NBA 75 book excerpt: ‘Dynasties: The 10 G.O.A.T. Teams that Changed the NBA Forever’ — The Bill Russell Celtics
Welcome to the NBA 75, The Athletic’s countdown of the 75 best players in NBA history, in honor of the league’s diamond anniversary. We also will run features such as this one to complement certain players and moments throughout our series.
This is an excerpt from The Athletic‘s Marcus Thompson II’s “Dynasties: The 10 G.O.A.T. Teams that Changed the NBA Forever” published by Black Dog & Levinthal in 2021. All “Dynasties” illustrations by Yu-Ming Huang.
Bill Russell showed up to the Trinity Church in Boston in 2019. So did Tom “Satch” Sanders. John Havlicek was there in spirit.
All that was missing were K. C. and Sam Jones. That’s how close the Celtics were to having all five players back together again. Some fifty-four years earlier, they were on the court for the most memorable moment of this Celtics dynasty: Game 7 of the 1965 Eastern Division Finals. It was undoubtedly the most memorable call in basketball history.
The Celtics, winners of six straight championships, were in danger of being eliminated. They led by a point with five seconds remaining on their home court. Russell took the ball out because he trusted himself the most to make the right pass. But his inbounds toss hit the wiring connected to the basket, and the Celtics turned the ball over. The 76ers had new life. And their star center, Wilt Chamberlain, was in a groove. He had scored 10 straight points and was about to get the ball near his own basket. The fans worried about their Celtics.
On the ensuing inbounds pass, Philadelphia’s Hal Greer was trying to throw the ball in to Chet Walker. With Russell fronting Chamberlain, and Sam Jones and Satch Sanders pressing up on the 76ers’ wings, Havlicek saw Greer had but one place to go with the ball. So Havlicek jumped into the passing lane. He deflected the ball, Sam Jones scooped it up, and the Celtics survived. So did the call, for ages.
And Havlicek steals itOver to Sam JonesHavlicek stole the ballIt’s all overIt’s all overJohnny Havlicek is being mobbed by the fansIt’s all overJohnny Havlicek stole the ballOhhhhh boy what a play by Havlicek at the end of this ball gameBill Russell wants to grab HavlicekHe hugs himHe squeezes John HavlicekHavlicek saved this ball game
The call was by the late broadcaster Johnny Most. He punctuated the iconic moment with his conveyance of just how riveting and relieving that victory was for the Celtics, who went on to win their seventh consecutive championship. He turned Havlicek into a household name. So when Hondo — what they called Havlicek because of his resemblance to John Wayne — died on April 25, 2019, a central part of Celtics lore was lost.
Russell might have been the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty. But one could argue Havlicek was its heart. He most fit their aesthetic, with his humility and reliable production. He was a thirteen-time All-Star who made eleven All- NBA teams and eight All-Defensive teams. He won eight championships and was the 1973–74 Finals MVP.
But also they rooted for him because he was hardworking and down-to-earth. Havlicek was one of those guys you never heard a bad word about. So when he died of Parkinson’s disease, his clout in the green and white was quite the draw. As family, friends, and teammates gathered at Trinity Church, not all five players from the “Havlicek Stole the Ball!” game were there. But with Bob Cousy and Tom Heinsohn in attendance, there were five key players from the 1963 championship.
What was evident then, as they gathered to honor their friend, was how the grains of sand in their hourglasses were dwindling. Cousy was 90 at the time of the funeral. Russell was 85. Tom Heinsohn 84. Sanders 80. Havlicek, who’d just turned 79 before his death, was the youngest of the bunch. K. C. Jones, who died Christmas Day in 2020, was 87 and Sam Jones 85.
They are the last of the NBA’s winningest dynasty. They paved the way for so much of what came after them. But these Celtics already get disrespected with dismissive criticisms of their era — the league had fewer teams, fewer Black players, and the offensive game wasn’t as polished. The memory of their greatness keeps fading, deeper and deeper into the past. One can only wonder: What happens to the reverence of those Celtics teams when the players are no longer here to command it?
The Face of the Dynasty
Check out this passage about Bill Russell from the December 31, 1956, edition of the Boston Globe, written by Jack Barry:
Big Red Kerr went the way of all other rival pivot men who have opposed the ex-collegiate star when he tried his hook shot from a pivot position in the game’s early moments.
Russell nonchalantly rose in the air to bat down Kerr’s intended basket and Coach Paul Seymour was finally obliged to remove Kerr, who stands 6-9 himself, from action. Kerr gathered but two baskets for the day, both when Russell was on the bench.
Imagine how demoralizing Russell must have been. Before facing Russell, Kerr had already won a championship and was an All-Star the previous season. He was beginning a string of eight consecutive seasons averaging a double-double, which would land him two more All-Star bids. The night before, on December 29, the Syracuse Nationals played the Philadelphia Warriors, featuring Hall of Fame big man Neil Johnston. Kerr had 15 points on 16 shots with 22 rebounds. Yet against Russell, Kerr was so overwhelmed his coach pulled him. He finished with 4 points on 6 shots.
Russell was so novel a sight, so unique a specimen, it probably did look nonchalant the way he rose in the air, like a floating, swatting barricade in front of the rim. And this was just his sixth pro game. Russell finished with 20 points and 32 rebounds against Kerr.
It was a bright idea that set Russell on the path to legendary status. The path to eleven rings began with a teenage hunch that made him a defensive wonder, a freak of nature. Yes, it was an open violation of the fundamentals taught by practically every coach since the sport was invented. But Russell, who started playing basketball in Oakland, California, for McClymonds High School, had this revolutionary concept for his approach to defense.
Jump.
Back in those days, one fundamental principle of defense was to stay grounded. Keeping your balance, having active feet, was critical to keeping the ball handler in front. Leaving your feet was a sin. But Russell, a special athlete, figured he could be even more disruptive if he used athleticism to contest shots. He was right.
It made him a star at the University of San Francisco, which he guided to back-to-back national championships. It made him the star of the 1956 Olympic team, which won the gold medal at the Melbourne Games. It made him the winningest player in NBA history.
When Russell arrived, the Celtics were automatically different. With his defensive prowess and the Celtics’ pace, they were instantly an innovation. His athleticism was a game-changer as he blocked shots, pressured the ball, and cleaned up the rebounds. Russell could dribble well enough to push the ball once he got the board. And while he wasn’t great offensively, he could handle himself around the rim. It is widely believed the NCAA banned offensive goaltending in 1957 as a counter to Russell, who could easily catch the pass over the rim and drop it in, or tap in a rebound while it was still above the rim. As a rookie with the Celtics, Russell averaged 14.7 points on 42.7 percent and a league-best 19.6 rebounds. In the playoffs, his offensive numbers dropped— 13.9 points on 36.5 percent shooting—but he went up to 24.4 rebounds.
