Rick Adelman

Richard Leonard Adelman was born on June 16, 1946, in Lynwood, California, in Los Angeles County. His parents, Gladys (née Olsen) and Leonard Joseph "L. J." Adelman, were originally from North Dakota and worked as teachers and farmers. He grew up in Southern California and played high school basketball at St. Pius X High School in Downey.

Adelman played college basketball at Loyola University of Los Angeles (now Loyola Marymount University) from 1965 to 1968. A playmaking guard, he was a first-team All-West Coast Conference selection in 1967 and 1968 and was named WCC Player of the Year in 1968.

The San Diego Rockets selected Adelman in the seventh round (79th overall) of the 1968 NBA draft. He played two seasons in San Diego, then was chosen by the expansion Portland Trail Blazers in the 1970 expansion draft and played on the franchise's very first team. In 1970-71 he appeared in 81 games and averaged 12.6 points, his best scoring season. After three seasons in Portland he played for the Chicago Bulls, the New Orleans Jazz and the Kansas City-Omaha Kings before retiring in 1975. Over seven NBA seasons he played 462 games, averaging 7.7 points, 2.4 rebounds and 3.5 assists.

Adelman began coaching in 1977 at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon, where his up-tempo teams caught the eye of Trail Blazers coach Jack Ramsay. Ramsay hired him as an assistant in 1983, and Adelman stayed on under Mike Schuler. When Schuler was fired during the 1988-89 season, Adelman became interim coach, led a 39-43 team into the playoffs and was named full-time head coach in 1989.

Portland (1989 to 1994): With Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams and Kevin Duckworth, Adelman's Trail Blazers won 59, 63 and 57 games in his first three full seasons, reached the NBA Finals in 1990 (lost to Detroit) and 1992 (lost to Chicago) and the Western Conference finals in 1991. He was dismissed after the 1993-94 season.

Golden State (1995 to 1997): Hired on May 19, 1995, he went 36-46 and 30-52 and was let go on April 28, 1997.

Sacramento (1998 to 2006): Reunited with general manager Geoff Petrie, Adelman turned the Kings into a Western Conference power. Working with assistant Pete Carril, he built the celebrated "corner" offense, a Princeton-influenced system in which passing big men such as Chris Webber, Vlade Divac and Brad Miller ran the attack from the elbows while wings cut backdoor. The Kings made the playoffs in all eight seasons, won 50 or more games five straight years, set a franchise record with 61 wins in 2001-02 and lost a famous seven-game Western Conference finals to the Lakers in 2002. His 395 Kings wins are a franchise record. His contract was not renewed after 2006.

Houston (2007 to 2011): In his first season the Rockets won 22 straight games from January to March 2008. In 2009, without Tracy McGrady and later Yao Ming, they beat Portland in the first round and took the Lakers to seven games. He won his 800th game on March 24, 2008.

Minnesota (2011 to 2014): Hired on September 13, 2011, he won his 1,000th game on April 6, 2013, against Detroit, becoming the eighth NBA coach to reach that mark. He retired on April 21, 2014, and stayed on as a consultant.

Over 23 seasons as an NBA head coach he went 1,042-749 in the regular season and 79-78 in the playoffs, with 16 playoff appearances and 11 seasons of 50 or more wins. He was a four-time runner-up for NBA Coach of the Year and coached the West in the 1991, 2001 and 2003 All-Star Games.

Adelman was married to Mary Kay Adelman for 56 years. They raised six children: Kathy, R.J., Laura, David, Caitlin and Patrick, and had 12 grandchildren. His eldest son, R.J. Adelman, played on Willamette University's 1993 NAIA Division II national championship team, earned a law degree at the University of Oregon and held coaching and front office roles with the Seattle SuperSonics, Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves; he died in an auto-pedestrian accident in Houston in February 2018 at age 44. His son David Adelman became head coach of the Denver Nuggets, and his daughter Kathy Adelman Naro coached at Jesuit High School and Beaverton High School in Oregon.

Adelman cited Mary Kay's health, including treatment for seizures, as a key reason for retiring in 2014. The couple then moved back to the Portland area to be near family, and he became a familiar face at local high school and college games.

Adelman was known as a players' coach with a calm, unassuming demeanor. Rather than micromanage, he gave players freedom to read the defense and make decisions, an approach that made his Sacramento teams among the fastest and highest-scoring in the league. Players recalled that he gave everyone on the roster a real chance to contribute. Rick Carlisle said Adelman's teams "always played to their strengths" and that he "always found subtle ways to reinvent NBA basketball to help his players thrive."

Adelman retired with 1,042 wins, and when he died only Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, Jerry Sloan and George Karl had coached more games with a better winning percentage. His corner offense, sometimes simply called "Sac" by opponents, became a staple across the NBA; former Kings center Brad Miller said everyone ran it and called it "a staple offense that he actually created that's never going away." His emphasis on pace, spacing and passing big men is widely seen as ahead of its time. The Trail Blazers called him "one of the most influential figures in franchise history," and he remains the only coach of the Sacramento era to reach the playoffs more than once. His son David carried the family name into a head coaching role with the Denver Nuggets.

WCC Player of the Year (1968); two-time first-team All-WCC (1967, 1968); NBA All-Star Game head coach (1991, 2001, 2003); eighth coach in NBA history to reach 1,000 wins (2013); Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Class of 2021; NBCA Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award (2023); commemorative jersey band worn by the Trail Blazers and Kings throughout the 2026-27 season.

Adelman's Hall of Fame enshrinement speech in 2021 and his 2023 Chuck Daly Award press conference are available on YouTube. The Kings' corner offense he ran with Pete Carril has been the subject of many breakdowns, and the 2002 Western Conference finals between his Kings and the Lakers remains one of the most debated playoff series in NBA history. During the 2000 playoffs it emerged that Phil Jackson had compared him to Adolf Hitler as a motivational tactic, and Adelman publicly questioned the approach.

Rick Adelman died on June 1, 2026, at age 79. The National Basketball Coaches Association announced his death that day; Wikipedia gives the place of death as Portland, Oregon, where he had lived since retiring. The cause of death was not made public. He was survived by his wife, Mary Kay, five children and 12 grandchildren, and was preceded in death by his son R.J. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called him "one of the most respected and accomplished coaches in the history of the NBA," and the Trail Blazers, Kings, Rockets, Timberwolves, Warriors and the Basketball Hall of Fame all issued tributes. On August 24, 2026 the Trail Blazers and Kings announced a jersey band in his honor for the 2026-27 season, and Portland plans to honor him on December 15, 2026.