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In the mid 1980s, farmers throughout the U.S. were being squeezed between high interest rates on operating loans and low prices for commodities; lacking a sufficient government safety net, over 300,000 farmers defaulted on loans during this decade and even more farmers found themselves struggling to break even.

Clarence Willcome was one such farmer. He owned a dairy farm near Birnhamwood, a small town between Wausau and Green Bay in northern Wisconsin. The 59-year-old father of thirteen was a two-time heart attack survivor with a pacemaker and a pile of debt.

In April 1986, he wrote a letter to a guy who grew up on a farm asking him for advice.

By the time Don Nelson got around to replying to the letter, his Bucks had been swept by the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. The team, widely acknowledged as one of the best in NBA history, was on its way to a championship. Nelson would spend his summer doing something that was, perhaps, more significant than winning a title.

After losing game four against the Celtics, Nelson told reporters, “I am not feeling very good right now, yet I’m not losing my home or going bankrupt and having to start over with my life.”

He pledged his share of the Milwaukee Bucks’ playoff bonus to Clarence Willcome, and convinced Herb Kohl, then the owner of the Bucks, as well as Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing, to kick in and help as well.

But this was just the beginning.

Having put on a few pounds since his playing days, Nelson went on a diet and invited donations for each pound he lost.

He also took off on a 250-mile jaunt through Wisconsin in August of that year, driving a tractor as part of a campaign to raise funds and awareness to assist farmers.

It was a colossal give-back from a guy who definitely knew hardship growing up.

Don Nelson was born on May 15, 1940, in Muskegon, Michigan. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Grant, Michigan, where his father tried his hand operating a maple syrup farm. Two years later, the family packed up and relocated again, this time to his grandparents’ farm outside Sherrard, Illinois.

His first experience playing basketball came there. As happened on farm after farm in the Midwest in that era, Nelson learned to play on dirt, shooting at a makeshift hoop nailed to an outbuilding. In his case, it was a spokeless bicycle rim attached to a chicken coop.

Nelson started school in a one-room schoolhouse with seven other students, three of them being his sisters, and all taught by an 18-year-old girl fresh out of high school. It was a school that Nelson occasionally attended barefoot.

Don had a rocky relationship with his father, who constantly lectured him, but his mother doted on him; in her eyes, according to Sharon, “the sun rose and set on Don.” “He’s got his mother’s heart,” his oldest daughter would later remark, “very tender and affectionate.”

Just before Don started seventh grade, his grandparents lost their farm.

The family relocated to Rock Island, Illinois, and Nelson began playing competitive basketball, “I went out for my seventh-grade team and got hooked on basketball.”

The Nelsons lived in town, and Don used to stop at various locations on the walk to school in the morning and shoot hoops. His afternoons were spent at the YMCA doing the same.

He grew to a suitable height for the game, topping out at 6’-6” and playing center for the Rock Island Islanders.

Nelson jumped to the varsity squad as a sophomore, and was a starter by the time his junior year rolled around. He made First Team All-State as a senior. During Nelson’s two years as a starter, the Islanders racked up a 47-7 record, while Nelson put up incredibly gaudy numbers given that he was playing a 32-minute game without a shot clock. As a senior he averaged better than 21 points per game and set a school scoring record. There were opponents and occasions in his senior year where he was triple-teamed in an effort to slow him down.

Despite those numbers, Nelson was not a hot recruit. The only real interest in his services came from the University of Iowa, and his father thought that he would be better served working as a watch repairman, a thought that amused Don’s first wife, Sharon: “Can’t you see Big Don sitting there with those little glasses, fixing watches?”

Bucky O’Connor was the coach at the University of Iowa, and he’d been recruiting Don. Bucky had an eye for talent, and was fresh off coaching the Hawkeyes to a pair of Final Four appearances (1955, 1956). Nelson signed a letter of intent to play for the team. Then, O’Connor was killed tragically in a car accident in April of 1958.

Bucky’s replacement was Milton “Scharm” Schuerman, who had graduated from Rock Island in 1952, and who had just traded his basketball jersey for the clipboard of an assistant coach the previous fall. The death of O’Connor made him head coach of a Big Ten squad when he was just 24 years old.

As a sophomore (freshmen were ineligible to play college basketball in those days), Nelson averaged a double-double, toting up 15.8 points and an even ten rebounds per game. In his junior and senior years, he averaged 23.8 points per game. His rebounds per game jumped every year, going from ten as a sophomore to 10.6 as a junior and then 11.9 as a senior. He left the program as the school’s all-time scoring leader.