In his first playoff game, Russell had 16 points and 31 rebounds and tormented Red Kerr again. The Syracuse big man, who started the Eastern Semifinals against the Philadelphia Warriors, was switched to a reserve against Boston. He went 5-for-18 from the field off the bench. Syracuse’s starting center, Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes, didn’t do much better. He went 3-for-13, getting 15 of his 21 points from the free-throw line.
In Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the St. Louis Hawks, the Celtics were locked in a double-overtime thriller before a capacity crowd of more than thirteen thousand fans at Boston Garden. The Celtics were up 122–121 inside of two minutes left. Russell blocked Med Park’s shot to get Boston the ball back, and Frank Ramsey hit a twenty-footer to seal the win as the arena went crazy. The Celtics won its first NBA title and, unbeknownst to everyone, a dynasty was born. Russell, who finished with 19 points and 32 rebounds in that Game 7, was its center.
In 165 playoff games, Russell averaged 16.2 points, 24.9 rebounds, and 4.7 assists. He actually finished in the top thirteen in the NBA in assists in eleven of his thirteen seasons, including four times in the top ten. He had forty rebounds twice in Game 7s.
The league didn’t start counting blocks until after Russell retired. The first Finals MVP was in 1969 — and won by Jerry West, even though the Lakers lost the series to the Celtics. If they had been counting, Russell likely would’ve had the record for blocks and perhaps ten Finals MVPs. Those would have greatly helped translate his dominance of the era.
When This Dynasty Reigned
The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement dominated the political landscape. The NBA’s political bent began in this era as players, along with other Black athletes in other sports, used their platforms to speak on these issues.
John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all assassinated during this Boston dynasty.
Some of the most profound musical influences emerged in these times. Elvis Presley became a giant star in the mid to late ’50s. Berry Gordy started Motown in the late ’50s. The Beatles rose to prominence in the mid-’60s.
The sexual revolution of the ’60s also coincided with this dynasty, challenging societal norms regarding orientation, monogamy, and eroticism. The advent of the birth control pill, the overturning of banned erotic books, and the popularization of Playboy magazine made sex a staple in the time of the Celtics.
McDonald’s became a thing.
The Architect
As the story goes, Walter A. Brown, the original owner of the Celtics, was looking for a new leader to get Boston out of the doldrums. The Celtics went 22–46 in their first season in the NBA—after coming over from the Basketball Association of America, the first professional basketball league. He asked reporters for a coach he should go after. They said Red Auerbach, who was nine years into his coaching career and had already coached Navy, coached the Washington Capitols to the BAA Finals, and served as an assistant coach and heir apparent at Duke. So on April 27, 1950, the Celtics hired Auerbach for $10,000 a year and gave him the reins. They won 57 percent of their games over the next six seasons, making the playoffs but never making the Finals.
Russell, out of the University of San Francisco, was the most dominant player in college and assuredly the No. 1 pick in the 1956 NBA Draft. But Boston—owners of the second-best record in the league in 1955–56, behind the Philadelphia Warriors—didn’t have a first-round pick. Back then, the league had what was known as “territorial picks.” It allowed for a team to cash in its first-round pick to draft a local college star within fifty miles. This was meant to benefit the franchise and help them to get the players in the area who were already a draw. That year, Tom Heinsohn was a star at Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. So Boston chose to use the territorial pick on him, meaning they had no pick to get Russell.
But Auerbach coveted Russell. So he and the Celtics owner started making moves behind the scenes.
The Rochester Royals had the No. 1 pick that year. The franchise was struggling financially, so the Celtics offered to secure them an influx of cash. How? Brown had a stake in the Ice Capades, a traveling show of figure-skaters that drew bigger crowds than most sports teams as it toured the nation. The Celtics made a deal to get some Ice Capades dates in Rochester in exchange for the Royals passing on Russell. So instead of the best player in college, Rochester got figure-skating legend Donna Atwood and Duquesne guard Si Green.
Auerbach and the Celtics went to work on the owners of the No. 2 pick, the St. Louis Hawks. Auerbach offered up his starting center Ed Macauley and threw in Cliff Hagan. It was enough to get Russell and proved to be one of the worst trades in NBA history. The Hawks said they agreed because Macauley was a local who played college ball at St. Louis. But the whispers were that St. Louis, which had an all-White team, was too racist a town for a Black player. Russell agreed.
“St. Louis was overwhelmingly racist,” Russell said in an interview on NBA TV. “If I would’ve gotten drafted by St. Louis, I wouldn’t have been in the NBA.”
So the Celtics got Heinsohn and Russell. And then with their second-round pick, they selected K. C. Jones, Russell’s costar at the University of San Francisco.
The Celtics had been the highest-scoring team in the NBA for the previous five years, led by Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. What they needed was defense, and they now had it in Russell. They became a complete team and won their first championship in Russell’s rookie season. And Auerbach was not just orchestrating a champion, but the dynasty of dynasties. He was also inventing.
Red, as he was called, has been credited with a number of pioneering contributions to basketball.
NBA Fast Break: Auerbach didn’t invent the fast break. But his Celtics popularized it in the NBA by using it on one of basketball’s biggest stages, led by their crafty ball handler in Cousy. At a time when the game was played slow, half court to half court, Auerbach encouraged his team to get the ball up the court quickly.
Transition Offense: Taking full advantage of Russell anchoring the middle of the paint, Auerbach emphasized using defense to create offense. He taught Russell to keep the shots he blocked in bounds so they could start what was known as the “Celtics fast break.” The blocked shot would essentially serve as an outlet pass. Once the Celtics got the rebound, they took off before the defense could set.
Sixth Man: From the time Auerbach took over the Celtics, Cousy and Sharman were the starting guards. But in 1954, Auerbach drafted Frank Ramsey out of Kentucky with the No. 5 overall pick. Auerbach used Ramsey to give a breather to his guards and inject some life into the game. He was a six-foot-three guard who could shoot and defend. He was so good Auerbach had him on the court at the end of a lot of games. Auerbach sold it as saving Ramsey by not starting him, as he wrote in his 1977 autobiography. He ended up doing the same with John Havlicek after drafting him in 1962.
“On a lot of teams they make a big deal out of the starting five,” he wrote. “If you don’t start, it implies you’re not as good or as valuable as the next guy.
“That’s not the way we looked at the men on our bench in Boston. Psychologically, as soon as you pull one of your starters out of the game, the other team is going to let down just a bit. That’s when I wanted a guy like Ramsey or Havlicek to get out there and run them into the ground.”
The Victory Cigar: Technically, Auerbach didn’t invent this concept either. It predates the Celtics by more than a half a century. In the early 1900s, cigars were given out as prizes at carnivals. Even the 1902 book The Night Side of London mentions cigars as prizes. Most figure this practice to be the genesis of the saying “close but no cigar”—which was used in the 1935 film Annie Oakley. But Red took it to another level when he created the tradition of firing up a cigar on the bench, even when the game would still be going on. When he knew there was no chance his Celtics would lose, right there on the bench, he pulled out his stogie and lit it up. The smoke was an epic taunt. “It all boils down to this,” Auerbach told Cigar Aficionado. “I used to hate these college coaches or any coach that was 25 points ahead with three minutes left to go, and they’re up there yellin’ and coachin’ because they’re on TV, and they want their picture on, and they get recognition. To me, the game was over. The day’s work is done. Worry about the
next game. This game is over. So I would light a cigar and sit on the bench and just watch it. The game was over, for all intents and purposes. I didn’t want to rub anything in or show anybody what a great coach I was when I was 25 points ahead. Why? I gotta win by 30? What the hell difference does it make?”
