COMMENTARY : Nelson: Life After Webber

There are things Don Nelson admits he doesn’t know yet. There are things he admits he handled poorly. And he intends to laugh a little bit and put a little running into the New York Knicks’ game, which might be some fun on all sides.

After all, this man feels he still has something to prove -- or rather, he has to prove himself all over again after the fateful battle with Chris Webber. In public Nelson blames himself and knots himself up when he talks about it. It is his admission of weakness.

“I feel I was the adult in the situation,” he said. “I should have communicated more. We both could have done a better job; as the adult, I take full responsibility.” He thinks if they had more time together, Webber would have grown to like Nelson as a man and as a coach.

“I like to love my players; I never had a problem loving players even if they didn’t love me in turn,” Nelson said. “Chris Webber does not like me; I do like him.

“The beauty of coaching is you get to spend time around these beautiful young people. You watch them grow and mature. I still believe from the bottom of my heart, if I had a chance to coach Chris Webber for his career, he would have loved playing for me and we would have become best of friends.”

I don’t doubt Nelson meant it. There appeared to be some pain in his commentary. This is a new coach for the Knickerbockers and a new style. Nelson wears Jos. A. Bank in contrast to Giorgio Armani, which is certainly a constrast in style. It was a nice but vulnerable double-breasted gray suit Nelson wore Thursday to be introduced as the successor to Pat Riley. He looked like a good choice. They almost always look good on the day they’re introduced.

Nelson comes with five rings as a player and the reputation of being the best coach never to win a championship. It’s the kind of damnation that eats up Gene Mauch, who holds the baseball record for most seasons managed, no championship. Both are known as innovators.

You can take that several ways. Nelson is the fellow who introduced the concept of a point forward, and using a post-up guard as the center of his offense.

And when the coach had his problem with Webber, the rookie gold mine, Nelson phoned his mentor Red Auerbach for a suggestion. Sometimes, Nelson said, the Boston Celtics hated Auerbach but they always respected him; the affection came later. The problem with Webber has become the central focus of the current coaching career of a man who coached 11 years at Milwaukee and seven with Golden State.

“Nellie has been a very good coach with veteran players,” said Ernie Grunfeld, who did the hiring. The Knicks don’t like to be reminded of it but they are a veteran team.

Auerbach advised Nelson when he had a problem with a rookie he’d call his veterans together and enlist their help. One of Nelson’s problems was that Chris Mullin and Tim Hardaway, the most significant veterans, were hurt and out of the flow of help. Webber resented whatever it was he heard of the meeting.

There was the night in Charlotte in January of ’94 when Webber threw away a circus pass and Nelson plunked him on the bench and Webber screamed, “Treat me like a man!” Any hope Nelson may have had of working with the most multi-talented rookie in the league was gone -- and so, ultimately, was Nelson’s job and reputation.

Remember that Webber was the star of the tempestuous Michigan team in the Final Four, the fellow who called timeout in the final seconds of the final game after being told his team had no timeouts left. But he was such a talent as a sophomore, in addition to being an obviously bright man, that he was a first-round draft with unprecedented rights.

Nelson believes in discipline to build work habits. He likes rookies to carry the ballbags. He works them hard in practice and lets veterans save themselves for the games. “I never thought I had a problem with discipline,” Nelson said, “but the last two years I did.”

Webber rebelled and he had power. “We sold the franchise to get him,” Nelson said. They gave three first-round choices, and to sign him, gave Webber the right to become a restricted free agent after one season. With Mullin and Hardaway hurt, Webber was quickly their greatest offensive threat. “I don’t think anybody will ever have as much power as that young man had in that situation,” Nelson said.

If the situation could have been saved, Nelson said he should have gone to visit Webber and his family in Michigan, phoned him every other week and treated him like a teenager. But Nelson was tied up coaching Dream Team II and then Webber refused to report for his second season. And Latrell Sprewell decided Nelson was a tyrant and at midseason Nelson was gone, suffering from viral pneumonia and undefined emotional stress.

The first mistake, Nelson reflected, was to build such a young team with no reserve to pull itself out of the valleys and no background to develop leadership. “They needed to know more about themselves,” Nelson said. “Chris Webber missed that.” Webber won’t like reading that Nelson called himself the adult in the situation. Webber was 20 at the time.

Nelson believes the coach is still “the head of the house.” He believes in his record of longevity, even if his teams never have gone as far as the conference finals. He has been Coach of the Year three times, which no other coach has been. “If the Knicks ask other players about me, I hope they talk to more than one or two,” he said. “A lot of players love to play for me. Talk to Chris Mullin or Bob Lanier or Sidney Moncrief. Or wait to see for themselves.”

There comes a time when any coach stops getting through to his players. We should remember that the Los Angeles Lakers tired of Riley’s grimness, too. “There’ll be some changes, hopefully changes you’ll like,” Nelson said. He likes to run a little, which players like even if they can’t do it. Riley battered them with defense, which they could do. “When you’re playing tough defense, it’s to get some easy baskets, not just to get possession of the ball,” Nelson said.

He has something to prove. He’s never won a championship. “That’s something that burns inside of me,” he said. And Webber is rattling his contractual saber in Washington.

Nelson would like the incident to go away.