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RED AUERBACH

According to Hall of Fame member Frank Ramsey, Red Auerbach always told his players: “You’re not paid on the points you score. You’re paid on whether we win or lose and your contribution to the team.” Bob Cousy said that Auerbach’s “commitment to winning was absolute.” He won nine NBA titles as the Celtics’ coach and seven more as GM and team president. An early practitioner of trash talk, he also set the record for fines and ejections from a game.

Auerbach was the embodiment of the Boston franchise for 57 years. For all intents and purposes, he also was the pioneer of professional basketball, transforming it from a sport that emphasized individual performance and scoring to one that put a premium on teamwork and defense. Auerbach’s innovations included the role player, the sixth man, and the fastbreak off the defensive rebound that permitted the Celtics to take full advantage of Cousy’s quickness and ball handling skills.

Auerbach’s influence also can be gauged by the fact that 14 of his players were inducted into the Hall of Fame and 30 of them went on to become NBA coaches. Tom Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, and Don Nelson were named Coach of the Year.

Tony Kornheiser compares Auerbach to Branch Rickey who signed Jackie Robinson to break baseball’s color barrier. In 1950, the Celtics became the first team to draft an African-American, Chuck Cooper. In 1964, they became the first team to start five African-Americans including Bill Russell, Tom Sanders; Sam Jones, K.C. Jones, and Willie Naulls who replaced Heinsohn when he injured his foot. Auerbach said later he had not given any thought to the racial dimension of his decision to start Naulls, but had merely wanted to put a winning squad on the court. Auerbach also tapped Russell to become the NBA’s first African-American coach.

Commenting on Auerbach’s ability to elicit the best from each of his players, Russell observed: “People tend to think teamwork is some mysterious force. It isn’t. It can, really, be manufactured, and he knew how to do that, to serve each player’s needs.”