Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic responded to NBA coaching legend Don Nelson’s trade criticism on Monday morning. Doncic, 26, took to his Instagram story with a four-word message for Nelson, 85, just hours after Nelson won the 2025 Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award on Sunday. Read on for further details.

Don Nelson returned to the NBA stage, and Nelson’s return was rather interesting. Nelson left his home in Maui, Kahului, Hawaii, to travel to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He received the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Basketball Coaches Association and Indiana Pacers Head Coach Rick Carlisle.

Nelson talked — and joked — about his innovative offenses, told stories of playing for Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics, having Manute Bol shoot three-pointers, and coaching Hall of Famers such as Dirk Nowitzki, and emphasized player loyalty.

Nelson proceeded to show heavy criticism of the Luka Doncic trade. He said, “As a matter of fact, I want everybody to know I’m wearing Luka’s shoes, his new shoes from Nike, just got on the market. I’m wearing them in protest for the trade from Dallas. I think it was a tremendous mistake by the Dallas franchise to trade him, and I want everybody to know that.”

For Nelson, when you get a generational player for your team, you don’t trade that player away. Nelson said:

“Because I learned from the best. I played a year for Red Auerbach. I played under him for Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Russell. I had the opportunity on my way, because I always went to the games early to sit and talk with Red, philosophy. And his philosophy was when you have a great player, Bill Russell, [John] Havlicek, Sam Jones, you never lose that player.

“You keep him for a lifetime. You put his number up and you honor that player and that’s been my philosophy. If you look at the players I’ve had over the years, Dirk and [Sidney] Moncrief and all the rest of them that I’ve coached, my philosophy was always to honor the great players, not trade them away, but to add pieces to that player and make him and your franchise the best that it could be.”

Fast forward to Monday morning, when Doncic took to Instagram to share a four-word message to Nelson, “Congratulations Coach! Nice shoes!”

The Luka Doncic trade remains a hot topic, despite being more than four months ago. Doncic was loved in Dallas, Texas, where he made five All-NBA teams from 2020-24 and helped the Dallas Mavericks become 2024 Western Conference champions.