Hall-of-Fame NBA coach Don Nelson has gone from cultivating promising basketball players to growing potent cannabis.
The former player turned coach was featured on the latest episode of HBO’s Real Sports, where host Bryant Gumbel visited Nelson’s personal pot farm in Maui, Hawaii.
The 12-minute featurette profiles Nelson’s newfound passion for cannabis as he shows off his very own personal strain named “Nellie Kush.”
“You’ve got to treat it like a baby,” Nelson, 79, said to Gumbel. “You’ve got to water them. You’ve got to have music for them. You’ve got to bless them. It’s a whole process, I’m telling you.”
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Nelson goes on to explain how his personal circle of poker buddies, which includes noted cannabis users Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson, eventually pushed him to grow his own pot.
His history with marijuana, however, goes back to his last NBA stint coaching the Golden State Warriors in 2010, when he lifted the organization’s future by drafting Steph Curry into the organization’s memorable “We Believe” era.
Players such as Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson lauded Nelson for allowing them to smoke marijuana at the time.
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“It was cool, the fact that he knows what’s going on off the court with his players, which was great, man,” Jackson said in a 2017 interview with Michael Rapaport. “We enjoyed it. That’s why we were a great team.”
Oscar Pascual is the editor of Smell the Truth, syndicated on GreenState and SFGATE. Smell The Truth is one of the internet’s most popular destinations for cannabis-related news and culture. This blog is not written or edited by Hearst. The authors are solely responsible for the content.