Don Nelson spent nearly five decades in the NBA. As a player, Nelson won five championships in 11 seasons with the Celtics in the 1960s and 1970s and had his number retired to the rafters of the old Boston Garden in 1978. As a coach, he set the league’s all-time record for regular-season wins and even popularized his own style of offense, Nellie Ball.

Now, it seems that the iconoclastic NBA legend is making the most of his retirement.

The New York Times recently caught up with Nelson in Hawaii, where he now lives. Since retiring in 2010, the 77-year-old Hall of Famer has grown a beard, reconnected with a long-lost daughter out of wedlock, and begun hosting high-stakes poker games with Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson, and Owen Wilson at his home in Maui. Oh, and he also grows his own name-brand marijuana.


Nelson says he has a card for medical marijuana, which is legal in Hawaii.

“When any athlete gets old, every injury you have sustained seems to resurrect,” he told the Times. “It helps me deal with the pain without pain pills, and helps with that stress.”

Don Nelson pictured in 2010 as coach of the Golden State Warriors. —Rick Havner / AP

The former basketball coach said he never smoked during his career. He began three or four years ago — in part because of Nelson, the 85-year-old musician and outspoken marijuana legalization advocate.

“Willie got me smoking,” Nelson, the former coach, said.

“I didn’t think I’d ever be a pot smoker, but hanging out with Willie and Woody and guys like that, you know, everybody smokes in those games,” he continued. “It just became kind of natural. Usually you’re smoking with your friends, sitting around, telling stories, you smoke a bowl. It’s not that I smoke all the time. I usually just smoke at night during poker games. Like Willie told me, it’s hard to be depressed when you’re smoking pot.”

Nelson said he now prefers marijuana to alcohol because it has no hangover aftereffects; he grows it on his farm (along with flowers and coffee) for personal use. And much like he did with NBA offenses, Nelson has even created his own self-styled strain of weed.


“It’s called Nellie Kush,” he said. “It’s O.G. and Hindu Kush. Hindu Kush is really good. It comes from India and the guy that brought it over mixed the two of them, so we’ve got Nellie Kush now.”

And what about those celebrity-filled poker games? According to Nelson, they can get pretty wild.

“They can get up to $2,000 to $3,000, especially when Willie is in,” Nelson told the Times. “He never saw a card he didn’t like. He raises every time, no matter what. Every time it goes by him, it’s $50, $50, $50. I’m conservative. But Willie, man, he’s wild. Woody is wild. Owen’s pretty good. Woody’s a terrible card player.”

Click over the The New York Times website for the whole interview, which includes how Nelson reconnected with a daughter he fathered during a Celtics road trip 29 years later, his thoughts on the 2018 playoffs, and a few jabs at his former player Chris Webber and fellow former coach Pat Riley.