Rick Adelman, the Hall of Fame coach who died June 1 at the age of 79, was one of the select few NBA coaches to have not only won more than 1,000 games but to have also twice led teams to the finals. A former point guard turned master strategist, Adelman guided five franchises over 23 seasons as a head coach, compiling a 1,042-749 record that ranked 10th in league history at the time of his death. For all his wins and deep playoff runs, he never claimed a championship.
Still, he became far more memorable than many championship-winning coaches by dint of having helmed some of the most thrilling, Sisyphean teams the NBA has known — squads that reached the brink of the mountaintop again and again, only to fall short in ways that made their excellence all the more heartbreaking and simultaneously inspiring.
Richard Leonard Adelman was born on June 16, 1946, in Lynwood, California. After earning West Coast Conference Player of the Year honors at Loyola Marymount University in 1968, he was drafted by the San Diego Rockets and went on to carve out a seven-year NBA playing career as a steady point guard for the Rockets, Trail Blazers, Chicago Bulls, Jazz, and Kings. After retiring in 1975, Adelman began his coaching journey at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon. He returned to the Blazers as an assistant under Jack Ramsay in 1983 and was promoted to head coach midway through the 1988-89 season.
