Saint Among 'Sinners': Dallas Mavs Legend Del Harris on Hall of Fame Induction

“None of this happens without Nellie and Mark,” Del Harris tells DBcom as he goes into the Hall of Fame.

Del Harris is an even better person than he is a basketball coach. But they don’t have a Hall of Fame for the former.

So we will all have to settle for him being honored for the latter.

“It is all the more special that something like this would happen to me at my age,” the 85-year-old Harris told DallasBasketball.com on Friday on the eve of his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Harris is a teaching legend of the game, notable for his work as an NBA head coach in three different stops and in Dallas, a seminal figure as a top assistant and advisor to people like Mark Cuban, Don Nelson, Donnie Nelson and Avery Johnson.

“Of course, none of this happens without Nellie and Mark,” Harris said.

The Saturday night ceremony, which will feature other basketball luminaries including Manu Ginobili and Tim Hardaway (the father of the present-day Mavs standout and himself a former Dallas player) in Springfield, Mass., will surely feature laughs and tears and storytelling from Harris … and from his army of admirers.

And those admirers are literally world-wide, as during his six decades of devotion to the game, the multi-lingual Indiana native - who’s life plan was to be a minister - saw him serve as the head coach of five national teams, including China in the 2008 Olympics.

And of course, his teaching resonates when one lists his pupils. Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Moses Malone, Elvin Hayes, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd ...

Harris lives in Frisco and still works as an executive with the Mavs’ G League affiliate the Texas Legends.

“When you talk about Del and the impact he’s had on the game, we’re all excited for him and his family as he should have been in there a long time ago,” Mavericks coach Kidd said.

And he’s done it with an extraordinary level of unselfish dignity and class. As Kentucky coach John Calipari recently said, "I felt like a sinner being around him.''

DallasBasketball.com congratulates Del Harris ... an even better man than he is a coach.

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