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      Bill Russell’s Words Were Worth the Wait

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      In wit and wisdom, Russell left an impression with his gravelly voice. “It wasn’t like he tried to impress you with big words,” said one recipient of his advice.Rare was the working person around N.B.A. arenas these past few decades who never had an encounter with the majestic Bill Russell. On occasion, mostly a special one, he was an intimidating presence walking tall and transcendent, in the manner of a man who had invented the game.In the dynastic measure by which we often relate to basketball, from Boston to Los Angeles to Chicago to Golden State, he actually did.Russell’s death at 88 on Sunday predictably evoked relished memories of meeting the most prolific instigator of championships in the history of American team sports. It is an indisputable fact that time with Russell was not generously dispensed. When it was, only the most hardheaded among us wasn’t better for it.I was a terrified young reporter for The New York Post in the late 1970s when my editor ordered me to “get Russell” for an assigned story. I found him in the media dining area at the old Spectrum arena in Philadelphia on a Sunday afternoon before a game he was working as network analyst.Bill Russell, left, with Brent Musburger during a CBS Sports broadcast in 1980.CBS, via Getty ImagesAs I hopelessly stammered through my introduction, Russell looked up from a plate of food and said nothing. Seconds felt like hours until Billy Cunningham, the 76ers coach, leaned over and came to my rescue. “He’s from Vecsey’s paper,” Cunningham told Russell, referring to Peter Vecsey, the widely known N.B.A. columnist.This apparently was a useful reference in what was a far more insular N.B.A. environment. Russell nodded and said, “Wait outside for me.” So I parked myself in the first row of seats behind the broadcast table. Ten minutes became 20, then 30, then 60 after Russell took a seat, donned his headset for microphone checks and shuffled through voluminous game notes and stats.I was literally sweating, and figuratively steaming. Finally, Russell summoned me, shook my hand and said, “Thank you for waiting and respecting my work.”Lesson learned: Patience may be the most well-cited virtue, but in the interests of professional achievement, so is preparation.Fast forward to a September 2007 afternoon in a Westchester County suburb of New York, where Russell was speaking to assembled N.B.A. rookies at the league’s transition program. I listened with fascination as Joakim Noah, a player of French, Swedish and Cameroonian descent, asked Russell if he felt underappreciated in racially polarized Boston despite winning 11 titles in 13 seasons, from 1957 through 1969.“Quite true,” Russell responded in his gravelly voiced, meditative manner. But he elaborated by relaying advice his father had given him as a youth about people who have “these little red wagons that get pulled around and that it’s got nothing to do with me” — meaning that he should not worry about how other people felt about him.Afterward, I asked Russell how that answer squared with his outspokenness and activism on matters of race and social justice, including his participation in the so-called 1967 Cleveland summit of prominent Black athletes in support of Muhammad Ali following his refusal to be drafted into the U.S. Army.He reminded me that he had been invited to address the rookie class at large, and that some of the newcomers were not African American. Some were not even American. Russell’s message had been tailored to universal temptation.“I tell all the kids — rich, poor, Black, white — that you must be your own counsel,” he told me. “We understand that we don’t always want to do the right thing, but what they have to ask themselves is, ‘Am I willing to deal with the consequences?’”Russell, right, with Joakim Noah during an N.B.A. event for rookies in September 2007. Suzy Allman for The New York TimesSuch contextual awareness sounded familiar to Len Elmore, the former pro center whom I have known since he finished his playing career with the Nets and Knicks before attending Harvard Law School. At Harvard, Elmore happened to befriend Russell’s daughter, Karen. (In 1987, Karen Russell wrote in The New York Times about the frightening, haunting harassment her father and family were subjected to in the Boston area.)“I had met him a few times in passing and I have a couple videos of my games he was calling, where he described me as ‘well traveled,’” Elmore said with a chuckle when I called him upon hearing of Russell’s passing. “He obviously had a big impact on me, as a center, always talking about blocking the shot but keeping it inbounds, things like that. And of course, off the court, too, with his activism during the civil rights era.”But it was in law school that Elmore said he actually got to talk to Russell about athlete activism, a subject Elmore has in recent years been teaching at Columbia University.