For a man who has done so much for so long in the NBA, Rick Welts remains committed to being a spoke in the wheel. Never mind that over the past 40 years he has kept more wheels rolling than anybody in the league.
He’s not much for the spotlight, even less inclined to affectation. It’s not unusual to see Welts, 65, on any given weekday, stroll over to grab lunch-to-go at any one of several modest restaurants near the Warriors' facility in downtown Oakland. He could send someone, and sometimes does. But this team president/COO prefers to escape the four walls and get outside, if only for a few minutes.
That’s who he is, and it’s why Welts might blend into the background Friday and Saturday in Springfield, Mass., where the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame ceremonies will take place.
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It’s a time to showcase stars of the past, and the class of 2018 includes Ray Allen, Grant Hill, Jason Kidd and Steve Nash. They played the game on the court nearly as well as Welts played it off the court.
“I wish I could say it’s a dream come true,” Welts said before the NBA Finals in June. “But I never imagined it. Never even thought about it.”
He will be inducted as a contributor, largely because voters recognize nothing any individual player did made greater league-wide impact than Welts’ ideas and deeds off the court.
Welts has been the point man navigating and negotiating the convoluted obstacle course laid down by citizens and members of San Francisco’s business community, resulting in the construction of Chase Center, the first world-class entertainment arena in the city’s history. Warriors co-owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber hired Welts specifically for this challenge, and he aced it.
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Which was expected, because that’s the history of the man.
“The biggest thing is the personality,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who met Welts when the two worked in the Phoenix Suns organization in the early 2000s. “You can talk about a lot of different things, but the energy and enthusiasm and genuine, authentic love of being a part of a group. He’s always been a part of a team, but he inspires everybody.
“He’s one of those people who is fun to be around. He makes you want to work with him.”
Welts is the man behind the marketing of the original Dream Team in 1992, and he, along with Val Ackerman, the first president of the WNBA, were primarily responsible for the startup of that league. If you want to know who decided to expand the NBA overseas, Welts can tell you because he was among them.
All-Star Weekend, the NBA’s annual winter showcase, was conceived by Welts early in his 18-year stint in the league’s New York headquarters.
Yet Welts’ most culturally powerful moment came in 2011, shortly before he came to the Warriors, when he announced in a New York Times story that he is gay. He is the first high-level male executive in American team sports to make such an acknowledgment.
That took courage mustered over half a lifetime, but Welts has not second-guessed himself for even a fraction of a moment. Indeed, he is completely open about that element of his life, appearing in Gay Pride parades in various cities and, in 2015, serving as Grand Marshal of the parade in San Francisco.
Before making that announcement, Welts sought the counsel of several close friends. One of them is Bill Russell, the NBA legend. The two met in Seattle in the late 1970s, when Russell was coach of the SuperSonics and Welts was an assistant in the media relations department.
The Welts-Russell friendship has remained intact all these years. Indeed, Russell will be among the presenters for Welts during Friday's enshrinement ceremony.
That Bill Russell, now 84, is willing to fly across country to speak on behalf of Welts speaks volumes about their relationship. Russell all those years ago referred to Welts as “the White boy down the hall.” No doubt Russell feels the same way now. And even less doubt that Welts loves hearing it.