Rick Adelman joined the elite ranks of NBA coaches on Saturday night with the Minnesota Timberwolves 107-101 win over the Detroit Pistons. With the victory, the head coach notched his 1,000th win becoming just the eighth coach in league history to do so.
The group of coaches that he now stands beside is a who’s who of some of the greatest coaches in the history of the NBA. Don Nelson and his 1,335 wins heads the list and is joined by Lenny Wilkens, Jerry Sloan, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, George Karl, and Larry Brown.
People might forget just what a great coach Adelman is because he has toiled on some truly bad teams. This year underlines that point as he probably had to wait longer for win number 1,000 since he’s coaching a Minnesota Timberwolves squad that currently sits at 29-47.
Despite the fact that the team might not even be all that keen on inviting their coach back next year, he was all about focusing on the accomplishment that was achieved last night.
It’s special people,” Rick Adelman said when talking about the people who he just joined on the list. “Some of the names up there, it’s incredible. I never, ever expected to be with that group.
Among active coaches, only Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs is close to being able to say he might join this elite group. Popovich is about 90 wins behind the Timberwolves coach and Doc Rivers is third among active coaches with just over 500 wins.
Before coming to the Timberwolves, the 1,000 win coach saw a ton of success at stops like the Houston Rockets where he went 193-135 from 2007-2011.
His biggest claim to fame was when he was coaching with the Portland Trailblazers from 1988 to 1994. With the Blazers the team went to the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992.
Rick Adelman isn’t sure whether his career will go on after this season, but, even if it doesn’t, he’ll always have Saturday night.