“It wasn’t like he tried to impress you with big words,” Elmore said. “But what always came across was his wisdom, his ability to conceptualize, to prioritize, to understand time and place. I remember him telling me that by going to law school, I could be part of a generation that could build off what his generation had started, and effect change in a very different way.”For all the racism Russell and his Black teammates endured in Boston, and the disparities in how white and Black Celtics were paid and in some cases treated by an organization fronted by Red Auerbach, Russell was careful never to implicate the Celtics’ patriarch. For 10 years, Russell starred under Auerbach, who then made him the league’s first Black coach upon stepping away from the bench in 1966.Which leads me to my last Russell engagement, in May 2009, in a Manhattan hotel lounge while he was promoting a book, “Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend,” published three years after Auerbach’s death.In the book, Russell wrote that he and Auerbach had seldom socialized or delved into personal or social issues. They were instead bound by basketball, by team, which also was, in effect, family. The patriarch was stubborn, set in his ways, Russell said. Russell’s own willful ways, shaped by a place in Boston and in America which Auerbach could never fully understand, formed the basis of their mutual respect.“We were so alike that way,” said Russell, who often made the point that he played for the Celtics, not Boston. But the team’s success always came first.That day in Manhattan, Russell shared some final coaching he’d gotten during his last visit with Auerbach, just as he took his leave. “Listen, Russ, this is something important,” Auerbach told him. “When you get old, don’t fall. Because that’s the start of the end. So remember: Don’t fall!”Russell, already 75, obviously knew that frailty would eventually visit him, too. Near the end of our interview, he admitted that he’d written the book because, “I also have to be mindful of my own mortality.”Those words barely spoken, he cut loose one of his trademark boisterous cackles.Athletic greatness fades. Team dynasties fold. But Bill Russell’s presence, deep into old age, didn’t so much as flicker. While the contemporary best-ever debate is laser focused on Air Jordan versus King James, Russell’s contextualization of the argument only required flashing the ring he wore that 2007 day at the rookie transition program — a gift from the N.B.A. commissioner at the time, David Stern, commemorating all 11 of Russell’s titles.That remains the truest measure of superstar affirmation within a team sport. It’s also the one all but guaranteed never to fall. More

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      Bill Russell’s Legacy, and Laugh, Touched Millions

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      Russell showed as much love and respect to younger players as they showed to him. Some, like Charles Barkley, referred to him simply as “Mr. Russell.”It was a day to celebrate Elgin Baylor, whom the Los Angeles Lakers had just honored with a statue outside their home arena. On that warm evening in April 2018, one of Baylor’s greatest antagonists showed up and sat prominently in the crowd.Bill Russell would never blend in anywhere, and certainly not in his green polo shirt at a Lakers event.Jerry West, Baylor’s teammate all those years ago, stood behind a lectern and couldn’t help but note Russell’s attendance.“All the losses to this gentleman over here,” West said. “I forget your damn name. What is it? Bill? Last name — Bill Russell, is that it?”The crowd loved the bit, and West continued.“There’s more incredible stories in a losing locker room — and particularly when it’s the same damn team and this smiling jackass over here.”A few feet away, Russell was indeed smiling, widely. He laughed throughout West’s performance. Russell led the Boston Celtics to 11 championships, seven of them with N.B.A. finals wins over the Lakers — and all of them colored in Celtics green.West played on six of those Lakers teams that lost to Russell’s Celtics, and the two became friends later in life. He made sure the assembled guests that day didn’t confuse his playful jabs for actual animus, telling them he loved Russell.It was a bit of a role reversal for Russell, who in his later years was usually the one delivering zingers. Deeply respected for what he did on the court and off it, his jabs were always met with laughter, and in the moments when he was sincere, his earnestness was met with profound gratitude from players for whom Russell changed the N.B.A.On Sunday, Russell’s family announced that he had died peacefully with his wife by his side. He was 88. The statement mentioned Russell’s championships — two in high school, two in college, one in the Olympics and 11 in the N.B.A. — nodded to his personal accolades and highlighted his lifelong fight against racial discrimination. It also included an entreaty that people keep Russell in their prayers. “Perhaps you’ll relive one or two of the golden moments he gave us, or recall his trademark laugh as he delighted in explaining the real story behind how those moments unfolded,” the statement read.The basketball world has celebrated him by remembering all of his life, including the moments of humor.As he received a lifetime achievement award in 2017, Russell, right, joked around with the former N.B.A. greats Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, left, Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo.Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for TNT“Where did they find all these tall people?” Russell asked, onstage at an N.B.A. awards show in 2017. The league had gathered other great centers — Shaquille O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, David Robinson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — to present Russell with a lifetime achievement award.He looked at the group intently and pointed at each of them. Then he cupped his hand around his mouth and, in a stage whisper, used colorful language to say he would beat them all.A year later he sat in the audience of the same awards show.“Mr. Bill Russell,” Charles Barkley, the Hall of Fame forward, said onstage, “thank you.”The camera panned to Russell who smiled and extended his middle finger to Barkley.Later that night, Russell posted an explanation on Twitter: “Sorry everyone, I forgot it was live TV & I can’t help myself whenever I see Charles it just is pure instinct.”His jokes often dripped with well-earned bravado, and they played well because of the awe with which the basketball players of future generations viewed him.They marveled at his talent on the court, how he became the most feared defender of his era — a dominant force before blocks became an official statistic. But even more than that they respected the way he became the N.B.A.’s first Black superstar in an era of segregation, who was born in the Jim Crow South and fought racism in society and in the N.B.A. Russell once led a strike of a game in Kentucky after he and his Black teammates were denied service at a restaurant. In the 1950s, he spoke out about the N.B.A.’s unofficial quota system that prevented more Black players from being in the league.There are some Hall of Fame players who aren’t shy about sharing their opinion that the recent basketball eras were much worse than their own.As Russell aged, though, he often showed that he reciprocated the love and respect he garnered from some of the game’s younger stars.Russell often spoke fondly of the former Lakers star Kobe Bryant, right. He talked about their friendship when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a coach last year.Photo by: Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty ImagesAt the All-Star Game in 2008, a camera caught him sharing a tender moment with Lakers guard Kobe Bryant.“I watch a lot of your games,” Russell told Bryant.“Thank you,” Bryant said, with a smile spreading on his face.Russell told Bryant that when he watches games he tries to understand what certain players’ agendas are in those games, and then see how well they were able to carry out their plan.“Me too,” Bryant said, eagerly. “But I got that because I read your book.”The two shared a laugh and then Russell told Bryant he was as proud of him as if he were his own son. Bryant thanked him again and they embraced.Years later, Bryant said that Russell had become a mentor for him, that he simply picked up the phone to call and ask for Russell’s advice.On Jan. 26, 2020, Bryant died in a helicopter crash with his daughter Gianna and seven other people. The Lakers and Celtics played each other in Los Angeles a few weeks after the crash. Russell attended the game wearing a Lakers jersey — Bryant’s jersey — and a hat with Bryant’s initials stitched in purple inside a yellow heart.Their relationship transcended the bitter Lakers-Celtics rivalry just as Russell’s relationship with West did.He also shared a special bond with Kevin Garnett, who in 2008 took the Celtics to their first N.B.A. finals since 1987. Garnett started his career with the Minnesota Timberwolves, but was traded to the Celtics in 2007.“You’re my favorite player to watch; you never disappoint me,” Russell told Garnett in an arena hallway during that season. ESPN aired the footage in 2008 before an interview between Russell and Garnett.“You crack so many jokes,” Garnett said. “I don’t know if that’s real or not.”“No, it’s real,” Russell replied, as Garnett’s laughter turned serious. “And you never disappointed me. And you finally got in the right uniform.”The clip then showed an interview between Russell and Garnett. They sat in chairs across from each other, beside a backdrop of Celtics memorabilia.“I think that you’re going to win at least two or three championships here,” Russell said. “And if you don’t but I see you play the way you should play, I’ll share one of mine with you.” He added: “If you play the way you play and you dedicate yourself to doing it, they will come.”Later in the conversation, Russell gave Garnett a similar message to the one he gave Bryant.“I couldn’t be any more proud of you than I am of my own kids,” Russell said.Russell and Garnett looked at each other meaningfully. It was hard to tell exactly behind his square cut glasses, but Russell’s eyes seemed to moisten as he spoke to Garnett.He ended with a joke about how Garnett’s No. 5 was close to No. 6, his own number, and then laughed, his voice booming, raspy and bubbly all at once — a laugh few who had heard it could ever forget. More