Once again, Nelson’s numbers didn’t attract that much interest from the next level of basketball. He had planned on becoming an assistant coach with Iowa, but the Chicago Zephyrs had expressed an interest in him, and as Nelson later recalled, “I figured I could always fall back on coaching if a playing career didn’t work out.”

He was picked in the third round of the 1962 draft by the Chicago Zephyrs. He spent a year in Chicago, where he averaged a respectable 17 minutes as a rookie, but the team didn’t see much of a future in either him or Chicago.

They decamped for Baltimore and became the Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) and Nelson was picked up by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Nelson spent a year and a half playing for Fred Schaus’ squad, but again, the team didn’t see a lot of value in what Nelson brought to the table either, and he found himself unemployed once more when 1965 rolled around.

Don was 25, hadn’t finished his degree requirements at the University of Iowa, and his future seemed to be particularly dim. The only work he’d done apart from basketball up to that point was manual labor.

By then, Nelson was a family man—he and wife Sharon had welcomed their first daughter, Julie, into the world in 1961, followed, in rapid succession, by a son, Donnie in 1962, and another daughter, Chris in 1963. A fourth child, Katie, joined the family in 1967.

In 1965, the Lakers had just lost to the Celtics in the Finals, and a player who was apparently not good enough to suit up for the losing team had caught the eye of the winning team’s coach.

While Red had a well-deserved reputation for being astute at both drafting and trading, his ability to recognize talent wherever he found it included picking up guys off waivers, and none of these castoffs turned out better than Nelson.

With Havlicek working his way towards a starting role, the team would soon be in need of a good sixth man, and Nelson was Red’s target to slot into the role that he had pioneered with Frank Ramsey and expanded with Hondo.

Red offered Don a one-year, $11,000 contract, which was $4,000 less than his rookie deal; Don swallowed his pride, took the deal, and spent the next eleven seasons wearing green and white. It wasn’t a bad career for a guy who retained a modest view of his on-court abilities: “I had to work all the time, do everything extra I could,” Nelson would recall, adding, “I was just average.”

The Celtics faced off against Nellie’s former team in the Finals three times in the next four years.

Boston prevailed all three times.

Down three games to two in the 1969 Finals, Nelson scored 41 points across two must-win games, nearly double his season average. His final two points came with a minute and a half to go in the fourth quarter of Game 7. The Celtics were clinging to a 103-102 lead when Nelson’s shot bounced up off the back of the rim passing high above the backboard before dropping cleanly through the net, narrowly beating the shot clock and stopping an 8-0 Los Angeles run. “I shot it so poorly that it hit the back of the rim and it went way up in the air, and it came down and went straight through the basket,” Nelson would later recall. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

In the early years of the 1970s, the Celtics had to rebuild their squad—among the major contributors to the 1960s dynasty, only Nelson and Havlicek carried the torch on into the 1970s.

However, Auerbach’s shrewd drafting and trading brought the Celtics back into contention by 1973, when they lost a closely contested Eastern Conference Finals to the eventual champion Knicks. The following year, the Celtics would win it all. Coached by Tommy Heinsohn, the Celtics faced the Milwaukee Bucks in the Finals, and Nelson played a key role in defending Kareem, despite about an eight inch height differential between the two players. Heinsohn’s strategy of double- and triple-teaming Kareem in the decisive game didn’t do much to slow down the Bucks’ center, but it did lighten the load on Dave Cowens enough that he was able to outscore Kareem 28-26, as the Celtics secured their twelfth championship overall and their first of the post-Russell era.

Don played two more seasons with Boston, going out a champion with the 1976 squad that defeated the Phoenix Suns in six games.

After retiring, Nelson had a family meeting in Moline, Illinois at a Maid-Rite restaurant—a small Midwestern chain specializing in loose meat sandwiches and fried chicken. His son Donnie recalled that his father presented the family with three options. He could sell cars, become a referee, or take a job as Larry Costello’s assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks.

According to Donnie, the vote came down 5-0 in favor of the assistant coaching gig.

Although he had spent just a year playing for Auerbach, he called that year “a master class.”

“I learned everything that I knew about coaching from Red,” Don would say years later. “I basically adopted what he imparted.”

In addition to his year as a player under Red, Nelson cultivated a close friendship with the coach, taking advantage of every opportunity he had to soak up Auerbach’s knowledge of the game—and his ability to handle players.

Eighteen games into his first season as an assistant coach, Larry Costello was fired and he was promoted to the head coach assignment.

