Report: Warriors to replace Don Nelson as head coach

Sep 23, 2010, 8:06 PM EDT

According to ESPN.com’s Marc Stein, the Warriors are on the verge of replacing current head coach Don Nelson with current assistant coach Keith Smart.

The incoming co-owner of the Warriors, Joe Lacob, told the San Jose Mercury News’ Tim Kawakami that this officially will happen Monday (at Warriors media day).

“You’ll have clarity on Monday,” Lacob told me several times.

According to Matt Steinmetz of Comcast Bay Area, Nelson officially will resign, although that is certainly just allowing him to gracefully exit what will almost certainly be his final NBA coaching job.

The 70-year old Nelson took the Warriors over in 2006. Under his leadership, the team made the playoffs for the first time in over a decade and beat the #1 seeded Dallas Mavericks, but they have not returned to the playoffs since. In recent seasons, Nelson’s rotations and behavior became extremely erratic, and his commitment to coaching the team was questioned at times.

Nelson broke the all-time wins record late last season. His overall record as a coach is 1,335-1,063. Nelson won five championships as a player, and was named the NBA’s coach of the year on three separate occasions. He was widely regarded as an innovator throughout his NBA career, and the small-ball, high-tempo offense he favored as a coach is generally referred to as “Nellieball.”

The decision to part ways with Nelson was made by the Warriors’ new owners, Lacob and Peter Guber. The team will have everything in place over the weekend so Keith Smart can take over before the team’s first practice on Tuesday. Nelson will be paid his full $6 million salary next season.

Nelson’s last few years in Golden State weren’t always pretty, and many Warriors fans have been calling for Nellie to get replaced for a while now. Hopefully we can look past that for a second and see this announcement for what it is: the likely end of a legendary NBA career that spanned 48 years.

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5 Comments (Feed for Comments)

dave morgan - Sep 23, 2010 at 8:37 PM

please bring in mark jackson as his assistant to work with the guard and defense. go warrior

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Gary - Sep 23, 2010 at 10:38 PM

Bring back Mullin !!

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Omnius - Sep 24, 2010 at 9:34 AM

Once again the Warrior’s ownership and mismanagement has made a massive mistake, no wonder the Warriors are so pathetic decade in and decade out. If the Warriors were truly lucky it’s the ownership and mismanagement who should be retired not Don Nelson. Nellie did a great job taking a perennial loser to the playoffs and beating Dallas, but hasn’t gotten the players to keep it up and once again the Warriors are a laughingstock team. The Warrior fans will find out soon enough that Smart isn’t smart enough to change the Warriors into winners. That’s okay Kobe Bryant is the greatest basketball player in the world and the Repeat World Champion Lakers will Threepeat next June!

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harper - Sep 24, 2010 at 10:11 AM

um, omnius, they DID replace ownership
reading is fundamental, even its difficult for lakers fans.

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King James - Sep 24, 2010 at 12:17 PM

Nice to see that Laker fan still has no reading comprehension. Why bother typing so many words when all you really wanted to do was harp about Kobe and the Lakers?
Save yourself some time and just copy and paste that same line you end all your comments with.

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