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      Bill Russell, Celtics Center Who Transformed Pro Basketball, Dies at 88

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      A Hall of Famer who led the Celtics to 11 championships, he was “the single most devastating force in the history of the game,” his coach Red Auerbach said.Even before the opening tipoff at Boston Celtics games, Bill Russell evoked domination. Other players ran onto the court for their introductions, but he walked on, slightly stooped.“I’d look at everybody disdainfully, like a sleepy dragon who can’t be bothered to scare off another would-be hero,” he recalled. “I wanted my look to say, ‘Hey, the king’s here tonight.’ ”Russell’s awesome rebounding triggered a Celtic fast break that overwhelmed the rest of the N.B.A. His quickness and his uncanny ability to block shots transformed the center position, once a spot for slow and hulking types, and changed the face of pro basketball. Russell, who propelled the Celtics to 11 N.B.A. championships, the final two when he became the first Black head coach in a major American sports league, died on Sunday. He was 88.His death was announced by his family, who did not say where he died. When Russell was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975, Red Auerbach, who orchestrated his arrival as a Celtic and coached him on nine championship teams, called him “the single most devastating force in the history of the game.”Russell blocking a shot in 1964 in a game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Boston. His quickness and uncanny ability to block shots transformed the center position.Dick Raphael / Getty ImagesHe was not alone in that view: In a 1980 poll of basketball writers (long before Michael Jordan and LeBron James entered the scene), Russell was voted nothing less than the greatest player in N.B.A. history.Former Senator Bill Bradley, who faced Russell with the Knicks in the 1960s, viewed him as “the smartest player ever to play the game and the epitome of a team leader.”“At his core, Russell knew that he was different from other players — that he was an innovator and that his very identity depended on dominating the game,” Bradley wrote in reviewing Russell’s remembrances of Auerbach in “Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend” (2009) for The New York Times.In the decades that followed Russell’s retirement in 1969, when flashy moves delighted fans and team play was often an afterthought, his stature was burnished even more, remembered for his ability to enhance the talents of his teammates even as he dominated the action, and to do it without bravado: He disdained dunking or gesturing to celebrate his feats.In those later years, his signature goatee now turned white, Russell reappeared on the court at springtime, presenting the most valuable player of the N.B.A. championship series with the trophy named for him in 2009.Russell was remembered as well for his visibility on civil rights issues.Russell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, in 2011. President Barack Obama honored him as “someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesHe took part in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was seated in the front row of the crowd to hear the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech. He went to Mississippi after the civil rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered and worked with Evers’s brother, Charles, to open an integrated basketball camp in Jackson. He was among a group of prominent Black athletes who supported Muhammad Ali when Ali refused induction into the armed forces during the Vietnam War.President Barack Obama awarded Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, at the White House in 2011, honoring him as “someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men.”In September 2017, following President Donald J. Trump’s calling for N.F.L. owners to fire players who were taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, Russell posted a photo on Twitter in which he posed taking a knee while holding the medal.“What I wanted was to let those guys know I support them,” he told ESPN.A Much-Decorated ManRussell was the ultimate winner. He led the University of San Francisco to N.C.A.A. tournament championships in 1955 and 1956. He won a gold medal with the United States Olympic basketball team in 1956. He led the Celtics to eight consecutive N.B.A. titles from 1959 to 1966, far eclipsing the Yankees’ five straight World Series victories (1949 to 1953) and the Montreal Canadiens’ five consecutive Stanley Cup championships (1956 to 1960).He was the N.B.A.’s most valuable player five times and an All-Star 12 times.A reedy, towering figure at 6 feet 10 inches and 220 pounds, Russell was cagey under the basket, able to anticipate an opponent’s shots and gain position for a rebound. And if the ball caromed off the hoop, his tremendous leaping ability almost guaranteed that he’d grab it. He finished his career as the No. 2 rebounder in N.B.A. history, behind