"What is this garbage, man? You playin' like Don Nelson, man. Like a chump."
So go the very opening paragraphs of the seminal 1980 playground basketball bible, "The In-Your-Face Basketball Book," written by Alexander Wolff and Chuck Wielgus. The scene is a fictional one-on-one game featuring the accompanying trash talk a supposedly urban player jibes the Nelson imitator with as "Don" slowly backs the defender towards the hoop.
"Remember when it was a compliment to be told you played like Nelson, the poker-faced, fundamentally sound former Celtic forward?" the book goes on. Not anymore.
Just four years after he retired and the ABA merged with the NBA, it was very un-cool to be compared to Nelson, even though he played 14 seasons in the NBA.