Bill Russell, the cornerstone of the Boston Celtics dynasty that won eight straight titles and 11 overall during his career, died Sunday. The Hall of Famer was 88 years old.
Russell died “peacefully” with his wife, Jeannine, by his side, according to a statement posted on social media. Arrangements for his memorial service will be announced soon, according to the statement.
“But for all the gains, Bill’s understanding of struggle is what illuminated his life. From boycotting a 1961 exhibition game to expose discrimination tolerated for too long, to leading the first camp Mississippi basketball team after the murder of Medgar Evans, to decades of activism ultimately recognized by his receipt of the Presidential Medal of Freedom… Bill called out the injustice with a relentless sincerity that sought to alter the ‘status quo, and with a powerful example that, though never his humble intention, will forever inspire teamwork, selflessness and thoughtful change,’ the statement said.
“Bill’s wife, Jeannine, and his many friends and family thank you for keeping Bill in your prayers. Perhaps you will relive one or two of the golden moments he gave us, or remember his signature laugh as he delighted in telling the real story. behind how these moments unfolded. And we hope that each of us can find a new way to act or speak with Bill’s uncompromising, dignified and always constructive commitment to principles. This would be a last and lasting victory for our beloved number 6.”
An announcement… pic.twitter.com/KMJ7pG4R5Z
— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) July 31, 2022
Over a 15-year period beginning with his freshman year at the University of San Francisco, Russell had the most remarkable career of any player in the history of team sports. At USF, he was a two-time All-American, won two consecutive NCAA championships and led the team to 55 consecutive victories. And he won a gold medal at the 1956 Olympics.
During his 13 years in Boston, he led the Celtics to the NBA Finals 12 times, winning the championship 11 times. The year the Celtics lost, 1958 to the St. Louis Hawks, Russell suffered a severe ankle sprain during the series. He missed two games and was limited to Game 6 for the Hawks.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver called Russell “the greatest champion in all of team sports” in a statement Sunday.
“I cherished my friendship with Bill and was thrilled when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I often called him the Babe Ruth of basketball because of how he transcended time. Bill was the ultimate winner and a consummate teammate , and his influence on the NBA will be felt. forever,” Silver said.
A five-time MVP and 12-time All-Star, Russell was an uncanny shot blocker who revolutionized NBA defensive concepts. He finished with 21,620 career rebounds — an average of 22.5 per game — and led the league in rebounding by four. He had 51 rebounds in one game, 49 in two others and 12 consecutive seasons of 1,000 or more rebounds. Russell also averaged 15.1 points and 4.3 assists per game over his career.
Until the exploits of Michael Jordan in the 1990s, Russell was considered by many to be the greatest player in NBA history.
Russell was awarded the Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama in 2011, the nation’s highest civilian honor. And in 2017, the NBA presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
William Felton Russell was born on February 12, 1934 in Monroe, Louisiana. His family moved to the Bay Area, where he attended McClymonds High School in Oakland. He was an awkward, undersized center on McClymonds’ basketball team, but his size earned him a scholarship to San Francisco, where he flourished.
“I was an innovator,” Russell told The New York Times in 2011. “I started blocking shots even though I’d never seen shots blocked before. The first time I did it in a game, my coach he called a timeout and said, “Not a good defensive player leaves his feet.”
Russell did it anyway, teaming with point guard KC Jones to lead the Dons to 55 straight wins and national titles in 1955 and 1956. (Jones missed four games of the 1956 tournament because his eligibility had expired.) Russell was named NCAA tournament. Most Outstanding Player in 1955. He then led the United States basketball team to victory in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.
As the 1956 NBA draft approached, Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach was eager to add Russell to his lineup. Auerbach had built a high-scoring offensive machine around guards Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman and undersized center Ed Macauley, but he thought the Celtics lacked the defense and rebounding needed to transform them into a championship Russell, according to Auerbach, was the missing piece of the puzzle.
After the St. Louis Hawks selected Russell in the 1956 draft, Auerbach engineered a trade to get Russell for Ed Macauley.
Boston’s starting five of Russell, Tommy Heinsohn, Cousy, Sharman and Jim Loscutoff was a high-octane unit. The Celtics posted the best regular season record in the NBA in 1956-57 and cruised through the playoffs to capture their first NBA title, beating the Hawks.
