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Don Nelson and Chris Webber: When a perfect match fails
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Don Nelson and Chris Webber: When a perfect match fails

On Valentine’s Day, our thoughts turn to love. Two people finding each other, and the esoteric, mystical force that binds them together. Sometimes, two people seem like a perfect fit on paper, but something about their relationship is inherently toxic. Even when they break up, the aftershocks can last for years, with the collateral damage taking down everyone around them.

Such was the case with Don Nelson and Chris Webber.

A match made in heaven 

Chris Webber and Don Nelson first hooked up in 1993, when the Warriors traded Penny Hardaway and three future first-round picks to get him. On paper, this was a perfect fit.

  • Webber was one of the best passing big men ever. Nellie had originated the “point forward” position with Marques Johnson and Paul Pressey in Milwaukee.
  • Decades before the small ball Warriors won a title thanks to the Draymond Green-at-center "Death Lineup," Nellie started a 6'7" forward at center in a playoff series — and swept that series! Meanwhile, Webber played center on two college teams that made the NCAA final.
  • Both guys love weed! In 1998, Webber was arrested twice for marijuana possession. Meanwhile, Don Nelson has a regular poker game with Willie Nelson, Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson, so you do the math. Or let one of his former players, Stephen Jackson, flat tell you.

On OK Cupid, this would be a 91 percent match. So what happened?

The seeds of discontent 

Months before the draft, college students Webber and Jason Kidd went to a game in Oakland. This was a few days after the NCAA Tournament ended, when C-Webb blew the title game by calling a timeout his Michigan team didn’t have. Both players got a nice ovation from the crowd, but starting point guard — and Nellie favorite — Tim Hardaway made the "timeout" signal, mocking Webber's gaffe. For Webber, that had to be like overhearing your date’s best friend talk trash about you. Compounding the issue, Hardaway tore his ACL that summer, leaving a space for Webber to hang out with the Mean Girl clique of Latrell Sprewell and Billy Owens.

In his rookie year, the Warriors thrived with a Webber-at-center lineup, winning 50 games. Webber won Rookie of the Year, but that didn't mean he was happy. This was the early '90s, when dinosaurs still roamed the NBA. Despite the offensive advantage, C-Webb didn’t love guarding the likes of Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson and the rest of those behemoths. By the time Nelson traded Owens for a center so Webber could play full-time at the four, Webber was already resentful of having to bang in the post with bigger players. Plus the Warriors traded his friend Billy!

The breakup 

When the Warriors got Webber, they signed him to a 15-year contract for $75 million, but he got a one-year escape clause. That is like marrying someone without a prenup and immediately making it an open relationship. There was no couples counseling, no mediation — Webber just threatened to opt out, and eventually Nellie traded him.

Once the relationship was over, Nellie and Webber both leaped into bad relationships. Webber went to the hopeless Washington Bullets for three replacement picks and Tom Gugliotta. Gugliotta was a total rebound, even though he wasn't very good at rebounding. And rebounds don’t last: Within months, he was flipped for Donyell Marshall. Then the Warriors broke up with Nellie, too, firing him halfway through the season.

The wilderness 

Sometimes in a relationship, people fixate on what you don’t have. Then when they get what they think they want, they’re even more unhappy, like a relationship monkey’s paw.  

Webber went from a Warriors team without a real big man to a Bullets team with way too many big men: Rasheed Wallace, Juwan Howard, Jim McIlvaine, plus your giant and mine, Gheorghe Muresan. He struggled for years on the hapless team, punctuated by his drug busts at the end.

Nellie got a new job with the Knicks, which also had a traditional center. But he doubled down on his unconventional and confrontational ways, minimizing Patrick Ewing and running the offense through his new dream point forward Anthony Mason — clearly a proxy for C-Webb. This was the classic case of trying to mold a new partner to match the person you still haven’t gotten over. He was fired after 59 games.

Serendipity 

Webber's career took off when he was dealt to Sacramento for an aging Mitch Richmond — a guy Nellie disastrously traded two years before Webber got to town. Meanwhile, Nellie found the new skilled big man of his dreams in Dallas with Dirk Nowitzki. But they both fell short. Webber peaked in 2002, just missing the NBA Finals thanks to Doug Christie’s air balls and Tim Donaghy’s gambling debts. 

In 2003 they played each other in the first round of the playoffs. Webber hurt his knee mid-series, the Mavs won and the Kings almost-dynasty effectively ended. In the conference finals, Dirk hurt his knee, and the Mavs lost. The Mavericks finally reached the NBA Finals in 2006, but only after Nellie had already quit.

Closure 

In 2008, Nellie was back coaching the Warriors. The year before, the “We Believe” Warriors had knocked off the 67-win Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs. It was their first playoff appearance since the Webber deal. Then, repeating history, Nellie traded his popular shooting guard, Jason Richardson, for a lottery pick.

The Warriors were again fighting for the eighth seed, and a month before his 35th birthday, the Warriors signed C-Webb. Nellie said he wanted to utilize Webber’s passing and midrange shooting, but what he really wanted was closure. Webber wasn’t doing it for money — he signed for the minimum — and the Warriors weren’t really a contender. He also wanted to make things right. It’s like the NFL player who signs the one-day contract to retire with his original team. Except this was more like visiting the ashes of a burned-down house to sign divorce papers.

The sentiment was sweet, but the relationship was still toxic overall. Thanks in part to the Webber experiment, the Warriors fell two games short of the playoffs despite winning 48 games. Maybe the Warriors missed out on a more helpful addition. Maybe they shouldn’t have moved away from the small-ball approach that wreaked havoc the year before in the playoffs. Or maybe the team was distracted by Baron Davis yelling, “I can’t BELIEVE you’re getting back together with him!” at a sheepish Nellie.

Nellie and Webber no longer hate each other. They buried the hatchet years ago. When Nelson tabbed Webber to start the All-Star Game in 2002, by all accounts they finally made up. But that doesn’t mean they were compatible. Two of the greatest talents that the NBA has ever seen, two Hall of Famers, and yet they never made it to the Finals.

This Valentine’s Day, please remember: No matter how good it looks on paper, or how badly they want it to work, sometimes two people just shouldn’t be together.

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