NBA: Greatest head coach in each team’s franchise history

Greatest head coach in Milwaukee Bucks history: Don Nelson, 1976-87

Current fans of the Milwaukee Bucks may be witnessing the next great team, with star Giannis Antetokounmpo dominating in a system built to maximize his talents by head coach Mike Budenholzer. He did one of the most difficult feats in basketball, to join a good team and make them great.

Yet the future is unwritten and Milwaukee has a long history of successful coaches. George Karl oversaw teams around the turn of the century that made the Eastern Conference Finals. Del Harris won 191 games with the franchise in the late 1980s. At the start, Larry Costello got the accolades and job security that came with coaching Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, including the franchise’s only title.

Don Nelson took over the Bucks after Costello and coached them to nine winning seasons in his 11 years with the team. He instituted a distinct and unique offense revolving around strong passers at the forward position, with Marques Johnson and Paul Pressey some of the first “point forwards” in NBA history.

No coach since Nelson has totaled even half of his 884 games or 540 wins with the team. His 42 postseason wins match the total of all those who followed him. No coach in NBA history has more than Nelson’s 1,335 wins, amassed over 24 years with four different teams.

What the future holds no one can know, but the past paints a clear picture. Nelson, a well-known figure in the history of multiple franchises, kept the Bucks highly productive throughout his career.