Auerbach's Celtics played as
a team
By: Lisette Hilton
Source: ESPN
Classic
"When I came to the Celtics there was
this Celtic mystique. And I was one of the few skeptics. Finally, it
came through to me after we had won the championship. I went up to Red
and said, 'Now I understand what the Celtic mystique is.' "And
he was about the proudest man in the world," says Paul Silas
about Red Auerbach on ESPN Classic's SportsCentury series.
Red Auerbach's coaching philosophy was simple:
Only one statistic mattered. At the end of the game, he wanted the
number next to his team to be greater than that next to his opponent.
The individual players weren't the ones who made the difference. It
was the team as a whole. Just being a member of a winning team was
part of the Auerbach mystique.
Auerbach guided the Boston Celtics through their dynasty, the greatest
in NBA history. With Auerbach at the helm as coach or in the front
office, the Celtics won 16 championships. They captured nine titles
during his last 10 years as coach, including a record eight straight
from 1959 to 1966, when Red, at only 48, stepped down to concentrate
on being the general manager.
He retired as the winningest coach in NBA history
with 938 victories (against 479 defeats) in his 20-year career, the
last 16 with the Celtics. Boston fans reveled when Auerbach lit a
cigar to signify that another victory was secure.
Probably his most notable attribute was that
Auerbach was colorblind. He didn't see black or white players on the
court; he just saw players who could help him win. In 1950, he became
the first to draft an African-American: Chuck Cooper, a second-team
All-American from Duquesne, in the second round.
He was first to start five blacks and first
to hire a black coach (Bill Russell) in the NBA. He also hired two
other African-American coaches after Russell stepped down - Satch
Sanders and K.C. Jones, both former Celtics.
Regarded as a coaching genius, he was known
for picking the right players, coaching them and keeping them in line
with his system. Employing a fastbreak that often led to easy baskets,
he ran only seven basic set plays throughout his Celtics coaching
career.
Arnold Auerbach was born on Sept. 20, 1917
in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of hard-working immigrants from Minsk,
Russia. His father, Hyman, had left Russia when he was 13 and migrated
to Brooklyn. When Auerbach was born, his father and American-born
mother Marie owned a deli in Brooklyn.
Auerbach started playing basketball at P.S.
122 in Brooklyn and became a star guard for Eastern District High
School, making all-scholastic second team as a senior. While Hyman
wasn't crazy about his son going into basketball, he didn't hold him
back once he saw that Red had made up his mind.
Auerbach longed to be a teacher and coach.
After a year at Seth Low Junior College, the Brooklyn arm of Columbia
University, he transferred to George Washington University, where
he was a standout basketball player. Auerbach left George Washington
in 1941 with an M.A., to go with the bachelor's degree he had earned
earlier at the school.
Auerbach got his coaching wings at St. Albans
Prep School and Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C., before
serving in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1946.
He came out of the service and began his professional
coaching career with the Washington Capitols, piloting the team to
a league-best 49-11 regular-season record in 1946-47, the first campaign
of the Basketball Association of America (the forerunner of the NBA).
Washington went 28-20 and 38-22 the next two
seasons before Auerbach left in a contract dispute. As coach of the
Tri-Cities Blackhawks in 1949-50, it was the only time an Auerbach
team had a losing record (29-35). He quit the Blackhawks when he found
out that the owner, Ben Kerner, made a trade without letting Auerbach
in on it.
Boston owner Walter Brown needed a coach in
1950 after the Celtics finished last in the East with a 22-46 record.
Not knowing much about basketball, he had an informal advisory board
make a recommendation. The board's conclusion: Auerbach was the best
coach available.
Auerbach's areas of expertise were spotting
talent and getting the most of his players. He said that his kind
of player had the ability to absorb coaching. He wanted a kid "who
was great yet never stopped being nice." Examples in his career
with the Celtics, as either a coach or in the front office, are Russell,
Bob Cousy, Larry Bird, Frank Ramsey, Tommy Heinsohn, Sam Jones, John
Havlicek and Dave Cowens.
Auerbach didn't focus on the individuals on his teams. He looked at
the "whole package." While many of his players were outstanding,
the Celtics were the first organization to popularize the concept
of the role player. "That's a player who willingly undertakes
the thankless job that has to be done in order to make the whole package
fly," Auerbach said.
Most coaches view the starting five as their
best players. Auerbach looked to his finishers - those who played
when the game was on the line.
The "sixth" man (the first player
off the bench) was another Auerbach tactic. While other teams' players
were getting tired, Auerbach's fresh reserve was expected to provide
a boost. The sixth man became a prestigious assignment in Boston,
with Ramsey being the first to star in the assignment.
Auerbach said that the Celtics represent a
philosophy that in its simplest form maintains that victory belongs
to the team. "Individual honors are nice, but no Celtic has ever
gone out of his way to achieve them," he said. "We have
never had the league's top scorer. In fact, we won seven league championships
without placing even one among the league's top 10 scorers. Our pride
was never rooted in statistics."
In his first six seasons the Celtics, led by
Cousy's playmaking, were entertaining and good but not great. In the
playoffs, they fizzled, going 10-17.
Then in 1956, Auerbach made one of the best
deals in NBA history when he obtained Russell, who had led the University
of San Francisco to NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956. He gave the
St. Louis Hawks, who drafted second, center Ed Macauley and the rights
to former Kentucky star Cliff Hagan, who was coming out of the army,
for the rights to Russell.
The 6-foot-9½ center was the cornerstone
of Auerbach's success with his rebounding (and throwing the outlet
pass) and defense. In Russell's rookie year, Auerbach and the Celtics
won their first NBA title. With Russell and two other rookies, Heinsohn
and Ramsey, playing prominent roles, they defeated the Hawks, 125-123,
in double overtime in Game 7 of the Finals.
After being defeated in the 1958 Finals by
the Hawks (when Russell was injured), Auerbach would never lose the
last game of the season again.
In 1959, the Celtics swept the Minneapolis
Lakers in four games in the Finals, the first of the eight consecutive
championships. They defeated the Hawks the next two seasons and the
Los Angeles Lakers the following two. Then it was the San Francisco
Warriors and the Lakers again.
In January of 1966, Auerbach announced he was
retiring as coach after the season.
The last title came in April when the Celtics
defeated the Lakers 95-93 in Game 7 in a contest that wasn't as close
as the score indicates. It came 10 days after Auerbach announced that
Russell would be his successor as coach.
From 1966-84, in his role as general manager,
Auerbach's Celtics won another six championships. In 1984, he retired
as GM but remained the team's president, with the Celtics winning
their 16th title in 1986. Today, Auerbach is vice chairman of the
board.
Auerbach has been honored often. In 1968, he
was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Thirteen years later,
he was named NBA Executive of the Year. He is a member of the Jewish
Sports Hall of Fame.
Auerbach's view of competition was summed up
when he said, "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser."
With that attitude, it's no surprise Red Auerbach
is a winner, the best coach ever in the NBA.