his longtime rival Wilt Chamberlain, who had three inches on him.Russell looks at the camera during a time-out in the waning moments of a playoff game with the 76ers.Bettmann via Getty ImagesRussell pulled down 21,620 rebounds, an astonishing average of 22.5 per game, with a single-game high of 51 against the Syracuse Nationals (the forerunners of the Philadelphia 76ers) in 1960.He didn’t have much of a shooting touch, but he scored 14,522 points — many on high-percentage, short left-handed hook shots — for an average of 15.1 per game. His blocked shots — the total is unrecorded, because such records were not kept in his era — altered games.Beyond the court, Russell could appear aloof. He was bruised by the humiliations his family had faced when he was young in segregated Louisiana, and by widespread racism in Boston. When he joined the Celtics in 1956, he was their only Black player. Early in the 1960s, his home in Reading, Mass., was vandalized.Russell’s primary allegiance was always to his teammates, not to the city of Boston or to the fans. Guarding his privacy and shunning displays of adulation, he refused to sign autographs for fans or even as keepsakes for his teammates. When the Celtics retired his No. 6 in March 1972, the event, at his insistence, was a private ceremony in Boston Garden. He ignored his election to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame — situated squarely in Celtics country, in Springfield, Mass. — and refused to attend the induction.“In each case, my intention was to separate myself from the star’s idea about fans, and fans’ ideas about stars,” Russell said in “Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man (1979),” written with Taylor Branch. “I have very little faith in cheers, what they mean and how long they will last, compared with the faith I have in my own love for the game.”Racial Scars, a Mother LostWilliam Felton Russell was born on Feb. 12, 1934, in Monroe, La., where his father, Charles, worked in a paper bag factory. He remembered a warm home life but a childhood seared by racism. He recalled that a police officer once threatened to arrest his mother, Katie, because she was wearing a stylish outfit like those favored by white women. A gas-station attendant sought to humble his father, while Bill was with him, by refusing to provide service, an episode that ended with Charles Russell chasing the man while brandishing a tire iron.When Bill was 9 years old, the family moved to Oakland, Calif. His mother died when he was 12, leaving his father, who had opened a trucking business and then worked in a foundry, to bring up Bill and his brother, Charles Jr., teaching them, as Russell long remembered, to work hard and covet self-worth and self-reliance.At McClymonds High School in Oakland, Russell became a starter on the basketball team as a senior, already emphasizing defense and rebounding. A former basketball player for the University of San Francisco, Hal DeJulio, who scouted for his alma mater, recognized Russell’s potential and recommended him to the coach, Phil Woolpert.Russell was given a scholarship and became an All-American, teaming up with the guard K.C. Jones, a future Celtic teammate, in leading San Francisco to N.C.A.A. championships in his last two seasons. Following a loss to U.C.L.A. in Russell’s junior year, the team won 55 straight games. He averaged more than 20 points and 20 rebounds a game for his three varsity seasons.“No one had ever played basketball the way I played it, or as well,” Russell told Sport magazine in 1963, recalling his college career. “They had never seen anyone block shots before. Now I’ll be conceited: I like to think I originated a whole new style of play.”In the mid-1950s, the Celtics had a highly talented team featuring Bob Cousy, the league’s greatest small man, and the sharpshooting Bill Sharman at guard and Ed Macauley, a fine shooter, up front. But lacking a dominant center, they had never won a championship.Fans carry Russell, right, Tommy Heinsohn, left, and Auerbach off the court at Boston Garden in 1964 after the Celtics won their sixth consecutive N.B.A. championship, defeating the Warriors.Bettmann / Getty ImagesThe Rochester Royals owned the No. 1 selection in the 1956 N.B.A. draft, but they already had an outstanding big man, Maurice Stokes, and were unwilling to wage what their owner, Les Harrison, believed would be a bidding war for Russell with the Harlem Globetrotters, who were reportedly willing to offer him a lucrative deal. So the Royals drafted Sihugo Green, a guard from Duquesne.The St. Louis Hawks had the No. 2 draft pick, but they, too, did not think they could afford Russell. Auerbach persuaded them to trade that selection to the Celtics for Macauley, a St. Louis native, and Cliff Hagan, a promising rookie. That enabled Boston to take Russell.Russell did meet with the Globetrotters that spring but, as he stated in a January 1958 collaboration with Al Hirshberg for The Saturday Evening Post, he did not seriously consider signing with them. He found the prospect of yearlong worldwide travel unappealing and wrote how “their specialty is clowning and I had no intention of being billed as a funny