Don Nelson Quotations

The only problem for Michael Finley as a player is that he cares too much. He takes losses too hard.

Scotty, I couldn't take a dime from you. He said he was the luckiest man in the world. I'm in a position to help people. You don't know how gratifying it is to see somebody's dreams come true. I know a lot of people and I can help Tyler and I don't want a dime. He said someday I want him to give back the way I am.

If we're gonna win, we have to play up to and beyond our potential. We're capable of doing that.

He will miss training camp and the first month of next season. This is very important to them.

I always came early an talked philosophies and game situations with Red. I don't even know if he was aware of what he was doing for me.

He committed to a long-term deal so we were able to build around him and develop what we have today.

He just needs a lot of information and he'll get that over the next year or two. You'll really find out exactly what you have probably in two years.

There are so many great things about Seattle, but we love our sports here and that's pretty clear. And we've finally got a football team.

I think people expected too much from him. He gave what he could give, and there was a limit to that.

We've got several kids in that 5-6 to 5-9 range. We're definitely a lot smaller than we have been in the past.

Turnovers down the stretch hurt us. Then Bobby Jackson went crazy on us.

Where ever the Mavericks are today, we owe it to Michael Finley. He was the one guy who stayed when we were a terrible team. He stayed and fought the fight.

I spent 50 years in the NBA. Can you imagine doing something that you love the most in the entire world and doing it for your entire life and, besides that, getting a pile of money for it? It's unbelievable. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. And I know it.

When you have bad teams, you've got to be creative to win games you're not supposed to win.

I'm a running coach and I am going to continue to run, but I would hope that we are better defensively.

You have a lot of ups and downs in coaching, especially, but I can't remember any bad times at this point. I mean, they're all good. A lot of tears when you lose, a lot of down times, but I can't remember any of them. They're all positive now. Even the bad times were good.

I can't remember any regrets, to be honest with you.

I'm the most unracist person around.

If we're gonna win, we have to play up to and beyond our potential.

I'm a lot of things, but none of them are great.

Really, throughout my career, what I've done is taken teams with bad records and with every situation I've made them better.

We're trying to make the best of a very difficult situation, ... With what Mike's meant to this franchise for many years, he deserves it.

We would play a team that's one hour away 300 miles away from home. That would be fun.

We wanted to say Michael was a superstar, but he really wasn't,

I've still got a year left on my contract, and I intend to be back next year to coach.

I've always been able to go to him,

This is the best team in basketball. They have a better team than the L.A. Lakers.

This is the best team in basketball, ... They have a better team than the L.A. Lakers.

It's just going to take a while. It doesn't matter how good he is.

The next step to his being a great player is to add the pass to his beautiful game,

The airport isn't in the way. It is an asset. Just consider: Could things go somewhere else.

It's been difficult to get any continuity offensively. Our defense is definitely better. You can throw a bunch of new guys together and have a better chance to play defense collectively, maybe because of timing or whatever. But we don't know who we are offensively yet.

It was great hanging with Pop and seeing how he does it. I noticed a few new wrinkles, some interesting things he does.

The fans aren't here, ... There's a good chance your parents aren't here because they are taking care of what they need to do. That's all the more reason to go and play like you need to.

I never coached anyone going to Vanderbilt. We're a Blue Ribbon-awarded high school, recognized by the president. It's a testament to our school, and Massey helped lead the way.

I am proud of our team and their hard work. Stone played a great game. We were kind of fortunate,