Once you wade through the spectacle of it all -- people like George H.W. Bush and Eva Longoria and Julianne Moore and anybody who ever appeared on "American Idol'' posturing throughout the weekend pretending like they love basketball -- you get to Don Nelson.

Buried in the mountain of parties and celebrities and photo ops and relatively meaningless subplots (was one of the shots that Dirk made to help him with the Three-Point Shootout actually released after the shot clock?!) and points (Sunday night in Houston, the East beat the West 122-120 in the NBA All-Star Game) is good ol' Nellie.

The torch has been sooooo passed that the Mavs head coaching name of the moment wasn't even Don Nelson; it was Avery Johnson, his replacement, who earned the right to be the West's head coach.

How deep in the shadows is Don Nelson?

Flash back to an announcement Friday: Don Nelson is among 16 finalists for induction in the Basketball Hall of Fame. That's a special honor, he's a special guy, and for reasons that are obvious to anyone who knows Nellie, and obvious to any Mavs fan, and hopefully obvious to any basketball fan, he is deserving.

Ah, but within that assumption lies the rub.

Readers of the local coverage of Nellie's candidacy will assume that the world at large feels the same way as we do, too; my friend David Moore's story in the Dallas Morning News quite naturally makes it seems as though Nellie is THE headline.
Very well. Now check out the outside-of-Dallas coverage of the Hall announcement.
Reading through it -- or better, again, WADING through it -- you find that Charles Barkley is the headliner. Barkley's push for Dominique Wilkins is the next most important issue. In the subhead, Geno Auriemma, Joe Dumars and Dick Vitale are clearly the third, fourth and fifth most important names. (In ensuing versions of the story over the weekend, Vitale's name floated up nearer the top).

Finally, waaaay down at the bottom of the AP story, comes the "other'' nominees. Adrian Dantley and Ralph Sampson ... (no Nellie mention yet) ..., Dave Gavitt and Gene Keady ... (no Nellie mention yet) ... Chet Walker and HOORAY! As the AP puts it: "Dallas GM and coach Don Nelson, a former player who is under consideration as a coach.''
Ignoring for a moment that Nellie's bio info there is no longer accurate, at least he made it into the story! Good thing, too, since right behind him came "Van Chancellor, who coached the Houston Comets to four straight WNBA titles; former Spanish coach Pedro Ferrandiz; Sandro Gamba, a former Italian star player and coach; John Isaacs, who played for the first all-black National Basketball League team in 1949; and the late Ben Kerner, blahblahblah St. Louis Hawks.''

Hey, it was a neat All-Star Weekend. Dirk, Avery and Jason Terry all got to play. Evan Longoria got on TV a lot. Tracy McGrady is depressed, or something.

And Don Nelson got lumped into a group with Sandro Gamba.

Good luck, Nellie. Sandro Gamba? If the AP writer has a vote, you're gonna need it.

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