The Cultural Impact
On June 12, 1963, Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers was shot and killed as he got out of his car in Jackson, Mississippi. Russell, who’d been fighting against racism all his life, called the Evers family to ask what he could do to help. The answer required him going to Mississippi.
Shortly thereafter, at the request of Evers’s brother Charles, Russell held an integrated basketball camp for youth. The death threats poured in as Mississippi was racially charged following the death of Evers. Members of the Ku Klux Klan showed up and watched from across the street. Armed Black leaders known as the “Deacons Defense” protected Russell. Even Charles Evers slept in Russell’s room in a chair, a shotgun in his lap pointed at the door.
Still, Black kids and White kids were learning about basketball together, providing a much-needed picture of racial harmony, and the Boston Celtics were at the center of it.
“We had a few White kids come to that camp,” Evers told the Seattle Times.
“That’s the kind of respect even some of the White folks had for Bill Russell. The camp was a success.
“My good friend B. B. King once told me there were only two things that brought Whites and Blacks together. Blues and sports.”
The reputation of Boston might be one with racism issues. But the legacy of the first Boston Celtics dynasty is as a pioneer in race relations. The athlete activism that is celebrated among today’s NBA players can be traced back to the Celtics, whose willingness to support and promote African-Americans is the foundation of an NBA that is considered the most progressive league. When it wasn’t popular to do so, the Celtics were sports’ leaders in antiracism.
In 1950, Celtics owner Walter Brown stood up among the group at an owners meeting and announced he was drafting Chuck Cooper, a six-foot-five forward out of Duquesne. Another person in the meeting intervened. Cousy, in an interview with NBC Sports Boston, said it was Philadelphia head coach and general manager Eddie Gottlieb.
“Walter, don’t you know he’s a Negro?”
Boston Globe reporter George Sullivan reported that Brown responded: “I don’t give a damn if he’s striped, plaid, or polka dot! Boston takes Chuck Cooper of Duquesne!”
And just like that, the first Black player was drafted into the NBA, and it was by the Celtics.
Russell became a grandfather of sports and activism, with his willingness to speak out and participate in the struggle for equality and Black progress, as the Celtics’ dominance of the NBA coincided with the Civil Rights Movement. Russell partnered with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Jim Brown to effect change and be a voice for the oppressed. In June 1963, President Kennedy introduced the Civil Rights Bill banning discrimination. Two months later, Russell participated in the March on Washington. He said he met with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the night before and was invited to stand with him onstage, but declined out of respect for the organizers.
In September 1963, the Celtics purchased the contract of Willie Naulls from the San Francisco Warriors. That set up the Celtics’ next historic move: becoming the first team to start five African-Americans at a time. Tom Heinsohn was the only non-Black starter, and when he rested, Naulls would spell him. So when Heinsohn was injured, it was natural for Naulls to replace him in the starting lineup. And on December 26, 1964, Naulls joined K. C. Jones, Tom Sanders, Sam Jones, and Russell to become the NBA’s first all-Black starting lineup. Oddly enough, they played in St. Louis, beating the same Hawks franchise that had traded Russell to the Celtics in 1956.
The first Black coach? That was an Auerbach move, too. In April 1966, he stepped aside and named Russell the head coach. Russell led the Celtics for three years as a player-coach and won two championships.
The currents of America were changing. The country was grappling with race and discrimination, confronted with the injustices permeating society. Citizens were challenging the government and digesting the ideals of equality. And the Boston Celtics represented the transition the country was undergoing—in a sense, they were even ahead of the country.
The Forgotten Star
Auerbach was unimpressed with the players coming out of college for the 1957 NBA draft. The previous draft, he landed Russell, Heinsohn, and K. C. Jones. So maybe Auerbach was feeling pretty secure. The Celtics, who had just won their first title, had the No. 8 and final pick of the first round. Auerbach was over it. So over it, indeed, he went with the advice of a college coach on whom he should pick.
Sam Jones was the choice. Few had ever heard of Jones. He was a six-foot-four wing from North Carolina Central, a historically black university in Durham, North Carolina. He had been offered a job to teach and coach basketball at West Charlotte High School. And he was ready to take it and give up on basketball. That was how distraught he was over being drafted by the Celtics.
The Celtics were defending champions and returned eleven players. Boston was pretty set at wing with Bill Sharman, Frank Ramsey, Jim Loscutoff, and Lou Tsioropoulos. Jones thought his basketball career was over.
“I never felt so miserable in my life when I got the news,” he was quoted saying. “I really thought it was the end of my basketball career. Sure, I was thrilled with the honor … I never thought I’d be able to break into the game, let alone the lineup.”
Jones tried to negotiate an extra $500 in salary from the school. If they had said yes, he would’ve been a teacher and not a Celtic. The school couldn’t come up with the money, though.
It turned out Jones was a perfect fit for Boston. He played college ball for John McLendon at North Carolina Central. McLendon was a protege of James Naismith. Naismith was the athletic director at the University of Kansas, where McLendon transferred after a year at junior college in Kansas City, Kansas. McLendon wasn’t allowed to play for the segregated Jayhawks, but Naismith taught McLendon the game. He took the essence of what the inventor of basketball taught him and created a unique style of play. Perpetual motion. An offense that attacked. Platooning players to keep them fresh so the pace could stay fast as McLendon’s teams pushed the ball up the court. Referees would sometimes have to pause the action to catch their breath because McLendon’s teams ran so much. His plan was for players to take a shot every eight seconds — some fifty years before the “Seven Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns.
So when Jones got to the Celtics, he fit right in with their pace. Jones was quick. He was fast getting up and down the court, even with his push dribble, which made him an ideal outlet for Russell. Jones was a bank-shot master who got pretty high on his pull-up jumpers.
When Sharman retired in 1961, Jones saw an increase in minutes and opportunity. He earned his first of five All-Star bids in 1961-62. His postseason production also jumped. The next eight years, he averaged 22.6 points in the playoffs and developed a reputation for his clutchness.
In a showdown with the Philadelphia Warriors in the 1962 Eastern Division Finals playoffs, it was Jones who saved the day. The Warriors had Wilt Chamberlain, who averaged a career-high 50.4 points in the regular season, and Tom Meschery. And the Celtics had Russell and Tom Heinsohn. The difference proved to be Jones. In Game 7 of the series, Jones had a team-high 28 points and hit the game-winning fifteen-footer with two seconds left to send the Celtics to the Finals.
