Rick Adelman, former NBA coach and basketball Hall of Famer, dead at 79

Adelman led Portland Trail Blazers to two unsuccessful NBA Finals appearances during a 29-year coaching career

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Published Jun 01, 2026  •  2 minute read

Former NBA head coach Rick Adelman has died at the age of 79, the National Basketball Coaches Association announced. Photo by DOUG PENSINGER /GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

NEW YORK — Hall of Fame coach Rick Adelman, who led the Portland Trail Blazers to two unsuccessful NBA Finals appearances during a 29-year coaching career, has died, the National Basketball Coaches Association announced on Monday. He was 79.

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Adelman, whose son David coaches the Denver Nuggets, amassed 1,042 wins over 23 seasons as an NBA head coach — 10th on the all-time wins list — while guiding Portland to the NBA Finals in 1990, where they lost to Detroit, and in 1992, when they were beaten by the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls.

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He also made coaching stops at Golden State, Sacramento, Houston and Minnesota before ending his career after the 2013-14 campaign.

Adelman spent six seasons from 1983 to 1989 as an assistant coach with Portland before taking over when Mike Schuler was fired as coach in 1989.

Adelman went 14-21 as an interim fill-in and got the Trail Blazers into the playoffs. Despite a first-round loss, he was handed the full-time coaching job.

Two finals trips and a 1991 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals brought success to Portland but first round playoff exits in 1993 and 1994 led to his firing.

After a year off, Adelman returned with Golden State but could not manage a winning season in two seasons and was fired, then sat out another season before being hired by Sacramento.

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In his eight seasons, the Kings never missed the playoffs, making their best run to the conference finals in 2002 before losing to the Lakers. His contract was not renewed after the 2005-06 season and the Kings have only reached the playoffs once since then.

“The Sacramento Kings organization is deeply saddened by the passing of Rick Adelman, a beloved coach whose leadership, character, and vision helped define an era of Kings basketball that inspired our city and captivated fans around the world,” the Kings said in a statement on Monday.

Adelman, enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, sat out a season before joining the Houston Rockets, who went on a 22-game win streak in his 2007-08 debut season, the third longest in NBA history.

The next season, the Rockets lost in the second round to the Lakers despite a strong effort by Chinese star Yao Ming.

It was the last playoff run by Adelman, who missed out in two more seasons at Houston and his last three campaigns from 2011 to 2014 with Minnesota.

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Adelman hired his son David as an assistant coach in 2011 and saw him leave for assistant posts in Orlando for a year and then Denver, where he assisted from 2017 to last year, helping the Nuggets to an NBA title in 2023.

Adelman played seven seasons in the NBA as a guard starting in 1968, two with the then-San Diego Rockets before going to Portland in the 1970 expansion draft.

He played three seasons with the Trail Blazers and another with Chicago before his final campaign in 1975 included stints with the Bulls, the expansion New Orleans Jazz and the Kansas City-Omaha (later Sacramento) Kings.

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