Don would coach the Bucks from 1976 to 1988, becoming the franchise’s winningest coach, securing eight consecutive playoff appearances, seven straight Central Division titles, and six consecutive 50 game winning seasons. Despite these regular season accomplishments, Nelson’s teams failed to achieve the highest level of success in the playoffs, although a fair bit of that can be attributed to the overall strength of the Eastern Conference. On four occasions the Bucks were eliminated by the eventual league champs. Only once was Nelson able to defeat his mentor’s team, and that was when the Celtics were in nearly open revolt against their own coach, Bill Fitch.

Nonetheless, Nelson cut a unique and memorable figure as a head coach.

At a time when the informal dress code for coaches was a bit more strict than it is these days, Nelson waged a small campaign of protest by wearing tennis shoes—sometimes held together with tape—and ties that looked like fish.

When the Bucks felt it was time to move on from Nelson, he quickly found a spot in California, coaching the Golden State Warriors.

Nelson brought a run-and-gun style of offense to the Bay Area, with his “Run TMC” squad of Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin bringing a measure of success to a franchise that had been mired in the Western Conference doldrums for the past decade. Before Nellie arrived, the Warriors had finished above .500 exactly once in ten years; Don bested .500 in year one, and recorded a pair of 50-win seasons while dealing with an injury-prone team. More than that, though, he brought excitement back to the fans. “The fast-paced play was so fun to watch, and there were so many enter­tain­ing head­lines between games, that I don’t have memor­ies of a single defeat,” wrote San Francisco Chronicle columnist Peter Hartlaub in a tribute to the coach.

In 1991, the San Antonio Spurs lost to the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs. Just over halfway through the following season, the Spurs fired head coach Larry Brown, and at the end of the season, his coaching staff was also dismissed.

But, in the same way that Auerbach had seen something in Nelson that the Lakers overlooked, Don saw something in one of Brown’s assistants that Spurs GM Bob Bass had missed.

He leaped at the chance to bring Gregg Popovich onto his staff.

The two would become lifelong friends, even if Nelson did, on one memorable occasion, prank the seemingly unprankable Popovich.

Popovich had a great deal of admiration for Hank Egan, his coach at the Air Force Academy, and when Nelson discovered that Egan was an amateur painter, he contacted him and offered to buy one of his paintings.

On finding out that the painting was an intended gift for Pop, his former coach pointedly refused to accept any money for it and sent it to Nelson.

When Nellie got the painting and had it framed, he took it to a Bay Area art gallery and had them put it on display with an inflated price tag.

Nelson proceeded to take his staff to the gallery, and lured Pop over to the painting.

“He says, ‘That’s my Coach! That’s him!’” Don recalled, “So I said, ‘Is that really, Pop? I’d like to buy it for you.’ We take it up to the cashier and he says, ‘It’s $25,000.’ I said, ‘Wrap it up and give it to Pop.’”

“We get the picture wrapped up and we’re walking out. He starts crying. He’s literally bawling like a baby.”

Don takes everyone out to dinner afterwards and reveals the prank; Pop’s only response was, “God damn it, Nellie; you got me!”

Later on, when Nelson was spending a year out of coaching and the Spurs had landed the number one pick in the draft, Don found out that Popovich was considering an offer to trade the pick that would become Tim Duncan. His response to this rumor was an overt threat. “If Pop trades him, I’ll go down there and take a shotgun to his house!”

Nelson was later hired to coach the Mavs in 1997, spending eight years on the bench there, including three 50-win seasons and a single 60-win season. While there, he picked Dirk Nowitzki and acquired Steve Nash in the 1998 draft; both would go on to win MVP awards, and Dirk would be instrumental in securing a championship for Dallas in 2011.

A final stint with the Warriors didn’t go particularly well on the bench; for the first time Nelson’s team failed to crack 50 wins during his tenure, but he did prove influential on the Warriors’ future when he went to a 2009 NIT matchup between Davidson and St. Mary’s on Monday, March 23, in Moraga, California, in the hills east of San Francisco Bay. Davidson lost 68-80, but Nelson was struck by the play of their point guard, “I just thought he was a star,” he remarked of Steph Curry. “I never dreamed we were going to be able to get him.”

On draft night, he made himself heard, urging rookie GM Larry Riley to take a risk and select Curry with the 7^th overall pick in the draft.

During his final year as a head coach, in 2010, Nelson secured the NBA record for most wins, hitting 1,333 and bumping Lenny Wilkens out of the top spot in the 78^th game of the season, a contest at Minnesota. Don went on to retire with 1,335 wins—a record that would eventually be broken by his friend and protégé, Gregg Popovich, in March of 2022.