It was his first postseason game winner but not his last. In Game 7 of the 1969 NBA Finals, his off-balance runner off the wrong foot with a second remaining gave the Celtics an 89–88 win over the Lakers, spoiling a 40-point game by Jerry West. Jones’s shot tied the series at 2-2, and Boston won in seven games, its eleventh and final championship.
“In the years that I played with the Celtics, in terms of total basketball skills, Sam Jones was the most skillful player that I ever played with,” Russell said in an interview with the Celtic Nation website. “At one point, we won a total of eight consecutive NBA championships, and six times during that run we asked Sam to take the shot that meant the season. If he didn’t hit the shot we were finished— we were going home empty-handed. He never missed.”
The Villain
The biggest external threat to the Celtics for the longest time was Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, the Lakers All-Stars who were terrors in their day. But the Celtics beat the Lakers five times in the Finals during their eleven-title run. So though they were the biggest threat and kept the Celtics on their toes, they didn’t win enough to compete with the real villain in the Celtics’ original dynasty.
Racism.
Before he ever played for the Celtics, Bob Cousy had Boston Garden cheering his name. On January 11, 1949, he was a captain and guard for Holy Cross, which played Loyola of Chicago as part of a double-header. With five minutes left, the crowd chanted, “We want Cousy!” and the coach put him in. He scored 11 points in the final five minutes. He capped the performance by whipping the ball around his back and banking in a left-handed hook shot to win it. His local legend status was cemented, especially after Holy Cross ripped off a twenty-six game win streak.
The Celtics had the No. 1 pick in 1950, the same year Cousy entered the draft. It was a no-brainer. But Auerbach wanted a big man instead of a guard. So he selected six-foot-eleven center Chuck Share out of Bowling Green. The Celtics passed on Cousy.
One of the writers confronted Auerbach about the choice. Bill Russell told the story on the NBA TV documentary Red and Me: Bill Russell and Red Auerbach.
“He told me one of the writers said to him, ‘You know you’ve insulted everybody in New England by not taking Bob Cousy. We’re going to run you out of town. And besides that, you’re a Jew. We don’t like Jews either.’ And I said, ‘Wow.’ I said, ‘How did you handle that?’ He said, ‘Oh, I’ll just outlive the bastards.’ And that was one of the few conversations that we had about race.”
The most pervasive foe in this most epic dynasty was racism. And as it pertained to this dynasty, the city of Boston’s infection of racism made it the team’s greatest villain. The Celtics won 70.5 percent of their games in Russell’s thirteen years, including eleven championships. The rest of the league wasn’t much of a foe. But the climate was quite the adversary for a team incorporating Black players led by a Jewish coach.
Satch Sanders said the racism in Boston was on par with the rest of the country. He even said Los Angeles was worse. But friction between Russell and the city became a constant rivalry.
The racism made Russell angry and standoffish in Boston. He infamously said he didn’t sign autographs for children, and he had a contentious relationship with the media. At the center of it all was the city’s feeling about and treatment of Black people. Russell saw it as a foe. Since he was the best player, his foe was the franchise’s foe. And they were going at it as much as Russell did with other NBA stars.
He said at home games he was called a baboon, a coon, and the N-word, and was told to go back to Africa. Russell’s home was broken into and vandalized with racial epithets. The perpetrators destroyed his trophies and defecated on his bed despite his delivering of six championships.
In his book, Second Wind, he described Boston as a “flea market of racism” because it “had all varieties, old and new, and in their most virulent form. The city had corrupt, city hall–crony racists, brick-throwing, send-’em-back-to-Africa racists, and in the university areas phony radical-chic racists.”
In August 1965, two months before the Celtics began the pursuit of their eighth-straight championship, Massachusetts passed the Racial Imbalance Act, which made it illegal to segregate public schools. The first such law of its kind, it required the integration of Boston Public Schools. It was met with resistance by the Boston School Committee, which disobeyed state orders to implement desegregation at the risk of losing funding.
It prompted a 1972 lawsuit against the Committee. The District Court of Massachusetts ruled in 1974 that Boston operated with a pattern of racial discrimination and required compliance. Thus sparked the Boston busing crisis — violent protests of school integration that still plague Boston’s reputation today. It was also vindication for all the years Russell had kept a healthy distance from the city and fans.
In 1972, the Celtics retired Russell’s jersey, raising his No. 6 into the rafters of Boston Garden. But no fans were there. Russell didn’t want them.
“He had animosities toward Boston, as most people know,” Heinsohn told the Boston Globe. “And they were well-founded animosities, I might add.”
The Home Court
When the Celtics joined the Basketball Association of America, ahead of the 1946-47 season, owner Walter Brown wanted the floor to be an attraction. He wanted something fancy. The problem was, however, that America had a wood shortage following World War II. And most of the manufactured wood available was reserved for much-needed housing.
“The only way they could do that was getting scraps of wood at lumber yards throughout Boston and put together a floor,” Jeff Twiss, the Celtics vice president of media services and alumni relations, told NBC Sports Boston.
So for the Celtics’ new hardwood floor, builders had to use a unique method. Parquet, a French artistry of creating geometric designs by cutting and fitting together small pieces of wood, was the best way to create Boston’s court. The $11,000 floor was made of short red oak boards of varying lengths and widths. The grains were still showing, and the alternating directions of the wood panels gave it a distinct decorative look. The parquet floor proved to be a gem.
It made its debut in 1946 at Boston Arena, where the Celtics originally played. In 1952, it moved to the Boston Garden, which would become a legendary edifice in NBA lore.
The Boston Garden was created by the same boxing promoter who built Madison Square Garden in New York: Ted Rickard. After the success of the New York arena, he planned to build six more Gardens around the country. Boston was No. 2 — it was called Boston Madison Square Garden when it opened in 1928 — and proved to be the last because the $10 million price tag was twice that of the New York arena. Then Rickard died in 1929.
The Celtics moved to the Boston Garden in 1955 and made it one of the most noteworthy home-court advantages in the league. Over the years, as the boards of natural wood grew apart and warped, it gave the Celtics’ home court some actual texture. Uneven surfaces made dribbling tricky on parts of the court. As legend has it, Celtics defenders would guide ball handlers to the dead spots and swipe the ball when it thudded off the dip in the hardwood.
“It makes a nice story, but it’s not true,” Cousy once said.
The Boston Garden was built for boxing and Rickard wanted the fans close to the action — to see the sweat, as he would say. That proved to be an intimidating scene for visiting teams as the cheering crowds were so close. Also, Boston Garden had no air-conditioning, so it could be hot and daunting inside. To be continued.
The Craziest Stat
The 1962–63 Celtics had nine Hall of Famers: Russell, Heinsohn, Havlicek, Ramsay, Sanders, Sam Jones, K. C. Jones, Cousy, and Clyde Lovellette. It is the most Hall of Famers on one team in NBA history.
