NBA: 20 Past Players That Would Have Owned Twitter
By Bill Speros
16. Bill Russell
Bill Russell won 11 titles during his 13 seasons with the Boston Celtics. He became the NBA’s first black head coach 50 years ago last month when he named as Red Auerbach’s successor.
His primacy among the NBA’s greatest will be assured forever. Russell’s passions extended far beyond basketball, however.
In his book “Red and Me,” Russell wrote at length about his relationship with Auerbach, their shared basketball philosophies and how they together tried to wrestle with some of the key civil rights issues of the late 20th century.
In the book, Russell stressed that Auerbach was thinking only of winning and not making civil rights inroads when he became the pro coach to start five black players in the early 1960s. As a player, Russell’s mantra was not only winning, but “how can I help my teammate help the team?”
Russell played in Boston while the city was still polarized along racial and ethnic lines and often found himself on the wrong side of racism both in and around the city.
Clearly had Russell chosen to go public with many of his feelings since expressed on the subject, the social postings would have generated both praise and condemnation. Either way, they would have offered tremendous insight into the mind and soul one of the game’s greatest players.
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