#2 Arnold Auerbach, “Red,” Coach and Executive, 1950-2006
Arnold “Red” Auerbach was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1917 and grew up in the borough’s Williamsburg neighborhood. His father Hyman was a Jewish immigrant from Belarus, and his mother Marie was born in the United States. Arnold Auerbach spent a lot of time playing basketball as a kid, and soon gained the nickname Red from his red hair and hot temper. As a senior in high school in the 1930s, he was good enough to be named second team all-borough. He went on to play at George Washington University in Washington, DC, where he first learned the effectiveness of the fast break. After graduating in 1941, he coached high school basketball in DC. He served in the Navy from 1943 to 1946, and coached a Navy basketball team while stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.
The Basketball Association of America (BAA), the forerunner of the NBA, was founded in 1946, and that year Red was hired to coach one of its charter clubs, the Washington Capitols. He was an immediate success at the professional level, with the Capitols going 49 and 11 in their inaugural season, at one point going on a seventeen game winning streak, a record that stood until 1969. However, the team lost in the playoffs by the Chicago Stags. In ‘47-48, the Capitols went 28-20 and missed the playoffs, but performed better in the ‘49 season, reaching the BAA Finals but losing to the Minneapolis Lakers, who were led by one of the greatest players of the era, center George Mikan. That off-season, the BAA merged with the National Basketball League (NBL), creating the NBA, and Red decided to move on from the Capitols, who folded after the 1951 season. Auerbach briefly served as the assistant coach of the Duke University men’s team before signing on to coach the NBA’s Tri-Cities Blackhawks (now the Atlanta Hawks), located in the Davenport, Iowa area, for the 1950 season. Although they fared better than the season before, the Blackhawks finished at 28 and 29, and Auerbach resigned in protest after his favorite player, John Mahnken, was traded. Red was always quick tempered and competitive from the sidelines, and was ejected from more games and paid more fines than any coach in NBA history.
In their first few seasons, the Boston Celtics were not a successful team, making the playoffs just once in their first four years. In ‘49-50, they won 22 games and lost 46, and their owner, Walter A. Brown, asked a group of reporters who they’d recommend as a coach; they unanimously suggested Auerbach. Brown took their advice and hired Red, who’s impact was immediate. In the 1950 NBA draft, he picked future hall of fame center Ed Macauley and shooting guard and small forward Chuck Cooper, who was the first black player ever drafted by an NBA or BAA team. This move helped put an end to the exclusion of black players in the early years of professional basketball. Auerbach declined to draft the star point guard from the nearby College of the Holy Cross, Bob Cousy, which outraged many New England basketball fans. Cousy was drafted by Red’s old team, the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, but refused to report as the New York City native didn’t want to go to Iowa. Instead he ended up with the Chicago Stags, but they folded before the season began. Ironically, Cousy ended up being selected by the Celtics in a dispersal draft. Auerbach was skeptical of Cousy’s flashy style of play and didn’t think he’d make it in the NBA, but his doubts were soon put to rest. Along with George Mikan, Cousy became one of the league’s first great stars and biggest gate attractions.
The Celtics finished ‘50-51 with a record of 39 and 30, 17 more wins and 16 fewer losses than a year before, but they lost in the playoffs to the New York Knicks. In the 1951 draft, Auerbach selected another excellent guard, Bill Sharman, known as Bullseye Bill for his elite free-throw shooting. The Celtics now boasted the league’s best offensive rating, as they would almost every year until 1960, but again fell to the Knicks in the playoffs. The Celtics added Frank Ramsey, the original sixth man, in ‘54-55, and the strong defender Jim Loscutoff in ‘55-56, but the Celtics still failed to reach the finals despite making the playoffs annually. Auerbach knew the team needed a big man who could defend, rebound and start the fast break, and he got exactly that in the 1956 draft.
It was then that he traded Ed Macauley to the St. Louis Hawks for their first round pick, center Bill Russell, who had recently won back to back NCAA Championships at the University of San Francisco, and would prove to be one of the greatest and most successful NBA players of all time. Red also drafted Tom Heinsohn, who would become Rookie of the Year and a star forward for the Celtics for years to come, and the excellent defensive guard, K.C. Jones. Russell didn’t play a game until December due to him joining Team USA at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, where he won Gold, and K.C. Jones didn’t play for the team until ‘58-59 due to his attempt to join the NFL. K.C. had however played alongside Russell at San Francisco and on the Olympic team. Still, the Celtics were on their way. The team went 44 and 28 in ‘56-57, setting a franchise record for winning percentage, and Bob Cousy was named MVP of both the All Star Game and the regular season. The C’s swept Dolph Shcayes and the Syracuse Nationals in the Division Finals and then beat Bob Pettit and the St. Louis Hawks in seven to win their first Championship. It was the beginning of the greatest run in the history on North American professional sports.