As a coach in an era dominated by centers, Nelson frequently built winning teams by going small and exploiting mismatches by running the court, something he learned from Auerbach, “Red used to play the smalls against the bigs in practice to get everyone fired up. When we played full court games, the bigs never won. They were ineffective because they couldn’t handle the basketball, and that gave the smalls an advantage.”

“All I did was use a small lineup with a team that didn’t have very good big men, and I was very successful with it.”

Nellie downplayed his own contributions to the game, “Over time I added a few of my own wrinkles.”

One of those wrinkles, and one which has been incredibly influential, is the ‘point forward.’

By inverting the typical ballhandling duties, Nelson’s teams created the mismatches he loved by pulling defenders into parts of the court and assignments that they were decidedly uncomfortable with. Today, when Jayson Tatum brings the ball up court after a basket, he’s filling a role that Don Nelson practically invented.

Naturally, in a 31-year coaching career, there were a couple what-ifs. After the Celtics lost to the Bucks in the 1983 playoffs, with the team in need of a new coach, Red approached Nellie and offered him the top spot in Boston. Don turned down his friend, “I felt a loyalty to the Milwaukee Bucks because they had been so good to me,” Nelson said. In reflection, he added, “maybe I should have been more willing to make that break and pursue the Celtics job.”

Eleven years later, Gregg Popovich was hired as the Spurs’ general manager. He wasn’t particularly pleased with the team’s current head coach, Bob Hill, so he reached out to Don and offered him the coaching assignment. Nelson was more than willing to accept the job, as he was having difficulties coaching Chris Webber, and he was well aware that in the NBA coaches are often far more expendable than talented players are. However, the Warriors refused to negotiate a deal with Nelson and the Spurs that would’ve gotten him the San Antonio gig.

There were perks as well.

Nelson’s son Donnie grew to be 6’-4” and was a pretty good basketball player himself. After attending Wheaton College, near the family home in Milwaukee, Donnie was hired by the San Francisco Warriors as an assistant coach. The following year, the Warriors hired his dad as their head coach, and the two would work together throughout Nellie’s tenures at Golden State and later in Dallas. Their years together on the bench helped make up for time lost during Don’s playing career when he was frequently gone on road trips, and when the demands of coaching left him little time for his family. These years also helped repair a relationship that was damaged when Don left the family and divorced his first wife, Sharon in 1982. “It gave me an opportunity to get to know him at a different level and really gain a ton of respect for him away from the household,” Donnie told the Dallas Morning News, reflecting on his father’s “passion, integrity, and honesty.”

After retiring from the game, Don moved to Maui, “I know how far I’ve come from being a hog farmer. I’ve come a long, long way from being some country kid. I got in the fast lane, and I’ve stayed there a long time,” he once said.

And yet, as it turned out, in some ways, Nelson didn’t come that far after all.

As a child, Nelson had a pet pig, Butchie, that the family butchered while he was at school one day—a lesson, no doubt, in the sometimes harsh nature of life on a farm.

But Nelson retained an affection for pigs that carried over into adulthood. While he was on his first stint at Golden State he ran afoul of Alameda city regulations when it was found that he was keeping a potbellied pig as a pet.

He also returned to farming as a retiree—although he ended up raising a crop that might not have been approved of by his parents or grandparents.

Nelson’s second career, after basketball, was growing medicinal marijuana in Hawaii.

Actually, Don’s hobby farm of 22 acres grows flowers and coffee as well as pot, but pot is undoubtedly what grabs the headlines—especially since Nellie admitted to smoking the stuff. He also hybridized two strains of cannabis, producing a variant dubbed “Nellie Kush.” He even went so far as to build a guesthouse on his property out of ‘hempcrete,’ a concrete which uses embedded hemp fibers for reinforcement.

Nellie claimed that he didn’t smoke pot as a coach or player, but at least one account out there suggests that he was not unwilling to engage in a celebratory puff or two.

Nelson had his number retired by the Celtics in 1978, and was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 2012. He was named the NBA’s Coach of the Year three times (1982/83, 1984/85, and 1991/92). In fact, no one has won the award more than Nellie, although Pat Riley and Gregg Popovich have also won the award three times.

“I spent 50 years in the NBA,” Don once remarked, “Can you imagine doing something that you love the most in the entire world and doing it for your entire life?”

Nelson moved from Maui back to Dallas earlier this year. He passed away on August 9, 2026.

