Don Nelson at 72: 'There is life after basketball'

OAKLAND - At the end — before Joe Lacob fired him — Don Nelson, the winningest coach in NBA history, was edgy, tired, burnt out. He doesn't remember it that way, but he was.

He was back in Oakland on Tuesday in preparation for induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame on Sept.7, and he was sunny. He used to have a glow but as things flamed out in Oakland, the glow dimmed. Now he was walking through the Oakland Marriott, wearing jeans and a Warriors jacket. He had lost 30 pounds and, at 72, he looked content.

He sat at the head of a long table in a private room in the fancy restaurant, sat in front of a dozen media people he had not trusted at the end. He was smiling and telling stories. He was being Nellie. At his best, he is the person known as Nellie.

He lives in Maui in a small town called Paia — it has only one stoplight — and his neighbors, as you probably know, are Willie Nelson and Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson, along with some locals. When Willie is in town, they play poker in Willie's garage. When Willie is away, they play over at Nelson's. When they play at Willie's, Willie says to come over at "dark 30." They usually show up at 6:30.

"There is life after basketball," Nelson said. He listed the things he's into. Not bragging. Just telling.

He's involved with a group called Shinola — he made the pun "(blank) from Shinola" — and said they make watches, assembled in Detroit, and he sells dog food, even starred in a dog-food commercial, and he has a farm partway up Mount Haleakala, where he grows coffee. His brand came in fourth in a Maui competition. It's called Nellie's Coffee and, according to him, "It's bold." And he grows olives for olive oil and flowers and he has 400 Koa trees.

He has a coffee shop in Paia and a shave ice stand and he rents cottages on the beach and, this really got him excited as he spoke, he's setting up a wedding business right on the beach near his house, including a 4,000-foot reception area. So, if you're in town, you can get married at Chez Nellie.

He was eating the Cobb salad and someone asked if he remembers his career fondly. I'll quote him a lot from now on. He's interesting and I don't want to get in the way.

"Oh yeah," he said. "It was a special life. I've been in the NBA since I was 22. You have a lot of ups and downs in coaching, especially, but I can't remember any bad times. A lot of tears when you lose, but I can't remember them. They're all positive now. Even the bad times were good."

He won the most games as coach but he didn't win a championship. How does he feel about not winning a championship?

"Part of that was my own doing. I had an opportunity when I was with the Milwaukee Bucks after we swept the Boston Celtics (1983 season) and they were going to fire Bill Fitch. After the last game, (Red) Auerbach — we were walking in the arena together — and he said, &‘Would you ever think about coaching the Celtics?' As a career move, I should have jumped all over it. I was on a year-to-year handshake with (Bucks owner) Jim Fitzgerald. But I said I just couldn't do it because Jim Fitzgerald was so good to me.

"I stayed and coached, and whatever my life was after that, it was void of championships. So part of it was my own doing and the other part I really enjoyed taking over bad teams and making good ones out of them. I was building something that wasn't very attractive and making it attractive. You get a lot of losses doing that."

Where did his concept of "Small Ball" come from?

"It all happened in the Celtic practices. What Auerbach would do — when it gets to midseason, then practices are drudgery — he would play the big guys against the small guys, and the smalls would always win. You put Bill Russell on the other team and everybody else big, and put the smalls on the other, and it wasn't a close game. Full court, the smalls always won. I'm sure that was the start of it."

Early in his career he was hard on players. When did he become players' coach?

"The change in my coaching career was when I was coaching Sarunas (Marciulionis in the early 1990s)). I was so hard on him because he kept making the same mistake over and over. I just didn't allow my players to make the same mistake over and over. He was so used to playing European, and he was so gifted he could just make all these errors. You couldn't do that in the NBA. I kept getting on him harder and harder and I kind of saw myself watching film what I was turning into and decided it would be a good idea to stop doing that. I started to not be as hard on my players. I was verbally abusive to my players on the floor. One time, I remember watching film. I said, &‘Who is that maniac?' It was me."

What does the Hall of Fame mean to him?

"It means a lot now. I always felt I was undeserving. When I'd get voted down, I just didn't think I'd probably ever make it. And I still feel unworthy. So many guys that are more deserving that aren't in — Al Attles, Fitch and Dick Motta. I was actually surprised when I made it. I just didn't think I was going to get there and I was OK with that.

How did he hear he was in?

"I was sitting on my porch in Maui smoking a cigar, drinking a cup of coffee. Called me in the morning. I told my wife first thing. I texted five of my friends and said, "I made the Hall of Fame,' and that's about it."

His thoughts on Monta Ellis:

"Despite his ability, it's very hard to win with small 2 guards in our league. When I first had him, I tried to get him to think more like a point guard. He did have the ability to pass. A player has to be willing to see that, too, and to do those things. His approach when he was younger was like a lot of guys, he's not ready to do that. He was going to be what he was, but now he's more of an all-around player than I've ever seen him. He is passing more and seeing players. He's a good teammate now. When he was young, he thought he was so dominant that he could do all these things we witnessed, that he can get 35 points a game. Now that he's maturing, he's a better basketball player."

Someone asked what Nelson would say if a team asked him to be its coach. He smiled, laid down his fork, took his time.

"I'd say I'm retired. I'm done. I'm cooked. It's over."

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