The keys to Red’s success were unselfish play, physical conditioning, and an emphasis on defense, which forced opponents into taking tough shots and committing turnovers, which could quickly turn into fast-breaks for the Celtics. The team boasted the league’s best defensive rating in five of the seven seasons between 1961 and ‘67, and the best regular season record from 1957 to ‘65. In ‘57-58, Sam Jones joined the squad and proved to be one of the best shooting guards of his era. That year, the Celtics returned to the Finals but lost a re-match with the St. Louis Hawks, who became the last all-white team to win an NBA Championship. The next eight years would belong to Boston.
In 1959, they defeated the Minneapolis Lakers in the Finals, who featured a young Elgin Baylor, often called his generation’s Michael Jordan. In 1960 and ‘61 they again beat the St. Louis Hawks. In 1962 and ‘63, the C’s won against the now Los Angeles Lakers, who’d since added Jerry West, beginning one of the greatest rivalries in sports. In 1964, the Celtics beat Wilt Chamberlain, who was seen as Bill Russell’s rival, and the San Francisco Warriors. In 1965 and ‘66, the Celtics capped off eight straight championships with two more wins against the Lakers. Red was also named Coach of the Year in 1965, following a 62 and 18 season. The trophy handed out to Coach of the Year winners would later be re-named the Red Auerbach Trophy.
Several more important players were added to the team in that era; first KC Jones in ‘58-59, followed by the defensive forward Satch Sanders in ‘60-61, the sixth man who became one of the all-time great Celtics, John Havlicek, in ‘62-63, and another sixth man, Don Nelson, in ‘65-66. Havlicek and Nelson would play for the Celtics until 1978 and ‘76 respectively. Red Auerbach broke another racial barrier during that period when he started five black players to begin a game in December 1964, those being Bill Russell, Satch Sanders, Willie Naulls, Sam Jones and KC Jones. Naulls was playing in place of an injured Tom Heinsohn. Auerbach claimed race didn’t affect his decision one way or the other, and winning the game was his only concern.
Red broke an even bigger barrier after deciding to retire from coaching and becoming the team’s general manager in 1966. His first choice as a replacement was Tom Heinsohn, who’d retired in 1965, but he turned him down (although he would go on to coach the team for most of the ‘70s). Bill Russell then agreed to replace Red as a player-coach, becoming the first black head coach of a major North American professional sports team. Several of Red’s other former players would become successful coaches, those being Tom Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones and Don Nelson. Russell’s first regular season went well, with the Celtics going 60 and 21, but the team lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in the Division Finals. The Sixers went 68 and 13 that year and were led by Wilt Chamberlain (who had recently developed a less selfish style of play) along with Hal Greer and Billy Cunningham. The Celtics were champions again though in 1968 and ‘69, defeating the Lakers both times. Russell retired in 1969 along with Sam Jones, and for the first time since 1950, the C’s missed the playoffs in 1970 and ‘71. In 1969, Red Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
After a couple of lean years, Auerbach re-built the Celtics around their former sixth man, John Havlicek. He drafted point guard Jo Jo White in 1969 and center Dave Cowens in 1970. Other acquisitions included Don Chaney, Paul Westphal and Paul Silas. Tom Heinsohn, who had a feisty temperament similar to Red’s, became head coach in ‘69-70. The Celtics were back in the playoffs by ‘71-72, and in ‘72-73 they had their best regular season to date, going 68 and 14. Unfortunately they lost the Eastern Conference Finals to Walt Frazier and the eventual champion New York Knicks in seven after John Havlicek dislocated his shoulder in game three. They were champions again in 1974 after defeating Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson and the Milwaukee Bucks. The team won their second championship in three years in ‘76 against the Phoenix Suns, who were led by vengeful former Celtic Paul Westphal and a rookie Alvan Adams in a hard fought six game series. In 1975 the first of Red’s seven books was published, Basketball for the Player, Fan and Coach, which was eventually translated into seven languages. It’s currently the best selling book on basketball in print.
Things took a turn for the worse later in the decade, as Paul Silas was traded by Auerbach (against the protests of Dave Cowens) and Don Nelson retired. In ‘77-78, the team missed the playoffs for the first time since ‘71, and John Havlicek retired at the end of the year. The team went through a series of coaching changes in that era, with Heinsohn being fired at the end of the ‘78 season and replaced with another former Celtic, Satch Sanders. 1978-79 was their worst season since ‘49-50, with the team going just 29 and 53, and Sanders was replaced mid-season by Dave Cowens, who served as player coach. Finally Bill Fitch was hired as head coach in 1979, where he stayed through 1983. In 1978, Auerbach was so fed up with the team’s management that he nearly took a job as general manager of the New York Knicks, but was talked out of it by a heroic Boston cab driver.
Despite the dysfunction of the late ‘70s, things would soon be looking up. Cedric Maxwell joined the team in ‘77-78 and had an excellent season the following year, averaging nearly 20 points and 10 rebounds a game on 58 percent shooting. Point guard Tiny Archibald was added in ‘78-79 and would play a major role through the early ‘80s, making three All Star Games as a Celtic. In the 1978 draft, Red picked Larry Bird from Indiana State, although he elected to play one more year of college ball. After nearly winning an NCAA Championship in 1979, Bird joined the Celtics for ‘79-80 and was an instant success, winning Rookie of the Year in 1980 and helping the team get back in the playoffs. They reached the Eastern Conference Finals but lost to the 76ers in five. Still, they had one of the most dramatic turnarounds in NBA history, improving from 29 and 53 to 61 and 21.