Reflecting on his career as a coach, Nellie once told Michael D. McClellan, “I have no complaints with the way things worked out,” adding, “If you write my epitaph, I would be very happy if you just said that Don Nelson was a good guy and a pretty good coach.”

Per a Spurs press release:

“The San Antonio Spurs today announced Heybike as the organization’s official e-bike partner, uniting the two brands through a shared vision for connection through sports and movement. This marks Heybike’s first agreement with an NBA team, as they seek to align with strong, internationally recognized sports brands like the Spurs.”

Heybike, a global e-bike brand, seeks to redefine eco-mobility with sleek design and user-centric innovation. Jason Fang, Heybike founder, stated,

“Partnering with the San Antonio Spurs is a historic milestone for Heybike. We believe an e-bike is more than just transportation—it is a bridge that brings generations together. Through this partnership, we are excited to integrate into the Spurs’ vibrant community and inspire fans of all ages to explore, connect, and let their joy out!”

To celebrate the launch, Official Spurs Fan Club can receive a 20% discount on their Heybike purchase from now until Sunday, September 30.

Brian Colbert, senior vice president of global partnerships for Spurs Sports & Entertainment added,

“We’re proud to welcome Heybike to the Spurs family. Whether we’re bringing people together through sport or helping fans explore their cities in new ways, we share a belief in the power of mobility to create connection and strengthen communities.”

If you are not a current member of the Spurs Fan Club, joining now makes you eligible for the discount on a Heybike purchase.

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This journey through the wonderful world of The Statistical Doppelgänger Machine starts with some warnings.

Remain seated throughout the duration of this article. Keep your hands, feet, legs, and arms securely accounted for. For the protection of others, avoid flailing about or throwing objects, including — but not limited to — smartphones, laptops or other electronic devices. Do not attempt to read or listen to this article while exercising, driving, or operating heavy machinery. Use of safety gear such as a seat belt or lap bar are recommended. Do not read or listen while under the influence of drugs, alcohol or other substances.

Maybe keep those substances handy for after reading.

This one is a trip.

For those wondering what the heck this is all about, welcome to my statistical doppelgänger series, in which I run Wizards players through an algorithm connected to a player database. The algorithm calculates which player seasons (as measured across 14 categories) through NBA history are “most similar” to the reference player.

In the first article of this year’s series, we learned that Alex Sarr just might be the second coming of Kristaps Porzingis. Right down to the broken foot.

Anyway, today we’re looking at Wizards wing Bilal Coulibaly.

Through three seasons, Coulibaly has been somewhat enigmatic — long and hyper-athletic. At times, he’s defended well and exhibited athletic arrogance. At others he’s seemed timid and too ready to defer. Also, he’s gotten hurt a lot — sitting out 27.8% of the team’s game since he entered the league.

Entering his fourth season, Coulibaly is still just 22-years-old.

As I wrote in his production ekg article, what he can do remains more than a little unknown, even after three seasons. What he seems to do best (defend) seems to have had little impact on the team performance, which is a) ultimately what matters, and b) might be a function of less-than-committed teammates, a terrible defensive ecosystem, and a franchise that was trying to lose.

The offensive end is where he’s shown the least promise, though over his final 20 games played last season, he showed sustained aggression, reasonable efficiency, and an apparent ability to get by nearly anyone off the bounce nearly any time he wanted.

All that said, I was in no way prepared for what the doppelgänger machine says are Coulibaly’s closest comps (similar per possession production across 14 categories at a similar age).

To save you some typing in the comments:

• Yes, I double-checked to make sure The Doppelgänger Machine was functioning correctly. Triple-checked, if I’m being nitpicky.
• I warned you.

To the doppelgängers:

