Don Nelson’s legacy with the Dallas Mavericks will forever be remembered through wins, playoff appearances and the Hall of Fame career he put together as a coach. Nelson’s presence in Dallas goes beyond his won-loss record. He also changed Mavericks culture forever.

Nelson changed what the Mavericks believed they could be.

The Hall of Fame coach and former Mavericks executive died Sunday at age 86, his family announced. Nelson died peacefully Sunday morning surrounded by his family, according to a statement from his family.

His death closes the book on one of the most accomplished and innovative basketball lives the NBA has seen. Nelson was a five-time NBA champion as a player, a three-time Coach of the Year and one of the winningest coaches in league history. His career took him from Iowa to Boston, Milwaukee, Golden State, New York and Dallas before eventually settling into retirement in Maui.

For Dallas, Nelson’s death also means losing one of the main architects of a franchise that desperately sought an identity for most of the 1990s.

Dallas was lost.

Nelson arrived before the 1997-98 season and inherited a team that hadn’t been to the playoffs in seven years. The Mavericks had talent in Michael Finley, but they hadn’t established a culture of winning in North Texas just yet.

Nelson helped change that culture.

Working alongside his son, Donnie Nelson, Nelson worked tirelessly to build around Finley, Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki, guiding Dallas out of one of the franchise’s darkest eras.

Dallas acquired Nash from Phoenix in 1998. That summer, Dallas maneuvered on draft night to acquire Dirk Nowitzki, a 20-year-old German forward whom Donnie Nelson had strongly advocated for and who became the greatest player in franchise history.

Don Nelson was open-minded enough to see Nowitzki’s potential. Nelson realized things before it was the norm. Long before teams took major swings on international players, Nelson experimented with lineups and looked at players others ignored.

Nelson saw value in players who didn’t fit the mold of traditional positional basketball.

That appreciation for skill fit Nowitzki. The German seven-footer could shoot, handle the ball and operate on the perimeter at a time when NBA bigs were still largely pigeonholed into playing inside the paint.

That philosophy had been developing long before Nelson arrived in Dallas.

A two-time All-American at Iowa, Nelson entered the NBA in 1962 and eventually found his home with the Boston Celtics. Playing for one of basketball’s defining dynasties, Nelson won five NBA championships in 1966, 1968, 1969, 1974 and 1976.

His playing career ended in 1976, but another part of his basketball life was just beginning.

Nelson took over the Milwaukee Bucks during the 1976-77 season and spent 11 seasons there. Milwaukee won seven consecutive division titles during his tenure as Nelson began developing the unconventional approach that would eventually make him one of basketball’s most influential coaches.

He helped pioneer the use of the “point forward,” allowing bigger players to initiate offense in roles traditionally reserved for guards. His use of smaller lineups, versatile players and unconventional matchups became part of a philosophy eventually known as “Nellie Ball.”

Nelson brought those ideas to Golden State in 1988. With Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin forming “Run TMC,” the Warriors became one of the NBA’s most entertaining offensive teams.

After a brief stint with the New York Knicks, Nelson eventually made his way to Dallas, where those ideas helped reshape a struggling franchise.

Dallas became different, too.

Nelson brought the Mavericks back to the playoffs in 2001 and into the Western Conference finals two years later. A franchise that struggled to find its footing in the NBA became one of the league’s more consistent winners under Nelson.

His influence in Dallas reached beyond his coaching career, too. Nelson stepped away from coaching duties late in the 2004-05 season, but his fingerprints were still all over the franchise.

Dallas reached the NBA Finals one season after Nelson stepped away. Five seasons after that, Nowitzki captained the Mavericks to the franchise’s first championship.

Even now, more than a decade after Nowitzki’s title, Dallas continued to shift with the game, part of an outlook Nelson implemented many years ago.

