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.”
The Warriors were not favored to win. Little, if any attention was given to the club’s determination and progression of improvement.
Goodrich says his blossoming into a superstar is due to many things, not the least of which is the confidence that coach Bill Sharman has instilled in him.
As a youth, Brokaw tried to pattern his play after Walt Frazier and Dave Bing. Little did he know that several years later, it would be Frazier and Bing that would be his workaday opponents.
“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.
Kemp didn’t wilt under the pressure of playing in the NBA. In fact, he regrets not joining the league sooner than he did.
If we missed your favorite underrated player, we’re sorry. But it just proves that you’re right—he’s so underrated, even the experts never got to him!
The guiding hand behind those brilliant personnel decisions was, of course, Auerbach, the feisty, little, self-proclaimed “dictator” of the Celtics, who is still the club’s general manager and still producing winners. There is no longer a dynasty in Boston simply because no new Bill Russell has come along—and probably never will.
From Way Downtown 