maybe had like five points in the first half, we're down 20. He kind of laid into us, got on me for not being aggressive. I think I had 35 in the second half, and we lose in overtime, and he comes in the locker room and he was like, 'That's [expletive] bullshit. If you're a dominant player, dominate.' And he lit me up. You know, you're thinking, 'Yeah man, we lost, but got us back in the game.' He's like, 'That's unacceptable. Your job is to attack and to kill people.' And I think for me as a young player from the West Coast of Canada, someone believing like, 'You're as good as these guys. Don't sit and wait and play make, go.' And so that was impactful for me for the rest of my career to not be shy, to believe, to know I belong."
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The Golden State Warriors will honor Hall of Fame head coach Don Nelson with “Nellie Night” when the team hosts the Los Angeles Lakers at Chase Center on October 6 in the Warriors’ first home preseason game of the 2026-27 season. The game is scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m. The evening will celebrate Nelson’s legacy with former Warriors players and members of Nelson’s family in attendance, special in-game tributes and in-arena offerings, including: All fans in attendance will receive a commemorative “Nellie” pin upon entry. Souvenir “Nellie Night” beer koozies for 24-ounce cans, featuring logos from Warriors teams coached by Nelson, will be available for purchase at select locations in limited quantities. In a nod to Nelson’s 1,335 career coaching victories, select eateries at Chase Center will offer the “Nellie Ball Three-Pointer” for $13.35, featuring three Italian-style beef meatballs with roasted tomato sauce, whipped ricotta, Parmesan, garlic breadcrumbs and warm garlic bread. As previously announced, the Warriors will wear a “Nellie” memorial band on the team’s uniforms during “Nellie Night” and throughout the 2026-27 season. Nelson, who spent 11 seasons as head coach of the Warriors, passed away on August 9 at the age of 86.
Dirk Nowitzki reflects on the passing of Don Nelson: "That was a tough one, you know, and and I had just seen him when we gave him the lifetime achievement award in June and he looked good and and he held a little speech and he was funny. That hit me hard that he went downhill so fast now. Every time something like this happens, you go down memory lane a little bit and look at old photos and watch old films with him. He meant so much to me in my career. He's helped me with his system that when I came, it was perfect for me and he always gave me the confidence to play my game. He just saw the game a little different than most coaches and he really was a vital key piece for me to find my confidence, find my game, let me shoot threes, let me bring the ball up. It was perfect."
Brad Townsend: Mavs fans, circle Nov. 18. The franchise tenatively plans to honor former coach and GM Don Nelson, who died on Aug. 9. It would be appropriate if Nelson honored that night because Dallas is hosting another of his former teams, Golden State, which this season will wear a "NELLIE" patch on jerseys.
The Warriors are set to honor late NBA coach Don Nelson this season by wearing a band across the shoulder of their uniforms that reads “NELLIE.” Golden State announced the new patch Wednesday for Nelson, who died Aug. 9.