Luka Dončić was yet another testament to the Mavericks’ international approach to basketball that Nelson helped pioneer. Donnie Nelson had scouted Dončić for years and was a strong advocate for acquiring him before Dallas eventually traded up to select the Slovenian superstar with the No. 3 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft.

Don Nelson stayed connected to Dončić long after he and his son were gone from the Mavericks organization.

Don Nelson wore a not-so-subtle message on his feet after Dallas traded Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2025. While on stage accepting the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award during NBA Finals week, Nelson wore Dončić’s signature sneakers and spoke out on the trade he felt was a “tremendous mistake.”

Nelson recalled a lesson he learned from Red Auerbach about keeping great players, including Bill Russell, John Havlicek and Sam Jones.

“You keep him for a lifetime,” Nelson said. “You put his number up, and you honor that player. That’s been my philosophy.”

Nowitzki fit perfectly into that definition, spending all 21 of his NBA seasons with the Mavericks while becoming an MVP, NBA champion and Finals MVP.

By the time Nelson’s coaching career was over, his place in basketball history was secure.

He won three NBA Coach of the Year awards and finished his career with 1,335 regular-season victories, second in NBA history behind Gregg Popovich. Nelson coached for 31 NBA seasons, reached the playoffs 18 times and became one of the rare coaches to win at least 300 games with three different franchises.

His influence stretched beyond the NBA as well. Nelson coached the United States to a gold medal at the 1994 FIBA World Championship.

The league later named him one of its 10 greatest coaches during the NBA’s 50th anniversary celebration and one of its 15 greatest coaches during the league’s 75th anniversary season. Nelson was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.

His final coaching stop brought him back to Golden State in 2006.

In his first season back, Nelson led the “We Believe” Warriors to a stunning first-round upset of the 67-win, top-seeded Mavericks. It was an unusual chapter in his relationship with Dallas, with the coach who helped build the Mavericks into contenders returning to eliminate them during one of the greatest seasons in franchise history.

Nelson coached Golden State through the 2009-10 season. The Warriors replaced Nelson with Keith Smart before the start of the following season. Nelson didn’t formally retire then, but he never coached in the NBA again.

Instead, he settled full time in Maui, Hawaii, with his wife, Joy, in 2011.

His life there became much quieter than the one he lived on NBA sidelines. Following the wildfires that engulfed Maui in 2023, Nelson and his wife opened up their vacation rental properties to locals at no cost, providing housing for people displaced by the disaster.

Basketball, however, never completely left Nelson’s life.

His impact on the game lived on long after he stopped coaching. The lineups he deployed, offensive concepts and skilled big men were all glimpses into the future of basketball. What was once considered unconventional increasingly became normal as teams across the league embraced smaller lineups, shooting, versatility and players who could operate outside traditional positions.

Dallas was where a lot of those strategies found a home.

Mavericks Governor Patrick Dumont said Nelson’s influence will continue to be felt in Dallas and throughout the NBA.

“Don Nelson was a true original whose impact on the Dallas Mavericks and the game of basketball will endure for generations,” Dumont said. “Nellie helped transform this franchise, bringing an innovative spirit, a belief in doing things differently and, most importantly, a winning culture to Dallas. His influence can be seen throughout Mavericks history and across the NBA today.”

Dumont also extended condolences on behalf of the organization.

“On behalf of the entire Mavericks organization, our thoughts are with Don’s family, friends, former players and coaches, and the many people whose lives he touched,” Dumont said. “We are grateful for all he gave to the Mavericks and to the game he loved.”

Just two months prior to his passing, Nelson was back in Dallas to receive the Dr. James Naismith Family Legacy Award at Gilley’s Dallas. He was surrounded by four generations of his family.

It became one of the final public celebrations of a basketball life that stretched more than six decades.

Nelson was a champion as a player, an innovator as a coach, a Hall of Famer and one of the most important figures in Mavericks history.

He changed basketball forever, and in Dallas, he changed the Mavericks’ culture and what the organization thought it could become.