1. James Harden | 2010-11 | Oklahoma City Thunder | Age: 21 — Yes, this is THE James Harden. The Beard. The 8x All-NBA selection, the NBA MVP, the 3x scoring champ, the 2x assists leader. This was Harden in his second season with OKC — he’d win 6th Man of the Year the following season. In this comp season, Harden shot better and notched higher efficiency than Coulibaly did. Amazingly, Coulibaly’s usage was slightly higher (19.5% to 18.9%) and their stats on a per possession basis were remarkably similar. If someone had asked me to list players Coulibaly was like, I probably would have named dozens (if not hundreds) before I got to Harden. But don’t worry, The Machine is going to get weirder.
2. Aaron Gordon | 2016-17 | Orlando Magic | Age: 21 — I promised weird(er), but you’ll have to wait a little longer for that. Gordon is closer to what I would have expected. This was back when Orlando was trying to make him into a wing because they were one of those teams through the years that always seemed to think how great it would be to play a freak athlete power forward type on the perimeter. I can’t think of too many such attempts of this sort were successful. Gordon’s gone on to have a good career, which included helping Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets win a championship.
3. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | 2018-19 | Los Angeles Clippers | Age: 20 — That’s 2x NBA MVP and NBA champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. I mean, I watched Coulibaly for three seasons and saw an enigmatic wing with offensive deficiencies. I fed The Machine numbers, and it sees a future all-time great. This was SGA’s rookie season. He then got dealt to OKC in the Kawhi Leonard/Paul George transaction. And then…he kinda languished in the good-to-maybe-very-good range for another three seasons before erupting into what we’ve seen the past four years. That three-year semi-wilderness stretch included missing games by the dozens as the Thunder tanked.
4. Hedo Turkoglu | 2001-02 | Sacramento Kings | Age: 22 — Another comp I would not have come up with my eyeballs and memory. The multi-talented forward was probably not as impactful as my Stan Van Gundy-aided recollections would suggest, but he was a good player for a long time.
5. Omri Casspi | 2009-10 | Sacramento Kings | Age 21 — Another international player, which is kinda interesting. Casspi played 10 seasons and never cracked average in my PPA metric. This was his rookie season, and like each of the player’s on this list (including Coulibaly), his offensive usage rate was in the 18-20% range (SGA was highest at 19.9%), and his statistical production in the other categories was in that “about the same” range.

One of the fascinating things about this annual exercise is the different directions young players can go from a similar start. Coulibaly’s comps range from guys who had similar production patterns early in their career and then went in wildly divergent directions. Which way will Coulibaly go?

Moving into the “honorable mention” section, the player types start feeling more like what I expected before I order The Machine to run:

• Tim Thomas — age 23 with the Milwaukee Bucks — talented forward who never became as good as expected
• P.J. Washington — age 21 with the Charlotte Hornets
• Martell Webster — age 21
• Peyton Watson (last season)
• John Williams — yes, the Bullets’ John Williams (before the knee injury and weight gain)
• Troy Brown Jr. — age 20 — the not bad season (PPA: 96)

Then seasons from other guys who make sense: Devin Vassell, Jerami Grant, Jaylen Brown (age 21), Jae Crowder, Will Barton, Jalen Suggs, Paul George (age 21).

The Doppelgänger Machine in this case largely reinforced what I wrote about Coulibaly back in May. But maybe the point is that with young players, it’s hard to tell what they’re going to become. The range of possibilities is vast.

If Coulibaly does the kind of psychotic work that Harden and SGA did on their bodies and games, he probably has the physical tools to reach elite status.

If he does “hard-working NBA player” work — which is to say borderline psychotic — maybe he’s a high-level role player like Gordon or Washington.

If he does “normal NBA player” work — which would provide work-life balance and probably $150 million in career earnings over a 10-12-year career — maybe he’s an 8th or 9th man type like Casspi.

Next through The Statistical Doppelgänger Machine: Kyshawn George. I promise it won’t be so weird.

The Boston Celtics have had a puzzling offseason. By trading away Jaylen Brown, one of their franchise cornerstones, to a long-time conference and division rival in the Philadelphia 76ers, it appears they opened up a can of worms.

In a vacuum, Brad Stevens helped to steer the team in the right direction with the latest moves this summer. Signing veterans Mitchell Robinson and Mike Conley Jr., locking in extensions for Ron Harper Jr., Jordan Walsh, and Neemias Queta, and drafting Chris Cenac Jr. and Dillon Mitchell were all hits.

Though controversial, swapping JB for Paul George and picks could be seen as a small win too, finding a player who could be a slightly better fit next to Jayson Tatum, while also giving the team more flexibility for the future.

If we leave the vacuum and look to the rest of the league, Boston’s situation might not look as appealing. By sending Brown to the Sixers, it seems they turned Philly into the hottest destination of the offseason. Dean Wade, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Anfernee Simons – oh, and LeBron James all decided to join JB, Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and VJ Edgecombe to help fill out the roster in pursuit of a ring.

The Miami Heat took a swing of their own, beating out Boston in the race for Giannis Antetokounmpo that later prompted the Brown trade. They haven’t had much financial flexibility to improve the roster around him and Bam Adebayo, but they’re a team that constantly overachieves under the coaching of Erik Spoelstra, so they can’t be taken lightly.

