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Bill Russel He just passed away at the age of 88. He has done it in peace, as his wife Jeannine has confessed. He got the better of old age, so many battles, so much activism, so much heart. With him goes a little of the NBAthe basketball league that considered him the best until he broke Michael Jordan. They called him the Lord of the Rings (he won 11 in 13 seasons, the top of American professional sports with Henri Richard, NHL, in the green jersey of the Celtics), but never starred in any fantasy novelIt was real, blood, sweat and tears.
Committed, tenacious, direct, conceited and proud, in 2013, in a meeting with old NBA legends, he got together with Jabbar, Mutombo, Alonso Mourning, Shaq y David Robinson, some of the best pvots ever. He looked into their eyes and told them. “Even today I’ll kick your ass.” Because Russell never wrinkled. He came to the League (1956) when there were still bathrooms for whites and a separate toilet for blacks. Those were very raw times for black players, despite inspiring figures like Earl Lloyd, the first color in the NBA. Jackie Robinson he retired that same year with the MLB Dodgers, who were still playing in Brooklyn. He made his way as he walked, but just barely. Black Lives Matter was a dream.
Russell he had to sit in the last row of the Celtics bus, which in certain cities like Saint Louis (where the Hawks, arch-rivals at the time, played) had trouble competing. They hated blacks. Boston, elitist, classist and posh, was not the paradigm of integration either. It was Bob Cousythe point guard of that immortal team (the greatest dynasty in basketball history), the one who helped him sit near the driver. Red Auerbachwho signed him after an exchange in which he used money, political influences and even some majoretts, always said that it was his great success as a manager, above the bet on Larry Bird.
That context forged an indestructible character, proof against any detonation. I fought against racism when life depended on it and there were gentlemen in the streets with torches and white hoods, and against a tyrant, but of basketball, named Wilt Charberlain, the man of record. He was so transgressive that he refused to play exhibition games if he didn’t see blacks in the stands and he won almost all the battles on the field with a new concept for the game: that of defense. His revolution was that of Stephen Curry with the triple. He put an end to what was known between the two baskets and began to write another story.
always said that he was the one who invented the cap, a feat for a player not especially tall (2.08), although he was powerful in those years. Russell, self-sacrificing and constant, the worker who became queen bee, made rebounding an art (12 consecutive years with 1,000 or more), a basic detail for Boston’s fast game, and conveyed an overwhelming idea: five is more than one. All five were the Celtics and basketball was a team sport from their dominance. The strength of the group is superior to any rival. Because the Lakers, with Jerry West y Elgin BaylorJordan before Jordan, had better players, but the Celtics always won. Nothing was the same after Russell.
That is why he won 11 rings in 13 seasons, the last one as a coach, being the first black manager to become champion in the major American professional leagues. He did it when he was still playing, in that historic championship of ’69, with the giant at sunset, with arthritis. The Celtics won Game 7 at the Forum, where a party was set up and balloons hung from the ceiling. I pinched them all. The Lakers were still winless in Los Angeles nine years after his move from Minneapolis. “I’m not here for parties,” she said in the locker room before leaving.
Five-time MVP, 12-time All Star, member of the Hall of Fame, one of the best 50 players in history, according to the first historical classification made by the NBA, two-time NCAA champion, Olympic champion (1956) in Melbourne Russell belonged to that class of players who enjoyed a fascinating unanimity. He vouched for his legend.
He could do what he wanted, say what he wanted, think what he wanted. Barack Obama knelt when he saw him. He did it in private, they say, before giving him the Medal of Freedom. When Kobe Bryant died, he put on the Lakers jersey (cursed according to the perception of a fan of the Celtics) and his last public appearance was with a cap with the 24.
He was the one who helped build the myth of the NBA. Because without Russell there would have been nothing that happened later, in American society and on the courts. Nor would basketball have been played like that. The Finals MVP trophy is named after him. No one more valuable, a referent in the territory of myths.
