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.”
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.”
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.
Undoubtedly, this is progress. But is it enough? We don’t think so. The NBA could do much to improve its league.
Today, Cousy is the hottest thing in basketball, a ballhandler who does unbelievable things with a pair of unbelievably big hands with which he manipulates a basketball as if it were a ping-pong ball.
Some funny things happened on the way to the greatest dynasty in the history of pro sports.
As provincial as the next town, Boston likes winning teams, and although the Celtics have been close many times, they’ve never taken the big prize. Some critics say it is Auerbach’s fault.
From Way Downtown 