In the 1980 draft, Red would greatly reinforce the up and coming team by pulling off probably the greatest deal of his long career. He traded the number one and number thirteen overall picks to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for center Robert Parish and the number three overall pick, which he used to draft power forward Kevin McHale. Both players made an immediate impact on the team, and although McHale would begin his career as a sixth man, the three would go on to form one of the best front lines in NBA history. The Celtics were back on top in 1981, winning it all against Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets after coming back from a three to one series deficit in the Conference Finals against Julius Erving and the Philadelphia 76ers. In 1983, the Celtics won 56 games but lost in a second round sweep to the Milwaukee Bucks, leading to the dismissal of coach Bill Fitch, who was replaced by another of Red’s former players, K.C. Jones. The following season the Celtics won their fifteenth championship in a dramatic seven game series against the Lakers. Also in ‘84, Red stepped down as general manager to become team president. In 1985, the Celtics retired the number “2” in Red’s honor as he was considered the second most important person in the their history, surpassed only by the Celtics’ founder and original owner, Walter Brown.
The Celtics lost a Finals re-match against LA the next year, but in the ‘85 off-season Auerbach made another big move, trading forward Cedric Maxwell along with a draft pick to the Los Angeles Clippers for center Bill Walton, who would brilliantly fill the sixth man role for the Celtics in 1986. ‘85-86 would go down as one of the greatest years in franchise history, with the team going 67 and 15 and winning the NBA Championship against Hakeem Olajuwon, Ralph Sampson and the Houston Rockets, who were coached by Bill Fitch. Along with a front line of Bird, McHale (who was now starting) and Parish, the team also boasted Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge in the back court and Walton, Jerry Sichting and Scott Wedman coming off the bench.
1986 proved to be a high point followed by a slow decline. In the ‘86 draft, the Celtics had the number two overall pick due to Auerbach trading guard Gerald Henderson to the Seattle SuperSonics in 1984. He used it to draft University of Maryland superstar Len Bias, a 6’8 forward who many later said could’ve been the LeBron James of his generation. Tragically, Bias died less than two days later of a freak cocaine overdose, and the NBA would decline to give the Celtics any compensation for the terrible loss. Bill Walton, who’d signed a three year contract with the Celtics, was barely able to play in ‘86-87, appearing in only ten regular season games and twelve playoff games. Another key bench player, Scott Wedman, played only six games that year due to injury and never retired after that season. Kevin McHale had a career year in ‘87, setting career highs in points and rebounds, leading the league in field goal percentage and making First Team All-NBA, but broke his foot late in the regular season. He heroically continued to play despite the injury, but was never the same following that season and wasn’t 100 percent during the playoffs. Robert Parish sprained his ankle during the Eastern Finals but kept going on one good leg. The walking wounded Celtics still won 59 games and reached the Finals in ‘87, but despite a courageous effort they were defeated in six games by the best Lakers team of that decade.
In ‘88 the Celtics missed the Finals for the first time since ‘83 after losing to the up and coming “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons in six in the Conference Finals, and KC Jones stepped down as coach after the season. In ‘88-89, Larry Bird missed almost the entire year due to foot surgery, and the team would win only 42 games and were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. In 1991 and ‘92 the Celtics advanced to the second round, but Larry Bird retired after the ‘92 season, having been playing through chronic pain for years. Kevin McHale followed suit in ‘93, and Reggie Lewis, the 27 year old two guard and small forward who’d made the All Star Game in 1992, died of a congenital heart defect during the 1993 off-season. Similar to the loss of Len Bias, Lewis’ death was crippling to the future of the team. Robert Parish left for the Charlotte Hornets in 1994, and it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the once proud Celtics regained their relevance.
In 1992, Auerbach turned 75, and that was about the time he began to lose interest in making the team’s personnel moves. In 1997, Red became the Celtics’ vice-chairman before going back to the role of president in 2001. Red Auerbach died of a heart attack in October of 2006 at the age of 89. Among those who attended his funeral were former Celtics Bill Russell, Kevin McHale, and Danny Ainge, and NBA commissioner David Stern.
The debate over who was the greatest Celtic usually comes down to Russell and Bird, understandably so. But although he never played a game in a Celtics uniform, Red Auerbach was involved in 16 of the Celtics’ 17 championships, winning nine as a coach and seven more behind the scenes as an executive. He helped break down the league’s color barrier, first by drafting Chuck Cooper in 1950, by employing more than the two or three black players that most NBA teams did in the ‘50s and ‘60s, by putting five black players on the floor to start a game for the first time in 1964, and handing over the job of head coach to Bill Russell in 1966. Both during and after his coaching career he knew how to build great team after great team. Red gave 56 of his 89 years to the organization, and his efforts not only made the Celtics the greatest team in NBA history but helped build the NBA into the thriving league it is today. It’s true that the players on the court won the games, but it’s hard to imagine anyone defining the Celtics more than Red Auerbach.
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