From the book Dynasties by Marcus Thompson II. Reprinted by permission of Black Dog & Leventhal, an imprint of Running Press, a part of the Perseus division of Hachette Book Group. Copyright © 2021 by Marcus Thompson II
NBA 75 book excerpt: ‘Dynasties: The 10 G.O.A.T. Teams that Changed the NBA Forever’ — The Bill Russell Celtics
Welcome to the NBA 75, The Athletic’s countdown of the 75 best players in NBA history, in honor of the league’s diamond anniversary. We also will run features such as this one to complement certain players and moments throughout our series.
This is an excerpt from The Athletic‘s Marcus Thompson II’s “Dynasties: The 10 G.O.A.T. Teams that Changed the NBA Forever” published by Black Dog & Levinthal in 2021. All “Dynasties” illustrations by Yu-Ming Huang.
Bill Russell showed up to the Trinity Church in Boston in 2019. So did Tom “Satch” Sanders. John Havlicek was there in spirit.
All that was missing were K. C. and Sam Jones. That’s how close the Celtics were to having all five players back together again. Some fifty-four years earlier, they were on the court for the most memorable moment of this Celtics dynasty: Game 7 of the 1965 Eastern Division Finals. It was undoubtedly the most memorable call in basketball history.
The Celtics, winners of six straight championships, were in danger of being eliminated. They led by a point with five seconds remaining on their home court. Russell took the ball out because he trusted himself the most to make the right pass. But his inbounds toss hit the wiring connected to the basket, and the Celtics turned the ball over. The 76ers had new life. And their star center, Wilt Chamberlain, was in a groove. He had scored 10 straight points and was about to get the ball near his own basket. The fans worried about their Celtics.
On the ensuing inbounds pass, Philadelphia’s Hal Greer was trying to throw the ball in to Chet Walker. With Russell fronting Chamberlain, and Sam Jones and Satch Sanders pressing up on the 76ers’ wings, Havlicek saw Greer had but one place to go with the ball. So Havlicek jumped into the passing lane. He deflected the ball, Sam Jones scooped it up, and the Celtics survived. So did the call, for ages.
And Havlicek steals itOver to Sam JonesHavlicek stole the ballIt’s all overIt’s all overJohnny Havlicek is being mobbed by the fansIt’s all overJohnny Havlicek stole the ballOhhhhh boy what a play by Havlicek at the end of this ball gameBill Russell wants to grab HavlicekHe hugs himHe squeezes John HavlicekHavlicek saved this ball game
The call was by the late broadcaster Johnny Most. He punctuated the iconic moment with his conveyance of just how riveting and relieving that victory was for the Celtics, who went on to win their seventh consecutive championship. He turned Havlicek into a household name. So when Hondo — what they called Havlicek because of his resemblance to John Wayne — died on April 25, 2019, a central part of Celtics lore was lost.
Russell might have been the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty. But one could argue Havlicek was its heart. He most fit their aesthetic, with his humility and reliable production. He was a thirteen-time All-Star who made eleven All- NBA teams and eight All-Defensive teams. He won eight championships and was the 1973–74 Finals MVP.
But also they rooted for him because he was hardworking and down-to-earth. Havlicek was one of those guys you never heard a bad word about. So when he died of Parkinson’s disease, his clout in the green and white was quite the draw. As family, friends, and teammates gathered at Trinity Church, not all five players from the “Havlicek Stole the Ball!” game were there. But with Bob Cousy and Tom Heinsohn in attendance, there were five key players from the 1963 championship.
What was evident then, as they gathered to honor their friend, was how the grains of sand in their hourglasses were dwindling. Cousy was 90 at the time of the funeral. Russell was 85. Tom Heinsohn 84. Sanders 80. Havlicek, who’d just turned 79 before his death, was the youngest of the bunch. K. C. Jones, who died Christmas Day in 2020, was 87 and Sam Jones 85.
They are the last of the NBA’s winningest dynasty. They paved the way for so much of what came after them. But these Celtics already get disrespected with dismissive criticisms of their era — the league had fewer teams, fewer Black players, and the offensive game wasn’t as polished. The memory of their greatness keeps fading, deeper and deeper into the past. One can only wonder: What happens to the reverence of those Celtics teams when the players are no longer here to command it?
The Face of the Dynasty
Check out this passage about Bill Russell from the December 31, 1956, edition of the Boston Globe, written by Jack Barry:
Big Red Kerr went the way of all other rival pivot men who have opposed the ex-collegiate star when he tried his hook shot from a pivot position in the game’s early moments.
Russell nonchalantly rose in the air to bat down Kerr’s intended basket and Coach Paul Seymour was finally obliged to remove Kerr, who stands 6-9 himself, from action. Kerr gathered but two baskets for the day, both when Russell was on the bench.
Imagine how demoralizing Russell must have been. Before facing Russell, Kerr had already won a championship and was an All-Star the previous season. He was beginning a string of eight consecutive seasons averaging a double-double, which would land him two more All-Star bids. The night before, on December 29, the Syracuse Nationals played the Philadelphia Warriors, featuring Hall of Fame big man Neil Johnston. Kerr had 15 points on 16 shots with 22 rebounds. Yet against Russell, Kerr was so overwhelmed his coach pulled him. He finished with 4 points on 6 shots.
Russell was so novel a sight, so unique a specimen, it probably did look nonchalant the way he rose in the air, like a floating, swatting barricade in front of the rim. And this was just his sixth pro game. Russell finished with 20 points and 32 rebounds against Kerr.
It was a bright idea that set Russell on the path to legendary status. The path to eleven rings began with a teenage hunch that made him a defensive wonder, a freak of nature. Yes, it was an open violation of the fundamentals taught by practically every coach since the sport was invented. But Russell, who started playing basketball in Oakland, California, for McClymonds High School, had this revolutionary concept for his approach to defense.
Jump.
Back in those days, one fundamental principle of defense was to stay grounded. Keeping your balance, having active feet, was critical to keeping the ball handler in front. Leaving your feet was a sin. But Russell, a special athlete, figured he could be even more disruptive if he used athleticism to contest shots. He was right.
It made him a star at the University of San Francisco, which he guided to back-to-back national championships. It made him the star of the 1956 Olympic team, which won the gold medal at the Melbourne Games. It made him the winningest player in NBA history.
When Russell arrived, the Celtics were automatically different. With his defensive prowess and the Celtics’ pace, they were instantly an innovation. His athleticism was a game-changer as he blocked shots, pressured the ball, and cleaned up the rebounds. Russell could dribble well enough to push the ball once he got the board. And while he wasn’t great offensively, he could handle himself around the rim. It is widely believed the NCAA banned offensive goaltending in 1957 as a counter to Russell, who could easily catch the pass over the rim and drop it in, or tap in a rebound while it was still above the rim. As a rookie with the Celtics, Russell averaged 14.7 points on 42.7 percent and a league-best 19.6 rebounds. In the playoffs, his offensive numbers dropped— 13.9 points on 36.5 percent shooting—but he went up to 24.4 rebounds.
