Hall of Famer Rick Adelman, who won more than 1,000 games and took 2 teams to NBA Finals, dies at 79
He was not on the list.
Rick Adelman, a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee who played for seven NBA seasons before becoming one of the game’s all-time winningest coaches, has died, the National Basketball Coaches Association announced Monday.
Adelman, the father of Denver Nuggets coach David Adelman, was 79. The cause of his death was not immediately announced.
“The Denver Nuggets were extremely saddened to learn of the passing of Hall of Fame Head Coach Rick Adelman,” the Nuggets said Monday night. “Our thoughts are with head coach David Adelman, the entire Adelman family and the many friends and loved ones that were lucky enough to know Rick.”
Rick Adelman won 1,042 games as an NBA coach, 10th-most in league history. Only four other coaches — Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, Jerry Sloan and George Karl — coached more games and had a better winning percentage than Adelman, who took the Portland Trail Blazers to the NBA Finals twice and also was head coach in Sacramento, Houston, Minnesota and Golden State.
“Adelman will be remembered not only as a coach and a player, but also as a mentor to so many in the basketball community,” read a statement from the coaches’ association, which honored Adelman with its Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.
“Rick Adelman’s NBA coaching career has been highlighted by innovation, integrity and excellence,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said when the NBCA presented that award three years ago. “His teams always played to their strengths, and Rick always found subtle ways to reinvent NBA basketball to help his players thrive. His quiet, unassuming nature belies his impact as one of the great NBA coaches of all time.”
Adelman also played in the NBA from 1969 through 1975 as a point guard for five different teams — but found his calling as a coach.
The Kings, in paying tribute, said Adelman “will be remembered for the way he inspired those around him — with humility, integrity, kindness, and an unwavering belief in the power of teamwork.”
Adelman’s path to the NBA, as a coach, was unintentional.
He thought he would become a high school coach, though his lack of experience was a deterrent. He then started his coaching career at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon.
“We had great success there,” Adelman said in his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech. “The one thing I did not realize is Jack Ramsey was following my team.”
Ramsey was coaching the Portland Trail Blazers, and invited Adelman to interview when a position opened on his staff. Adelman worked under Ramsey for three seasons and Mike Schuler for 2 1/2 more, then took over as interim coach with 35 games left in the 1988-89 season.
“We had a team that was ready to win,” Adelman said in 2021.
Blazers owner Paul Allen told Adelman he could coach the 1989-90 season. The rest is history. Portland won 59 games that season with Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey and Buck Williams leading the way, getting to the NBA Finals and falling to Detroit.
Adelman was off and running. He took the Blazers back to the NBA Finals two years later, falling then to Chicago. After his Portland era, Adelman coached two years at Golden State and then went to Sacramento — where he had eight winning seasons in an eight-year stint, with players like Vlade Divac, Peja Stojaković, Mike Bibby, Chris Webber, Jason Williams, Bobby Jackson and current Kings coach Doug Christie. And in those Sacramento years, Adelman was widely credited for running some types of offenses that the league had never seen.
“He was a brilliant strategist and teacher of the game, and an even better person,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.
Adelman had 210 players appear in at least one NBA game for him.
“He actually challenged me and poured into trusting me,” 20-year guard Kyle Lowry said Monday night. “That was important for me. He didn’t have to. He could have done everything else, he could have played other players, but he believed in me. ... He just trusted his players. He just wanted to win. And if it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what career I would have. It’s a sad day.”
Among Adelman’s accomplishments: He engineered a 22-game winning streak with Houston in 2008, a run that is the fourth-longest in NBA history.
“Coach Adelman guided the Rockets with professionalism, integrity, and a deep commitment to the game,” the Rockets said in a release. “His role in leading the team during the 22-game winning streak in 2008 remains one of the most remarkable achievements in franchise history and will always be remembered by Rockets fans.”
The Blazers noted that not only did Adelman lead the team to the finals twice, but he was a player on the inaugural Portland team in 1970.
“Rick was one of the most influential figures in franchise
history,” the Blazers said.