The Charlotte Hornets sent out LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges in favor of more veteran players as they look to make their first return to the post-season since Kemba Walker was on the team. The Toronto Raptors went all-in for Kawhi Leonard as well, though we’ll have to see how the league handles that one…

The Indiana Pacers made their push last season when they gave up a haul for Ivica Zubac, giving Tyrese Haliburton a solid starting center to work with and round out the team as he returns from rehabbing his torn Achilles. The New York Knicks, reigning champs, are bringing back nearly the same roster that won it all, the main change being the loss of Mitchell Robinson, who they now replaced with Andre Drummond.

Long story short, the Eastern Conference got a whole lot better, and a whole lot more competitive. Several teams made big moves to win now, so why didn’t Boston? Why favor “optionality” over a proven super star like Giannis?

It’s a fair question fans have been asking all offseason. Sorry to say, I’m not sure I have the answer, if there is one at all.

Only one team brings home the Larry O’Brien Trophy in the end. Is a high chance of winning the championship this season worth more than maybe having a potentially high chance of winning one or more championships in the future?

As we’ve learned in the past, even “super teams” aren’t guaranteed to win every year. If the Celtics traded Jaylen, Hugo Gonzalez, and Baylor Scheierman for Giannis, a package that Boston was rumored to have been unwilling to offer, instead of trading Brown for PG, would they be closer to winning a championship this year? I would bet on it. Would they be head-and-shoulders over the rest of the league, or even the rest of the East? Not to the point where a ring would be guaranteed, especially given Giannis’ injury history.

Keep in mind, Giannis is also on the final guaranteed year of his contract, with a player option in the following season. Boston would be faced with either extending him for another four years at around $275 million, or potentially seeing him walk in free agency. If he continues to have health issues, would extending him make sense?

It’s hard to say what the “right” answer is. So much of sports is left up to chance. If things go according to plan, it’s a no-brainer to always go all-in, but it’s incredibly rare for that to happen. Injuries can strike at any time, even after perfect preparation, as Celtics fans already saw with Jayson Tatum.

For my fellow Red Sox fans, we gave up a haul of top prospects at the trade deadline in a win-now move, acquiring Adley Rutschman from the Baltimore Orioles. Rutschman is a great player at a position of need coming from an in-division team, and was also being pursued by Boston’s rivals as well.

This comes in a season where the Red Sox were playing terribly to start and sitting well outside of the playoff picture for quite some time. Their climb back into a wildcard spot for the playoffs has felt magical at times, and the front office decided it was as good a time as any to make a real push for a ring.

Boston is dealing with some injuries to key players at the moment, and now with five straight losses, it feels like their improbable comeback is starting to lose steam. If they don’t win it all, was it a bad idea for them to make the trade? Could one or more of those prospects have brought Boston a ring somewhere down the line?

Again, there’s no right answer.

Jeff Passan, ESPN’s lead MLB insider, said on the Pardon My Take podcast that fans have been “conditioned to accept that now is not as important as the future,” going on to say that he hates that as a fan. He made that comment while saying that the Red Sox “comically overpaid” for Rutschman, though praising them for actually “going for it.” He wants “executives and owners to treat this year like it’s the last year that’s going to be played… We don’t know what the future is going to look like. We don’t know when our franchise player is going to suffer a catastrophic injury … So why wouldn’t we throw all of our resources at what we’ve got right now, and try to steal a championship.”

It’s a very fair assessment to make, and incredibly hard to argue with as a fan. In my heart, I share the same sentiment, though it is noteworthy that the MLB and NBA operate very differently in terms of salaries, roster spots, and the ability to have and develop prospects. The stakes are a bit higher on a player-to-player basis in the NBA when playoff rotation can shrink to as small as 6-7 players.

Maybe you trade DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard, and immediately win your first championship in franchise history. Maybe you trade Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a boatload of picks for Paul George and end up with at least half a decade of mediocrity, if not more.

Regardless, I think everything Celtics fans have felt this offseason has been justified, and I say that knowing how hard it is to find two Celtics fans who agree on anything more than loving the team. The pain, the joy, the confusion, the anger – all of it is justified.

Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately — we aren’t in those executive offices making the tough decisions. We don’t get to dictate the makeup of the team. We just get to feel what we feel, and if so inclined, share it with the world as we all watch along.

No one knows the future. Maybe this current iteration of the team is still enough to get it done. The only way to find out is to wait and see how everything plays out. It may be frustrating at times, but I for one would like to sit back and enjoy the ride, wherever it may take us.

