Mavericks to Honor Don Nelson With ‘Nellie Night’ Against Warriors on Nov. 18

DALLAS - The Dallas Mavericks will honor Don Nelson on Nov. 18, when the Golden State Warriors visit American Airlines Center. The team announced “Nellie Night” on Thursday.

Nelson died Aug. 9 in Frisco, about three weeks after suffering a stroke, according to Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News. He was 86.

Tickets are at Mavs.com/Tickets, and the first 10,000 ticketed fans inside get a commemorative deck of playing cards. Players will warm up in Nellie shooting shirts. The team is also donating $25,000 in his name to the Humane Society of North Texas. His dog, Rosie, stood on the chancel beside his son, Donnie Nelson, at his Aug. 13 celebration of life at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church.

Tip-off is 8:30 p.m. CT on ESPN. Locally it’s on KFAA29 and MavsTV+, or 105.3 The Fan and ZonaMX 99.1 on the radio.

His first day as general manager was Feb. 7, 1997. When he added the head coaching job the following year, the franchise was 164-426 for the decade. He won 339 games from that seat, and Rick Carlisle is the only Mavericks coach with more, at 555.

Draft night was June 24, 1998. Dallas used the sixth pick on Robert Traylor, then flipped him to the Milwaukee Bucks for the ninth pick, Dirk Nowitzki, plus Pat Garrity, taken 19th. Townsend reported that Nelson fibbed to other teams beforehand, telling them Nowitzki owed a stint in the German army.

Steve Nash came from the Phoenix Suns minutes later for Garrity, two other players, and a 1999 first-round pick. Donnie Nelson had worked closely with Nash as a Suns assistant.

“Nellie was the most nervous I think he’s ever been in at any point in his NBA career,” then-team president Frank Zaccanelli said. “He was inhaling cigars.”

Passing on Paul Pierce, whom the Boston Celtics drafted one spot after Nowitzki, drew criticism that night, according to a Dallas Morning News timeline of Nowitzki’s career.

“I couldn’t believe it when he didn’t go [No. 3],” Nelson said at the time. “But it’s just my opinion that Nowitzki will be better.”

Nelson and Donnie were on a flight to Würzburg, Germany, the next day, because Nowitzki preferred two more years in Europe. By June 28 he was in North Texas with them and sleeping at Nelson’s house. He had packed a towel, unsure whether Nelson owned any extras. Two days later, on June 30, he committed.

Dallas was a decade removed from the playoffs when Nelson arrived. It went four straight seasons with at least 50 wins and a playoff trip from 2000-01 through 2003-04, and the 2002-03 team won 60 games and reached the Western Conference finals.

According to Townsend’s account of the service, Nowitzki stayed away to welcome his parents to his home in Sweden for the first time. Nash read his letter aloud.

“And I know Nellie would understand because he had such a connection with my family and Holger (Geschwindner), my coach,” Nowitzki wrote. “I think Nellie loved my dad more than he loved me.”

“When he came into a room, everything lit up,” Nowitzki added. “He was funny. He was loud. He was joking. He was truly one of a kind and he was the ultimate players’ coach.”

Nelson’s wife, Joy, his five grown children, and his grandchildren filled the first two rows.

“Thank you for sharing him with all of us,” Nash said. “And especially thank you for sharing him with me. Because you shared him with me, I was blessed to have a coach, a mentor and a man in my life who helped change its direction. I will never forget that.”

Nelson stepped down as head coach in March 2005. The Mavericks mourned him in a statement the afternoon he died.

Golden State had him twice, from 1988 to 1995 and again from 2006 to 2010. In his first year back, the eighth-seeded Warriors knocked out the Mavericks, who had won a franchise-record 67 games, in six games.

He broke the career record in Minneapolis on April 7, 2010, when a 116-107 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves gave him No. 1,333 and moved him one past Lenny Wilkens. Anthony Tolliver, in 45 minutes, shot 14-of-22. His gray hair was soaked in soft drinks by the time he came out of the locker room, according to The Associated Press.

Before the game, Nelson said he had been in contact with Wilkens as the record got closer.

“Lenny’s been an idol of mine for a long time,” Nelson said.

When that season ended, Nelson had 1,335 wins over 31 seasons with Milwaukee, Golden State, the New York Knicks, and Dallas. Gregg Popovich, whose 1,390 are the only higher total, was his top assistant with the Warriors from 1992 to 1994.

“His heart is bigger than the moon and softer than marshmallows,” Popovich said at the service.

Carlisle coached Dallas to its only championship, in 2011, with Nowitzki.

“Terms like ‘small ball, stretch-big, point-forward, positionless, cross-matching’ are all common terms today,” Carlisle said. “Nellie invented this stuff.”

“And it wasn’t until a few years ago when everyone else figured out this is the way the game should go,” Carlisle continued. “He was decades ahead of them. And in the history of human innovation, oftentimes the savant thinkers come up with something very simple and take it to levels none of us could have dreamed.”

Three Coach of the Year awards are in the release, along with his 2012 Hall of Fame induction and his place on the NBA’s 75th anniversary list of its 15 greatest coaches. Boston, which he joined in 1965, won five championships with him at forward over 11 seasons.

Nowitzki, Troy Aikman, and Darren Woodson were there in June when Nelson was given the Naismith Legacy Award at a North Texas ceremony. He died less than two months later.

Wednesday’s 120-96 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder put Dallas at 3-2 under Mavericks coach Dusty May, who was hired June 23.

The Houston Rockets are at American Airlines Center on Friday, 7 p.m. CT.