Adelman was born in Lynwood, California, the son of Gladys
(née Olsen) and Leonard Joseph "L. J." Adelman, who were from North
Dakota and worked as teachers and farmers.[4] Adelman began his basketball
career in high school at Pius X High School in Downey, California, then
matriculated to collegiate stardom at Loyola University of Los Angeles, now
known as Loyola Marymount University.[5] In the 1968 NBA draft, he was selected
by the San Diego Rockets (now the Houston Rockets) in the 7th round. He played
two seasons in San Diego before being taken by the expansion Trail Blazers in
the 1970 expansion draft; he then played three seasons in Portland. He also
played for the Chicago Bulls, New Orleans (now Utah) Jazz, and the Kansas
City/Omaha (now Sacramento) Kings. He ended his playing career in 1975.
Adelman was hired by the Sacramento Kings in 1998. Under Adelman's guidance, the Kings were one of the most successful teams in the Western Conference, qualifying for the playoffs every year of his tenure there: their first consecutive playoff appearances since 1979-1981.
During the Kings' 2000 playoff run, they met Phil Jackson's Los Angeles Lakers. Adelman questioned Jackson's motivational techniques when it was learned that Jackson compared Adelman to Adolf Hitler. In 2002, the Kings made a serious run for the NBA Finals. After clinching the first seed in the competitive Western Conference, the Kings blazed through the opening two rounds but lost to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, in one of the most controversial NBA playoff series of all time.
Despite his relative success in playoff appearances, Adelman did not get along with the Maloof brothers. In 2006, Adelman (in the final year of his contract) led the Kings to the playoffs. Despite the team struggling early in the regular season, the Kings rebounded and qualified for the playoffs as the #8 seed. Although competitive, they were defeated in six games by the defending champion San Antonio Spurs. Adelman's contract with the Kings expired at the end of the 2005–2006 season. On May 9, it was reported by the Sacramento Bee that his contract would not be renewed.
The Kings did not reach the playoffs again until 2023,
nearly 17 years later. Adelman remains the only coach in the Sacramento era to
reach the playoffs more than once during his tenure with the team.
The Houston Rockets brought in Adelman as their new head coach five days after the dismissal of Jeff Van Gundy on May 18, 2007. Van Gundy had taken the Rockets to three playoff appearances in four years with no series victories. In his first season as head coach, Adelman guided the Rockets to a 22-game winning streak from January through March 2008, the third-longest winning streak in NBA history. However, they lost in the first round of the playoffs again, this time in six games.
In the 2008-09 season, the Rockets finished fifth in the West with a 53–29 record. They entered the playoffs without their star shooting guard, Tracy McGrady, due to an injury. Despite this loss, the Rockets defeated the Portland Trail Blazers in six games to advance to the Western Conference Semifinals for the first time since 1997. Although they would lose the series to the Los Angeles Lakers, they proved their resilience by taking the series to seven games despite the loss of star center Yao Ming in Game 3.
Adelman won his 800th career game, 13th among coaches in NBA
history, on March 24, 2008, against the Sacramento Kings. On April 18, 2011,
the Houston Chronicle reported that the Rockets would not give Adelman a new
contract; Adelman and the team parted ways after four seasons and two playoff
appearances.
Adelman's eldest daughter, Kathy Adelman-Naro, is a high school basketball coach in Portland. His eldest son, R.J., was a lawyer who held various team front office roles in the NBA before he died in an auto-pedestrian accident in 2018, aged 44. Another son, David Adelman, is the head coach of the Denver Nuggets.
Career history
Playing
1968–1970 San
Diego Rockets
1970–1973 Portland
Trail Blazers
1973–1974 Chicago
Bulls
1974–1975 New
Orleans Jazz
1975 Kansas
City-Omaha Kings
Coaching
1977–1983 Chemeketa
CC
1983–1989 Portland
Trail Blazers (assistant)
1989–1994 Portland
Trail Blazers
1995–1997 Golden
State Warriors
1999–2006 Sacramento
Kings
2007–2011 Houston
Rockets
2011–2014 Minnesota
Timberwolves
Career highlights
As player:
WCC Player of the Year (1968)
2× First-team All-WCC (1967, 1968)
As coach:
3× NBA All-Star Game head coach (1991, 2001, 2003)
Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award (2023)