February 21^st, 2002 found the Dallas Mavericks swinging a trade deadline deal with the Denver Nuggets. In the move, the Mavericks shipped off Juwan Howard, Tim Hardaway (Sr.), Donnell Harvey, a first round draft pick in 2002 and cash. That netted Dallas Raef LaFrentz, Avery Johnson, Tariq Abdul-Wahad and Nick Van Exel. The centerpiece of the deal at the time was actually Raef LaFrentz, a 25-year-old 6’11” center who was the well-established starter for the Nuggets at the five.

To that point, Dallas had two true centers on their roster – Shawn Bradley and Evan Eschmeyer – neither of whom were three-point threats. Head coach Don Nelson loved unconventional lineups (that would look much more like the league norm years later) with a stretch big who was a legitimate deep threat. LaFrentz fit the bill and upon his arrival, he slotted in as the go-to starter (starting 25 of 27 games for the remainder of the regular season). The outbound Juwan Howard played some minutes at center for the Mavericks, but didn’t bring the size or shooting range they were after, so the deal was generally a win/win for both sides in that respect. Little did anyone know at the time, but the trade brought in future head coach Avery Johnson, and the player who would meaningfully change the identity of the Mavericks as he shifted to a sixth man role – Nick Van Exel.

Who was Van Exel before the trade?

As much as the trade was framed about LaFrentz, Van Exel was certainly no slouch. Spending his first five seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers where he earned a single All-Star selection, Van Exel was a staple in the starting lineup throughout his career to that point. Up until his final season in LA, he started every game he played except one, which came in his rookie season. He then started all but two games he played during his time with the Nuggets. The season he was traded to Dallas, he was averaging 21.4 points and 8.1 assists per game across 45 contests with Denver.

Of course, everyone knew the trade meant Van Exel would be shifting roles from a sure-fire starter, to a backup behind Steve Nash. That may have been part of why he wasn’t the featured name of the transaction, but coming off the bench proved to be a role he thrived in. So much so, in fact, that he averaged more points per game as sixth man than LaFrentz did as the starter!

Uncrowning the Kings

In Van Exel’s first Postseason with the Mavericks, he was part of the 3-0 first-round sweep of the Minnesota Timberwolves. That series has since become a talking point about the careers of Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Garnett, with some deeming it to be the tie-breaker as to why Nowitzki is the better power forward of the two. In the next round, Dallas got walloped by the Sacramento Kings, 4-1.

That Kings team was relatively stacked with players such as Mike Bibby, Peja Stojakovic, Chris Webber, Vlade Divac and others. Dallas meanwhile had Steve Nash, Michael Finley, Dirk Nowitzki and LaFrentz leading the way as something of a well-matched mirror for the Kings. The similarities between the teams and the frequency of high intensity regular season games between them supercharged a rivalry that was only added to by the Kings’ young hotshot owners from the Maloof family, who were perfect rivals for Mavericks’ then-owner Mark Cuban.

The following season, the Mavericks met the Kings in the Playoffs in the second round once again. Following a game seven win over the Portland Trailblazers in the first round, Dallas dropped game one of the second round series against the Kings, at home. That loss prompted Van Exel to ask Nelson if he could speak to the team. With permission granted, Van Exel told Nash, Finley and Nowitzki that they needed to stop deferring to the Kings and stop believing them to be a better team. Van Exel backed up his words with stellar play of his own. In game two, the Mavericks ran the Kings out of the gym after dropping 83 first-half points on them. Van Exel scored 36 points in that one, then hung 40 points in game three’s double-overtime victory back in Sacramento. For the series, he connected on over 50% of his total field goals and just north of 45% from downtown.

Van Exel’s legacy with the Mavs

Van Exel’s stay in Dallas was relatively short, clocking in at a season-and-a-half overall. He was largely electric in his time with the Mavs, and certainly brought a much-needed grit and attitude to the team. His only full season in Dallas was the first time the franchise won 60 games. His motivational speech in the Playoffs against the Kings was the only series win Dallas had against Sacramento across three-straight seasons in which the two teams met in the postseason. Van Exel then returned to the fold as the head coach of the Mavericks G League team, the Legends, for the 2015-2016 season.

Van Exel’s unconventional free-throw shooting from about two feet behind the line, his post-up game (yes, the 6’1” point guard had a nice back-to-the-basket game) and his quirky spinning hook/push shot were all memorable. His unwillingness to back down and his ability to turn it on when needed should be unforgettable, despite a relatively short tenure in Dallas.

I invite you to follow me @_80MPH on X, and check back often at Mavs Moneyball for all the latest on the Dallas Mavericks.