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Ricky Rubio: … love you coach. One of a kind. Thank you for everything
The Minnesota Timberwolves are deeply saddened by the passing of Hall of Fame coach Rick Adelman.
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) June 2, 2026
Adelman served as head coach of the Timberwolves from 2011-14 and exemplified leadership, integrity and professionalism throughout his distinguished career. Serving as head coach… pic.twitter.com/SCD5EkF9Tt
David Kahn on Rick Adelman: One of the last images I have of him is of him sitting at a small desk he'd asked to be set up in a corner of the court during pre-game shootarounds at lunchtime. His assistant led the session, and he watched. In front of him were Werther's Original candies, spread out with index cards on which he devised post-timeout strategies. He was like a schoolteacher. As a coach, he developed benchmark systems based on player and ball movement, undoubtedly inspired by Jack Ramsay (coach of Portland's 1977 NBA championship, for whom Adelman served as an assistant from 1983 to 1986). He was often underestimated, perhaps because he was so adept at adapting to his players. He possessed a quiet professionalism. When I once asked RJ what the secret to his father's success was, he replied, "He has the talent to not hear or be affected by what's happening around him, to stay in his own bubble." Over the course of his career, he became one of the very best coaches in history.
Sean Highkin: Moment of silence before the Fire game for legendary Blazers coach Rick Adelman, who died earlier this week.
The impact Miami Heat (Shopping Cart IconShop Heat Fan Gear) president Pat Riley has had on Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is well-documented. But it’s another Hall of Famer who drew Spoelstra into coaching. Rick Adelman, a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee who played seven NBA seasons before becoming one of the sport’s all-time winningest coaches, was Spoelstra’s first coaching role model. “He became the reason why I decided to pursue the profession of coaching,” said Spoelstra, who grew up in Portland while Adelman was having success as the Portland Trail Blazers’ head coach.
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As a teenager, Spoelstra would often find himself in Adelman’s home office during gatherings at the Adelmans’ Bull Mountain home in the Portland area. Spoelstra would sometimes sit in that office for hours scouring through the different VHS tapes and scouting reports that filled the room. “I was just in awe of the basketball intel that was in that office,” said Spoelstra, who has established himself as one of the top coaches in the NBA and is already the winningest head coach in Heat history in both the regular season and playoffs. “I would just sit in there sometimes for a couple of hours just looking at all the videos and looking at scouting reports and looking at his personal notes on reflections after games and just incredible information. And I look back on it now and just I look back on those times so fondly. Those were some of the best days during the summer. ... It was basketball heaven there.”
The only coaches who coached more games and had a better winning percentage than Adelman in NBA history were Riley, Gregg Popovich, Jerry Sloan and George Karl. “He was able to do things in this profession with such success and humility and grace and high character,” Spoelstra continued on Adelman. “Really understated. But you knew who the coach was at every place he’s been. He’s a Hall of Famer, but I think he’s still underrated in terms of how brilliant he was as a basketball mind. And he always had great defensive teams, but his offensive brilliance as a basketball coach stood out to me.”
![“Everything you see right now with [Nikola] Jokic …](https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/gcdn/content-pipeline-sports-images/sports2/nba/players/830650.png?format=png8&auto=webp&quality=85,75&width=140)
Spoelstra added that “everybody in the league” has a package of offensive plays that have Adelman’s fingerprints on it — sets that have a big man playing out of the elbow in a triple-threat position (able to shoot, pass or dribble). “Everything you see right now with [Nikola] Jokic playing out of the elbow, top of the floor. They’re all shades of what [Adelman] did decades ago in Sacramento,” Spoelstra said. “And every single team, including us, has a package of plays where you run out of the elbow set. And there are different options out of that. But all four teams in the conference finals have a version of that. And, yeah, Rick is the godfather of that.”
Adelman was Spoelstra’s coaching role model before Spoelstra even entered the profession. Then Riley became the coach Spoelstra looked up to when Spoelstra was hired by the Heat as the video coordinator in 1995. “They’re titans in the profession. They are,” Spoelstra said of Adelman and Riley. “Maybe the greatest compliment for any of us, if you could fall somewhere where you take pieces of each of them. The stories have been told about how much Pat has been an influence on me. And that was from 24 years on. But in the formative years of why I wanted to get into coaching as a high school player, it was because of Rick.”
That’s the type of impact Adelman had on Spoelstra. Adelman still texted Spoelstra words of encouragement from time to time during the long NBA season in recent years, with the last time the two spoke coming after a fire that destroyed Spoelstra’s home in November. “I admired him so much. I really looked up to him,” Spoelstra said. “I admired him. I wanted to take qualities that he had and try to be like him. He was just an incredible person. Super giving. Really bright and a great family man. And I became very close to their family. So, I just saw what he did, and I just constantly thought, like, that looks like a lot of fun. And the way he did it, I just really respected and admired him so much for those qualities that he brought to the profession.”
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Jon Krawczynski: "The times that you saw the humanity from Rick Adelman was every time he was talking to (his wife) Mary Kay, talking about her. He was this very sort of crusty, curmudgeonly old coach, but there was always a moment before each game where he would walk out onto the sideline and he would look up into the stands and he would find Mary Kay and he would wave and his eyes and his face lit up."
Doug Christie: "Rick Adelman is in my opinion the godfather of that beautiful style of basketball. When I go to places, they say, man, we used to stay up until 3:00 in the morning to watch you guys play. And I am talking like in Italy and these different places. You just never know how you were touching people because not only was the show great, it was for the NBA."
Doug Christie on Rick Adelman: "The magic is the man was the same. He wasn't getting too high when we're rolling and he wasn't getting too low. And then in the game, it was the same. Like, okay, we're down, run our stuff. Like, do we need to adjust? Okay, we'll make this adjustment, that adjustment. He was the same."
He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021 and received the NBCA Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. “Just an absolute gentleman, a prince of a guy,” said Clyde Drexler, a Hall of Fame player who developed into an All-Star under Adelman in Portland. “I have nothing but respect and admiration for Rick Adelman. He was one of my favorite coaches of all time. And as good of a coach as he was, he was an even better person. Gone too soon.”
