Warriors coach merits enshrinement in Hall of Fame

	Don Nelson trails only Lenny Wilkens on the all-time wins list for NBA head coaches. AP

Also in this column:
• Role players who make an impact
• Three out-of-nowhere contributors
• Notes from around the league

When I saw Dave Cowens on the Detroit Pistons' sideline this past week, I started wondering how many NBA assistant coaches are in the Basketball Hall of Fame. A bit of research yielded the answer: there are five. In no particular order, they are Cowens, Moses Malone (Philadelphia), Alex English (Toronto), Bob McAdoo (Miami) and all-time scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lakers).

Only one current head coach is a Hall of Famer, New York's Isiah Thomas. Coaches like Pat Riley, Jerry Sloan and Phil Jackson will be there one day, but they have yet to meet the criteria. It states that coaches must have coached for at least 25 years or be retired from coaching for five years.

There is one current head coach who isn't in the Hall of Fame, but should be.

Don Nelson, who was a Hall of Fame finalist but did not get the necessary votes last spring, had won 1,214 games entering the Warriors' visit to Denver on Monday.

Here is the list of NBA coaches who have won more games than Nelson: Lenny Wilkens (1,332). That's it.

Nelson has not coached an NBA champion, but his résumé doesn't need that addition to make him worthy of Hall status. He took over moribund teams that had no hope in Milwaukee, Golden State and Dallas and in each case not only turned those teams around, but transformed them into consistently strong playoff teams for many years. By preaching a fun brand of basketball that emphasized unselfish passing and constant motion, Nelson brought fans to the arena.

And there's one other thing. You always hear about old coaches who lose touch with the younger generation, unable to communicate their ideas because of a communication gap. Well, Nelson, 66, has coached through the 1970s, '80s, '90s and into the 21st century, and his approach to teaching and getting players to play hard is as fresh now as it was in Milwaukee on Nov. 22, 1976. That's when, only months removed from the dénouement of his playing career, he ended one of the shortest assistant coaching stints in NBA history (18 games) and succeeded Larry Costello.

Nelson guided a USA Basketball team of NBA stars to the gold medal at the World Championships in 1994, which didn't seem like much at the time, but the United States hasn't won it again in three tries. He's been named Coach of the Year three times, and in 1996 was voted one of the top 10 coaches in NBA history.

Nelson, who won five championships as a player with the Boston Celtics, doesn't need the validation of being named a Hall of Fame coach. But everyone who has been around the NBA for the past 30 years knows he deserves it.

Role players who make a difference

On Sunday's national telecast of the Spurs-Heat game in Miami, analyst Hubie Brown, elected to the Hall of Fame as a contributor in 2005, went out of his way to praise Spurs backup guard Jacque Vaughn. Brown explained how much coaches love guys like Vaughn because they bring energetic defense, professionalism and a team-first philosophy to every team they join.

Vaughn, a 10-year veteran who carries modest career averages of 4.6 points and 2.5 assists, has started only rarely for the five teams he has played for since graduating from Kansas in 1997 (Utah, Atlanta, Orlando, New Jersey and San Antonio). But Vaughn, who celebrated his 32nd birthday Sunday, has provided both tangible and intangible benefits everywhere he has been. He may be a free agent every time July 1 rolls around after finishing off another one-year contract, but there's always another team that needs what Vaughn provides.