In his first playoff game, Russell had 16 points and 31 rebounds and tormented Red Kerr again. The Syracuse big man, who started the Eastern Semifinals against the Philadelphia Warriors, was switched to a reserve against Boston. He went 5-for-18 from the field off the bench. Syracuse’s starting center, Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes, didn’t do much better. He went 3-for-13, getting 15 of his 21 points from the free-throw line.
In Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the St. Louis Hawks, the Celtics were locked in a double-overtime thriller before a capacity crowd of more than thirteen thousand fans at Boston Garden. The Celtics were up 122–121 inside of two minutes left. Russell blocked Med Park’s shot to get Boston the ball back, and Frank Ramsey hit a twenty-footer to seal the win as the arena went crazy. The Celtics won its first NBA title and, unbeknownst to everyone, a dynasty was born. Russell, who finished with 19 points and 32 rebounds in that Game 7, was its center.
In 165 playoff games, Russell averaged 16.2 points, 24.9 rebounds, and 4.7 assists. He actually finished in the top thirteen in the NBA in assists in eleven of his thirteen seasons, including four times in the top ten. He had forty rebounds twice in Game 7s.
The league didn’t start counting blocks until after Russell retired. The first Finals MVP was in 1969 — and won by Jerry West, even though the Lakers lost the series to the Celtics. If they had been counting, Russell likely would’ve had the record for blocks and perhaps ten Finals MVPs. Those would have greatly helped translate his dominance of the era.
When This Dynasty Reigned
The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement dominated the political landscape. The NBA’s political bent began in this era as players, along with other Black athletes in other sports, used their platforms to speak on these issues.
John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all assassinated during this Boston dynasty.
Some of the most profound musical influences emerged in these times. Elvis Presley became a giant star in the mid to late ’50s. Berry Gordy started Motown in the late ’50s. The Beatles rose to prominence in the mid-’60s.
The sexual revolution of the ’60s also coincided with this dynasty, challenging societal norms regarding orientation, monogamy, and eroticism. The advent of the birth control pill, the overturning of banned erotic books, and the popularization of Playboy magazine made sex a staple in the time of the Celtics.
McDonald’s became a thing.
The Architect
As the story goes, Walter A. Brown, the original owner of the Celtics, was looking for a new leader to get Boston out of the doldrums. The Celtics went 22–46 in their first season in the NBA—after coming over from the Basketball Association of America, the first professional basketball league. He asked reporters for a coach he should go after. They said Red Auerbach, who was nine years into his coaching career and had already coached Navy, coached the Washington Capitols to the BAA Finals, and served as an assistant coach and heir apparent at Duke. So on April 27, 1950, the Celtics hired Auerbach for $10,000 a year and gave him the reins. They won 57 percent of their games over the next six seasons, making the playoffs but never making the Finals.
Russell, out of the University of San Francisco, was the most dominant player in college and assuredly the No. 1 pick in the 1956 NBA Draft. But Boston—owners of the second-best record in the league in 1955–56, behind the Philadelphia Warriors—didn’t have a first-round pick. Back then, the league had what was known as “territorial picks.” It allowed for a team to cash in its first-round pick to draft a local college star within fifty miles. This was meant to benefit the franchise and help them to get the players in the area who were already a draw. That year, Tom Heinsohn was a star at Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. So Boston chose to use the territorial pick on him, meaning they had no pick to get Russell.
But Auerbach coveted Russell. So he and the Celtics owner started making moves behind the scenes.
The Rochester Royals had the No. 1 pick that year. The franchise was struggling financially, so the Celtics offered to secure them an influx of cash. How? Brown had a stake in the Ice Capades, a traveling show of figure-skaters that drew bigger crowds than most sports teams as it toured the nation. The Celtics made a deal to get some Ice Capades dates in Rochester in exchange for the Royals passing on Russell. So instead of the best player in college, Rochester got figure-skating legend Donna Atwood and Duquesne guard Si Green.
Auerbach and the Celtics went to work on the owners of the No. 2 pick, the St. Louis Hawks. Auerbach offered up his starting center Ed Macauley and threw in Cliff Hagan. It was enough to get Russell and proved to be one of the worst trades in NBA history. The Hawks said they agreed because Macauley was a local who played college ball at St. Louis. But the whispers were that St. Louis, which had an all-White team, was too racist a town for a Black player. Russell agreed.
“St. Louis was overwhelmingly racist,” Russell said in an interview on NBA TV. “If I would’ve gotten drafted by St. Louis, I wouldn’t have been in the NBA.”
So the Celtics got Heinsohn and Russell. And then with their second-round pick, they selected K. C. Jones, Russell’s costar at the University of San Francisco.
The Celtics had been the highest-scoring team in the NBA for the previous five years, led by Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. What they needed was defense, and they now had it in Russell. They became a complete team and won their first championship in Russell’s rookie season. And Auerbach was not just orchestrating a champion, but the dynasty of dynasties. He was also inventing.
Red, as he was called, has been credited with a number of pioneering contributions to basketball.
NBA Fast Break: Auerbach didn’t invent the fast break. But his Celtics popularized it in the NBA by using it on one of basketball’s biggest stages, led by their crafty ball handler in Cousy. At a time when the game was played slow, half court to half court, Auerbach encouraged his team to get the ball up the court quickly.
Transition Offense: Taking full advantage of Russell anchoring the middle of the paint, Auerbach emphasized using defense to create offense. He taught Russell to keep the shots he blocked in bounds so they could start what was known as the “Celtics fast break.” The blocked shot would essentially serve as an outlet pass. Once the Celtics got the rebound, they took off before the defense could set.
Sixth Man: From the time Auerbach took over the Celtics, Cousy and Sharman were the starting guards. But in 1954, Auerbach drafted Frank Ramsey out of Kentucky with the No. 5 overall pick. Auerbach used Ramsey to give a breather to his guards and inject some life into the game. He was a six-foot-three guard who could shoot and defend. He was so good Auerbach had him on the court at the end of a lot of games. Auerbach sold it as saving Ramsey by not starting him, as he wrote in his 1977 autobiography. He ended up doing the same with John Havlicek after drafting him in 1962.
“On a lot of teams they make a big deal out of the starting five,” he wrote. “If you don’t start, it implies you’re not as good or as valuable as the next guy.
“That’s not the way we looked at the men on our bench in Boston. Psychologically, as soon as you pull one of your starters out of the game, the other team is going to let down just a bit. That’s when I wanted a guy like Ramsey or Havlicek to get out there and run them into the ground.”
The Victory Cigar: Technically, Auerbach didn’t invent this concept either. It predates the Celtics by more than a half a century. In the early 1900s, cigars were given out as prizes at carnivals. Even the 1902 book The Night Side of London mentions cigars as prizes. Most figure this practice to be the genesis of the saying “close but no cigar”—which was used in the 1935 film Annie Oakley. But Red took it to another level when he created the tradition of firing up a cigar on the bench, even when the game would still be going on. When he knew there was no chance his Celtics would lose, right there on the bench, he pulled out his stogie and lit it up. The smoke was an epic taunt. “It all boils down to this,” Auerbach told Cigar Aficionado. “I used to hate these college coaches or any coach that was 25 points ahead with three minutes left to go, and they’re up there yellin’ and coachin’ because they’re on TV, and they want their picture on, and they get recognition. To me, the game was over. The day’s work is done. Worry about the
next game. This game is over. So I would light a cigar and sit on the bench and just watch it. The game was over, for all intents and purposes. I didn’t want to rub anything in or show anybody what a great coach I was when I was 25 points ahead. Why? I gotta win by 30? What the hell difference does it make?”