In a rematch of the 1958 NBA Finals, the Celtics and Hawks split the first two games at Boston Garden. But Russell suffered an ankle injury in Game 3 and was ineffective the rest of the series. The Hawks eventually won the series in six games.
Russell and the Celtics dominated the NBA Finals after that, winning 10 titles in 11 years and giving pro basketball a level of prestige it hadn’t enjoyed before.
In the process, Russell revolutionized the game. He was a 6-foot-9 center whose reflexes led to shot-blocking and other defensive maneuvers that sparked a fast-breaking offense in full swing.
In 1966, after eight consecutive titles, Auerbach retired as coach and named Russell as his successor. This was hailed as a sociological breakthrough, as Russell was the first black manager of a major league team in any sport, let alone such a distinguished team. But neither Russell nor Auerbach saw the movement that way. They felt it was simply the best way to keep winning, and as player-coach, Russell won two more titles in the next three years.
His main rival was age. After winning his 11th championship in 1969 at age 35, Russell retired, sparking a mini-Boston rebuild. During his 13 seasons, the NBA had expanded from eight teams to 14. Russell did not have to survive more than three rounds of playoffs to win a title.
“If Bill Russell came back today with the same team and the same brainpower, the exact same person as when he landed in the NBA in 1956, he would be the best rebounder in the league,” said Bob Ryan, a former Celtics. “As an athlete, he was way ahead of his time. He would win three, four or five championships, but not 11 in 13 years, obviously.”
Along with several titles, Russell’s career was also defined in part by his rivalry with Wilt Chamberlain.
In the 1959-60 season, the 7-foot-1 Chamberlain, who averaged 37.6 points per game in his rookie year, debuted with the Philadelphia Warriors. On November 7, 1959, Russell’s Celtics hosted Chamberlain’s Warriors, and pundits called the matchup between the best offensive and defensive centers “The Big Collision” and “Battle of the Titans.” While Chamberlain outscored Russell 30-22, the Celtics won 115-106 and the game was called a “new beginning of basketball”.
The confrontation between Russell and Chamberlain became one of the greatest rivalries in basketball. One of the Celtics’ titles came against Wilt Chamberlain’s San Francisco Warriors in 1964.
While Chamberlain out-and-out-played Russell throughout his 142 career games (28.7 rebounds per game to 23.7, 28.7 points per game to 14.5) and his entire career (22, 9 RPG in 22.5, 30.1 PPG in 15.1), Russell usually gets the award. as the best overall player, mainly because his teams won 87 (61%) of those games.
In the eight playoff series between the two, Russell and the Celtics won seven. Russell has 11 championship rings; Chamberlain only has two, and only one was won against Russell’s Celtics.
“I was the bad guy because he was so much bigger and stronger than anybody,” Chamberlain told the Boston Herald in 1995. “People don’t tend to root for Goliath, and Bill was a jovial guy back then and he really had a great laugh. A plus, he played on the greatest team in history.
“My team was losing and his team was winning, so it would be natural for me to be jealous. It’s not true. I’m more than happy with how things turned out. Overall it was the best, by far, and that only helped bring out the best in me.”
After Russell retired from basketball, his place in history assured, he moved into wider spheres, hosting radio and television shows and writing newspaper columns on general topics.
In 1973, Russell took over the Seattle SuperSonics, then a six-year-old expansion franchise that had never made the playoffs, as coach and general manager. The previous year, the Sonics had won 26 games and sold 350 season tickets. Under Russell, they went 36, 43, 43 and 40, making the playoffs twice. When he resigned, they had a solid base of 5,000 season tickets and the stuff to make the NBA Finals the following two years.
Russell was frustrated by players’ reluctance to embrace the team concept. Some suggested that the problem was Russell himself; he was said to be aloof, moody and unable to accept anything other than Celtics tradition. Ironically, Lenny Wilkens guided Seattle to a championship two years later, preaching the same team concept that Russell had unsuccessfully tried to instill.
A decade after leaving Seattle, Russell gave coaching another try, replacing Jerry Reynolds as the Sacramento Kings’ coach early in the 1987-88 season. The team staggered to a 17-41 record and Russell left midseason.
Between coaching stints, Russell was more…