Rick Adelman left behind a massive legacy in the league, both as a coach and as a player. He ranks 10th all-time with 1,042 career wins, and it's fair to say the best years of his coaching career came with the Portland Trail Blazers and the Sacramento Kings .
Still, his legacy was never capped with the ultimate goal, an NBA title. Of course, that doesn't diminish his coaching greatness, but, by his own admission, it deeply bothered him.
Now, the Adelman family could soon be making room in the trophy case for the biggest achievement of their lives. Rick's son, David Adelman, has a huge opportunity to become an NBA champion in his very first season as a head coach with the Denver Nuggets . However, as he admits, his path to the league was anything but easy.
"Well, I was player development, film room, I think I was the lowest paid employee in the NBA," Adelman recalled on the "X&O's CHAT" podcast. "I actually took a pay cut to come to the NBA. So thanks to my dad for that. It was a life lesson, I guess he was trying to teach me."
David spent nine years as a high school coach, honing his craft and preparing for the day he might step into his father's shoes. He didn't skip steps, and as he admits, Rick was always there with the right advice while he was coaching at Jesuit and Lincoln High School.
In 2011, the turning point came when Rick invited his son to join him as a player development coach with the Minnesota Timberwolves , who at the time had an exciting young core. David quickly began to learn the ropes of the NBA game.
Fast forward to today, after a brief stint with the Orlando Magic , he spent the last eight seasons with the Nuggets, steadily rising through the ranks under head coach Michael Malone . In a shocking move near the end of the previous regular season, he replaced Malone and was immediately thrown into the fire.
Denver was eliminated in seven games by the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder . Still, everything Adelman showed in the playoffs convinced the Nuggets' front office that he was ready to go from interim to full-time head coach, and he was rewarded with a new contract.
Many saw early on that Rick's coaching DNA lived on in David, including Erik Spoelstra, who gave him major props .
"The Adelman family has meant so much to me in my career. Rick was my role model. That's why I wanted to get into the profession of coaching. I knew I wanted to get into coaching in college. Cathy knew she wanted to get into coaching at some level in college. RJ knew he wanted to get involved in the business, but at a young age, we all just felt David would be the best of all of us. He had a different level of maturity and understanding of the game," the 55-year-old coach said.
"When I was in high school and college, I was still a fan. David was dissecting it at a deeper level. Wherever Rick went, David was always at his side. He's been ready for this opportunity for a long time. I think he has a great feel for people. The basketball acumen speaks for itself. He's had that reputation for a long time as an assistant. It is surreal," Spoelstra added.
It's incredible how life comes full circle. Rick is remembered in Portland for not giving late Drazen Petrovic enough opportunities, who later exploded with the New Jersey Nets and became an All-NBA player. A few years later, he realized the exceptional quality Balkan players brought when he handed leadership roles in the Kings to Peja Stojakovic and Vlade Divac .
While that Serbian duo didn't carry Rick all the way to a title, they made several phenomenal playoff runs. The story would come full circle if David, in his first full season at the helm in the Mile High City, were to win the Larry O'Brien trophy with Nikola Jokic leading the way.
They already tasted a championship together in 2023 — the first in franchise history. And if David, now as a head coach, repeats that success, which looks very possible given how Denver is playing this season, then taking that pay cut to enter the league will have been worth it, and the Adelman family, along with Balkans, might finally get their happy ending.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Feb 23, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