The Cultural Impact
On June 12, 1963, Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers was shot and killed as he got out of his car in Jackson, Mississippi. Russell, who’d been fighting against racism all his life, called the Evers family to ask what he could do to help. The answer required him going to Mississippi.
Shortly thereafter, at the request of Evers’s brother Charles, Russell held an integrated basketball camp for youth. The death threats poured in as Mississippi was racially charged following the death of Evers. Members of the Ku Klux Klan showed up and watched from across the street. Armed Black leaders known as the “Deacons Defense” protected Russell. Even Charles Evers slept in Russell’s room in a chair, a shotgun in his lap pointed at the door.
Still, Black kids and White kids were learning about basketball together, providing a much-needed picture of racial harmony, and the Boston Celtics were at the center of it.
“We had a few White kids come to that camp,” Evers told the Seattle Times.
“That’s the kind of respect even some of the White folks had for Bill Russell. The camp was a success.
“My good friend B. B. King once told me there were only two things that brought Whites and Blacks together. Blues and sports.”
The reputation of Boston might be one with racism issues. But the legacy of the first Boston Celtics dynasty is as a pioneer in race relations. The athlete activism that is celebrated among today’s NBA players can be traced back to the Celtics, whose willingness to support and promote African-Americans is the foundation of an NBA that is considered the most progressive league. When it wasn’t popular to do so, the Celtics were sports’ leaders in antiracism.
In 1950, Celtics owner Walter Brown stood up among the group at an owners meeting and announced he was drafting Chuck Cooper, a six-foot-five forward out of Duquesne. Another person in the meeting intervened. Cousy, in an interview with NBC Sports Boston, said it was Philadelphia head coach and general manager Eddie Gottlieb.
“Walter, don’t you know he’s a Negro?”
Boston Globe reporter George Sullivan reported that Brown responded: “I don’t give a damn if he’s striped, plaid, or polka dot! Boston takes Chuck Cooper of Duquesne!”
And just like that, the first Black player was drafted into the NBA, and it was by the Celtics.
Russell became a grandfather of sports and activism, with his willingness to speak out and participate in the struggle for equality and Black progress, as the Celtics’ dominance of the NBA coincided with the Civil Rights Movement. Russell partnered with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Jim Brown to effect change and be a voice for the oppressed. In June 1963, President Kennedy introduced the Civil Rights Bill banning discrimination. Two months later, Russell participated in the March on Washington. He said he met with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the night before and was invited to stand with him onstage, but declined out of respect for the organizers.
In September 1963, the Celtics purchased the contract of Willie Naulls from the San Francisco Warriors. That set up the Celtics’ next historic move: becoming the first team to start five African-Americans at a time. Tom Heinsohn was the only non-Black starter, and when he rested, Naulls would spell him. So when Heinsohn was injured, it was natural for Naulls to replace him in the starting lineup. And on December 26, 1964, Naulls joined K. C. Jones, Tom Sanders, Sam Jones, and Russell to become the NBA’s first all-Black starting lineup. Oddly enough, they played in St. Louis, beating the same Hawks franchise that had traded Russell to the Celtics in 1956.
The first Black coach? That was an Auerbach move, too. In April 1966, he stepped aside and named Russell the head coach. Russell led the Celtics for three years as a player-coach and won two championships.
The currents of America were changing. The country was grappling with race and discrimination, confronted with the injustices permeating society. Citizens were challenging the government and digesting the ideals of equality. And the Boston Celtics represented the transition the country was undergoing—in a sense, they were even ahead of the country.
The Forgotten Star
Auerbach was unimpressed with the players coming out of college for the 1957 NBA draft. The previous draft, he landed Russell, Heinsohn, and K. C. Jones. So maybe Auerbach was feeling pretty secure. The Celtics, who had just won their first title, had the No. 8 and final pick of the first round. Auerbach was over it. So over it, indeed, he went with the advice of a college coach on whom he should pick.
Sam Jones was the choice. Few had ever heard of Jones. He was a six-foot-four wing from North Carolina Central, a historically black university in Durham, North Carolina. He had been offered a job to teach and coach basketball at West Charlotte High School. And he was ready to take it and give up on basketball. That was how distraught he was over being drafted by the Celtics.
The Celtics were defending champions and returned eleven players. Boston was pretty set at wing with Bill Sharman, Frank Ramsey, Jim Loscutoff, and Lou Tsioropoulos. Jones thought his basketball career was over.
“I never felt so miserable in my life when I got the news,” he was quoted saying. “I really thought it was the end of my basketball career. Sure, I was thrilled with the honor … I never thought I’d be able to break into the game, let alone the lineup.”
Jones tried to negotiate an extra $500 in salary from the school. If they had said yes, he would’ve been a teacher and not a Celtic. The school couldn’t come up with the money, though.
It turned out Jones was a perfect fit for Boston. He played college ball for John McLendon at North Carolina Central. McLendon was a protege of James Naismith. Naismith was the athletic director at the University of Kansas, where McLendon transferred after a year at junior college in Kansas City, Kansas. McLendon wasn’t allowed to play for the segregated Jayhawks, but Naismith taught McLendon the game. He took the essence of what the inventor of basketball taught him and created a unique style of play. Perpetual motion. An offense that attacked. Platooning players to keep them fresh so the pace could stay fast as McLendon’s teams pushed the ball up the court. Referees would sometimes have to pause the action to catch their breath because McLendon’s teams ran so much. His plan was for players to take a shot every eight seconds — some fifty years before the “Seven Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns.
So when Jones got to the Celtics, he fit right in with their pace. Jones was quick. He was fast getting up and down the court, even with his push dribble, which made him an ideal outlet for Russell. Jones was a bank-shot master who got pretty high on his pull-up jumpers.
When Sharman retired in 1961, Jones saw an increase in minutes and opportunity. He earned his first of five All-Star bids in 1961-62. His postseason production also jumped. The next eight years, he averaged 22.6 points in the playoffs and developed a reputation for his clutchness.
In a showdown with the Philadelphia Warriors in the 1962 Eastern Division Finals playoffs, it was Jones who saved the day. The Warriors had Wilt Chamberlain, who averaged a career-high 50.4 points in the regular season, and Tom Meschery. And the Celtics had Russell and Tom Heinsohn. The difference proved to be Jones. In Game 7 of the series, Jones had a team-high 28 points and hit the game-winning fifteen-footer with two seconds left to send the Celtics to the Finals.
