Amazing.
Nice.
Kind.
Great communicator.
Empowering.
Innovative.
Ahead of his time.
Fun to play for.
Those are just a selection of the words and phrases used by former players about Rick Adelman after his passing this week. One thing is for sure: he was a great guy, but he was also a great coach.
He was Steve Kerr before it was cool.
An NBA championship is the only thing missing from Adelman’s stellar time in the league as both a player and a coach. He may be the best coach never to win a title, although there is an argument to be made for George Karl, who coached against Adeleman for most of their careers. Karl is pretty much the polar opposite of Adelman, as Karl is known for being a blunt and confrontational guy. In contrast, Adelman is known as a coach who truly understands his players and wants to help them have the best season of their lives through a mutual partnership. Both approaches worked in this case, but it’s definitely easier to look back at Adelman’s career with a smile knowing he did it without being a jerk.
Adelman played point guard here for Portland for their first three years in the league, and after retiring from playing in 1975, dove into coaching. He started his coaching career near the Blazers at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, and was hired by the Blazers as an assistant under Jack Ramsay in 1983. He stayed on as an assistant after Ramsay departed, helping out new head coach Mike Schuler from 1986 to 1988 and eventually replaced him during the 1989 season.
The Blazers enjoyed their most successful run in franchise history during Adelman’s first three seasons at the helm, appearing in three consecutive Western Conference Finals and two NBA Finals, and winning a staggering 179 games, including a franchise-record 63 wins in 1991. They only lost 67 times during that stretch, their fewest in a three-season span in team history.
Getting Portland back to the Finals for the first time since the 1977 season was just one of the many successes Adelman enjoyed here.
The 1990-92 Blazers were a top four team in the NBA, narrowly losing in the Finals twice (once to Detroit and once to Chicago) and being shocked by the LA Lakers in the conference finals in 1991. It’s a major what-if, but I do have to wonder whether that team could have beaten the 1991 Chicago Bulls, who were not yet established champs. By the time the two teams finally met in 1992, Chicago was better, but not by much, and they had already won a title the year before. Aside from the Bulls, Lakers, and Pistons, widely regarded as three of the greatest dynasties of the modern era, none of the other teams in the early 90s were better than Portland, and Adelman had a huge hand in making that happen.
The early 90s Blazers were so much fun to watch, not just because they could score from anywhere on the floor or the fast tempo they often played with, but also because they could play tight in games with the best of the best, never backing down from a challenge.
By the mid-90s, Portland was in rebuild mode and moved on from superstar Clyde Drexler and Adelman, dealing Drexler to Houston and hiring PJ Carlesimo as head coach. To date, the Blazers have not come close to the heights they reached in 1990-1992 and have not returned to the Finals since 1992.
Adelman next coached in Golden State for a pair of seasons, which proved a bad fit for both sides.
He next landed in Sacramento in 1999, where he built a team similar to the one he had in Portland and was one of the few NBA teams capable of pushing around the early-2000s Lakers. His Kings team pushed them to Game 7 in 2002 and likely would have won that game if not for documented fixing by the officials. The Nets awaited the series winner. They would likely have been defeated by the Kings, giving Adelman his long-overdue title and the Kings their first title in modern history, and only the second in team history.
The Kings never got past the second round of the playoffs during Adelman’s time there, and he departed after the 2006 season. Adelman landed in Houston in 2007 and had some success with a team built around Yao Ming, but never made it past the second round there and missed the playoffs during his three seasons in Minnesota.
Adeleman coached for 20 seasons in the NBA, appearing in two NBA Finals and four conference finals. His teams missed the playoffs just seven times in his entire career, including a span of ten years between Sacramento and Houston, when his teams made the playoffs every season. His teams never missed the playoffs when he was head coach in Portland.
Adeleman retired from coaching following the 2014 season, after working with Portland native Kevin Love in Minnesota. He returned to the Portland area to spend time with his family.
Adelman’s son, David, grew up in the Portland area and was on his coaching staff in Minnesota; later, he coached in Orlando and Denver as an assistant and is currently the head coach of the Nuggets. The Adelman legacy may live on in Denver through David, but it started here in Rip City and will be here forever.
Adelman is survived by his wife, Mary Kay, whom he was married to for 53 years, their five kids (their eldest son, RJ, tragically passed away in 2018), and twelve grandchildren.
Rick was the guy who made our favorite team better, and he made us better fans by letting us smile. Rick may have worn a suit and tie to work every day, but he may as well have worn a cape for being a hero to the city in his time here.
We will always remember you, Rick. Thank you so much for being a great coach and for giving the fans so many amazing memories.
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