Boston Celtics: 25 Best Players To Play For The Celtics

Of all the players acquired in draft-day/night trades, none may have been more important than Bill Russell.

The Boston Celtics traded Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan to the St. Louis Hawks during the 1956 NBA Draft to get the rights to the No. 2 overall pick out of the University of San Francisco.

All Russell did was win five MVP awards, go to 13 All-Star Games (winning MVP honors in 1963), earn 11 All-NBA nods and one All-Defensive selection (the first year they were awarded was his last year in the NBA).

Russell finished in the top five in the MVP voting six other times, second in 1958-59 and 1959-60, third in 1963-64 and 1966-67 and fourth in 1965-66 and 1968-69.

He led the NBA in rebounding five times, in total rebounds four times, in minutes played twice and in minutes per game once.

Oh, yeah. There were also those NBA-record 11 championships.

In a 13-year career, Russell played in 12 NBA Finals, averaging 16.7 points, 24.9 rebounds and 4.5 assists in Finals play.

Russell even coached the final two championship teams, posting a record of 162-83 in three seasons before retiring as a player and resigning as coach after the 1968-69 season.

In his 13 seasons, Russell averaged 15.1 points, 22.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists in 42.3 minutes per game, shooting 44 percent from the floor and 56.1 percent from the free-throw line.

He was later coach/general manager of the Seattle SuperSonics from May 1973 through May 1977, with a record of 162-166 and coach of the Sacramento Kings in 1987-88, with a record of 17-41 before being reassigned as general manager until December 1989.

Russell is the namesake of the NBA Finals MVP award. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975 and is 27th in NBA history with 40,726 minutes and second with 21,620 rebounds and averages of 42.3 minutes and 22.5 rebounds per game.

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