It was his first postseason game winner but not his last. In Game 7 of the 1969 NBA Finals, his off-balance runner off the wrong foot with a second remaining gave the Celtics an 89–88 win over the Lakers, spoiling a 40-point game by Jerry West. Jones’s shot tied the series at 2-2, and Boston won in seven games, its eleventh and final championship.
“In the years that I played with the Celtics, in terms of total basketball skills, Sam Jones was the most skillful player that I ever played with,” Russell said in an interview with the Celtic Nation website. “At one point, we won a total of eight consecutive NBA championships, and six times during that run we asked Sam to take the shot that meant the season. If he didn’t hit the shot we were finished— we were going home empty-handed. He never missed.”
The Villain
The biggest external threat to the Celtics for the longest time was Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, the Lakers All-Stars who were terrors in their day. But the Celtics beat the Lakers five times in the Finals during their eleven-title run. So though they were the biggest threat and kept the Celtics on their toes, they didn’t win enough to compete with the real villain in the Celtics’ original dynasty.
Racism.
Before he ever played for the Celtics, Bob Cousy had Boston Garden cheering his name. On January 11, 1949, he was a captain and guard for Holy Cross, which played Loyola of Chicago as part of a double-header. With five minutes left, the crowd chanted, “We want Cousy!” and the coach put him in. He scored 11 points in the final five minutes. He capped the performance by whipping the ball around his back and banking in a left-handed hook shot to win it. His local legend status was cemented, especially after Holy Cross ripped off a twenty-six game win streak.
The Celtics had the No. 1 pick in 1950, the same year Cousy entered the draft. It was a no-brainer. But Auerbach wanted a big man instead of a guard. So he selected six-foot-eleven center Chuck Share out of Bowling Green. The Celtics passed on Cousy.
One of the writers confronted Auerbach about the choice. Bill Russell told the story on the NBA TV documentary Red and Me: Bill Russell and Red Auerbach.
“He told me one of the writers said to him, ‘You know you’ve insulted everybody in New England by not taking Bob Cousy. We’re going to run you out of town. And besides that, you’re a Jew. We don’t like Jews either.’ And I said, ‘Wow.’ I said, ‘How did you handle that?’ He said, ‘Oh, I’ll just outlive the bastards.’ And that was one of the few conversations that we had about race.”
The most pervasive foe in this most epic dynasty was racism. And as it pertained to this dynasty, the city of Boston’s infection of racism made it the team’s greatest villain. The Celtics won 70.5 percent of their games in Russell’s thirteen years, including eleven championships. The rest of the league wasn’t much of a foe. But the climate was quite the adversary for a team incorporating Black players led by a Jewish coach.
Satch Sanders said the racism in Boston was on par with the rest of the country. He even said Los Angeles was worse. But friction between Russell and the city became a constant rivalry.
The racism made Russell angry and standoffish in Boston. He infamously said he didn’t sign autographs for children, and he had a contentious relationship with the media. At the center of it all was the city’s feeling about and treatment of Black people. Russell saw it as a foe. Since he was the best player, his foe was the franchise’s foe. And they were going at it as much as Russell did with other NBA stars.
He said at home games he was called a baboon, a coon, and the N-word, and was told to go back to Africa. Russell’s home was broken into and vandalized with racial epithets. The perpetrators destroyed his trophies and defecated on his bed despite his delivering of six championships.
In his book, Second Wind, he described Boston as a “flea market of racism” because it “had all varieties, old and new, and in their most virulent form. The city had corrupt, city hall–crony racists, brick-throwing, send-’em-back-to-Africa racists, and in the university areas phony radical-chic racists.”
In August 1965, two months before the Celtics began the pursuit of their eighth-straight championship, Massachusetts passed the Racial Imbalance Act, which made it illegal to segregate public schools. The first such law of its kind, it required the integration of Boston Public Schools. It was met with resistance by the Boston School Committee, which disobeyed state orders to implement desegregation at the risk of losing funding.
It prompted a 1972 lawsuit against the Committee. The District Court of Massachusetts ruled in 1974 that Boston operated with a pattern of racial discrimination and required compliance. Thus sparked the Boston busing crisis — violent protests of school integration that still plague Boston’s reputation today. It was also vindication for all the years Russell had kept a healthy distance from the city and fans.
In 1972, the Celtics retired Russell’s jersey, raising his No. 6 into the rafters of Boston Garden. But no fans were there. Russell didn’t want them.
“He had animosities toward Boston, as most people know,” Heinsohn told the Boston Globe. “And they were well-founded animosities, I might add.”
The Home Court
When the Celtics joined the Basketball Association of America, ahead of the 1946-47 season, owner Walter Brown wanted the floor to be an attraction. He wanted something fancy. The problem was, however, that America had a wood shortage following World War II. And most of the manufactured wood available was reserved for much-needed housing.
“The only way they could do that was getting scraps of wood at lumber yards throughout Boston and put together a floor,” Jeff Twiss, the Celtics vice president of media services and alumni relations, told NBC Sports Boston.
So for the Celtics’ new hardwood floor, builders had to use a unique method. Parquet, a French artistry of creating geometric designs by cutting and fitting together small pieces of wood, was the best way to create Boston’s court. The $11,000 floor was made of short red oak boards of varying lengths and widths. The grains were still showing, and the alternating directions of the wood panels gave it a distinct decorative look. The parquet floor proved to be a gem.
It made its debut in 1946 at Boston Arena, where the Celtics originally played. In 1952, it moved to the Boston Garden, which would become a legendary edifice in NBA lore.
The Boston Garden was created by the same boxing promoter who built Madison Square Garden in New York: Ted Rickard. After the success of the New York arena, he planned to build six more Gardens around the country. Boston was No. 2 — it was called Boston Madison Square Garden when it opened in 1928 — and proved to be the last because the $10 million price tag was twice that of the New York arena. Then Rickard died in 1929.
The Celtics moved to the Boston Garden in 1955 and made it one of the most noteworthy home-court advantages in the league. Over the years, as the boards of natural wood grew apart and warped, it gave the Celtics’ home court some actual texture. Uneven surfaces made dribbling tricky on parts of the court. As legend has it, Celtics defenders would guide ball handlers to the dead spots and swipe the ball when it thudded off the dip in the hardwood.
“It makes a nice story, but it’s not true,” Cousy once said.
The Boston Garden was built for boxing and Rickard wanted the fans close to the action — to see the sweat, as he would say. That proved to be an intimidating scene for visiting teams as the cheering crowds were so close. Also, Boston Garden had no air-conditioning, so it could be hot and daunting inside. To be continued.
The Craziest Stat
The 1962–63 Celtics had nine Hall of Famers: Russell, Heinsohn, Havlicek, Ramsay, Sanders, Sam Jones, K. C. Jones, Cousy, and Clyde Lovellette. It is the most Hall of Famers on one team in NBA history.
From the book Dynasties by Marcus Thompson II. Reprinted by permission of Black Dog & Leventhal, an imprint of Running Press, a part of the Perseus division of Hachette Book Group. Copyright © 2021 by Marcus Thompson II
