Top 5 NBA coaches who have never won an NBA title

#2 Don Nelson

Don Nelson

Record: Regular Season: 1335-1063 (.557), Playoffs: 75-91 (.452)

Don Nelson coached in the NBA for 31 seasons and holds the record for most Regular Season wins in NBA history. Nelson pioneered the concept of Point Forward during his time with the Bucks, a concept we see so often in the NBA today. Despite several successful seasons with the Bucks, they were often eliminated either by the 76ers led by Julius Erving or the Larry Bird-led Celtics. He left the Bucks in 1987. Nelson had little playoff success in his following 2 jobs with the Warriors and the Knicks and eventually took over the Mavericks in 1997.

The Mavs had been a laughing stock in the NBA for much of the decade. In 3 seasons, Nelson turned them into one of the best teams in the league. He led the Mavs to a league-best 60 wins in 2002-03 but lost in the Conference Finals to the San Antonio Spurs. That was pretty much it for Nelson in terms of playoff success. He would only get past the 1st round once for the rest of his career in Dallas and Golden State.

The knock on Nelson has been that he never reached the NBA Finals and wasn't too keen to change his style. Nelson favored an uptempo offense, the insistence on which was why he had to quit the Knicks job. He did, however, pioneer the concepts which the Warriors use now, including small-ball, point forward and jacking up 3s.