Pro Basketball History Blog
A couple of players were in one corner, autographing basketballs. Auerbach was sitting alone, reading mail. We shook hands, and I said, “What about Cousy?”
“What can you say when you know you’re going to lose the greatest backcourtman who ever lived?” Red said. “Nobody will ever take his place. There’s only one Cousy.”
There were no stoics at the Garden. Men and women wept without shame and with pride and love. It was like that folk song line, “The tears flowed like wine.”
Luckily, the guest of honor had written out his sentiments in advance, but he failed miserably in trying to hold back a flood of tears.
Heinsohn absorbed his knowledge of coaching from Red Auerbach. His insights into people, he acquired from personal, and sometimes painful, experience.
Cleo Hill had certain remarkable talents as a player. He had fast hands, a wonderful asset for a basketball player. He was quick. But his quickness and his hand speed were wasted when they weren’t harnessed with the team effort of everybody else. It is something a man might learn in a minor league but has to be taken for granted in the majors.
Sam is 32 years old now, but there was no indication last year that his speed was diminishing, while his skills and confidence rose to new heights.
Cooz, the reason for the mass delirium, just sat on the bench, hunched over, trying to hide the tears. “Thanks for everything. Thanks fellas,” he said to well-wishers and his teammates. “There was a prayer going with every shot. I certainly needed them. But I don’t want to have to play a game like that again. Boy, it’s too much. I was lucky.”
No one has shown, each year, the distinct improvement that West continues to show. There’s no telling where he’ll stop—and that, come to think of it, is a characteristic of explosive forces, isn’t it?
“Oscar is the greatest,” Cousy states. “There are none better.” That’s the word from the man who wrote the book on the position that both play so well.
Van Lier talks about being in the twilight years, but he really doesn’t believe that. He still talks about playing another four years under his present contract agreement with the Bulls.
From Way Downtown 