guy in a basketball uniform.”Russell led the United States Olympic team to a gold medal in the 1956 Melbourne Games, then joined the Celtics in December. Playing in 48 games as a rookie, he averaged 19.6 rebounds.That Celtic team — with Russell, Cousy, Sharman, the high-scoring rookie Tom Heinsohn, the bruising Jim Loscutoff and Frank Ramsey — won the franchise’s first N.B.A. title, defeating the Hawks in the finals.Enter ChamberlainRussell captured his first M.V.P. award in his second season, but this time the Hawks beat the Celtics for the championship, pulling away after Russell injured an ankle in Game 3 of the finals. The next year, the Celtics won the title again, beginning their run of eight straight championships.In Russell’s fourth season, 1959-60, the 7-foot-1, 275-pound Chamberlain entered the N.B.A. with the Philadelphia Warriors. Chamberlain led the league in scoring as a rookie with 37.6 points per game and eclipsed Russell in rebounding, averaging 27 per game to Russell’s 24, but the Celtics were champions once more.Russell was agile, Chamberlain the epitome of strength and power. Russell was usually outscored and out-rebounded by Chamberlain in their matchups, but the Celtics won most of those games.“If I had played for the Celtics instead of Russell, I doubt they would have been as great,” Chamberlain was quoted as saying in 1996 when the N.B.A.’s 50 greatest players were selected to mark the league’s 50th season, though not ranked in any particular order.As Chamberlain put it, “Bill Russell and the Celtics were the perfect fit.”Russell, friendly with Chamberlain off the court, was complimentary in turn. “I know they talk about me winning more championships, but I don’t know how that can be held against Wilt,” he said. “We beat everybody. It wasn’t just Wilt.”The Russell-Chamberlain rivalry was fierce. “Russell intimidated him,” Cousy recalled in “Cousy on the Celtic Mystique” (1988), written with Bob Ryan. “Wilt can say what he wants, but I used to watch Wilt muscle in against everyone else, but not against Russell.”Russell’s tactic was to play close to Chamberlain, forcing him to lean away from the basket, change the angle of his fadeaway jump shots and release them farther from the basket than he liked.Russell bested Chamberlain in another way: In his prime, as he told it, his annual salary was $100,001, $1 more than Chamberlain was making.Russell was an intense competitor, and though he contended that he was not nervous in the moments before games, he engaged in an often remarked upon ritual in the locker room.“I threw up, but I was never sick,” he told The Boston Globe in 2009. “It was a way for my body to get rid of all excesses.”As described by the Celtics’ forward John Havlicek, it was “a tremendous sound, almost as loud as his laugh.”“He doesn’t do it much now, except when it’s an important game or an important challenge for him — someone like Chamberlain, or someone coming up that everyone’s touting,” Havlicek told Sports Illustrated in December 1968. “It’s a welcome sound, too, because it means he’s keyed up for the game, and around the locker room we grin and say, ‘Man, we’re going to be all right tonight.’” In his last two seasons with the Celtics, with Russell as player-coach, the team won the N.B.A. championship.Dan Goshtigian/The Boston Globe via Getty Images“Russell made shot-blocking an art,” Auerbach recalled in “Red Auerbach: An Autobiography” (1977), written with Joe Fitzgerald. “He would pop the ball straight up and grab it like a rebound, or else redirect it right into the hands of one of his teammates, and we’d be off and running on the fast break. You never saw Russell bat a ball into the third balcony the way those other guys did.”Russell was not the first Black head coach in professional sports, but he had the greatest impact as the first to be chosen, in 1966, to lead a team in one of America’s major sports leagues. Fritz Pollard, a star running back, had coached in the National Football League, but that was in the 1920s, when it was a fledgling operation. John McLendon coached the Cleveland Pipers of the American Basketball League in 1961-62, but the A.B.A. was a secondary attraction.The Celtics’ streak of eight consecutive titles was snapped in Russell’s first year as coach, but it took one of the N.B.A.’s greatest teams to do it. The 1966-67 Celtics had a 60-21 regular-season record, but they lost in the Eastern Conference playoff finals to the Philadelphia 76ers, who had gone 68-13 with a lineup that included Chamberlain, Luke Jackson, Chet Walker, Hal Greer and Billy Cunningham.A Changed View of BostonAs the Celtic players from Russell’s rookie year retired, Auerbach found superb replacements, most notably Havlicek at forward and, at guard, Sam Jones and K.C. Jones, Russell’s old college teammate.The Celtics won N.B.A. titles in Russell’s last two seasons, when he was their player-coach. He capped his career with a triumph in the 1969 N.B.A. finals over a Laker team that had obtained Chamberlain and also featured Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.Russell could not easily shake his memories of Boston during his playing days, when the fate of the city’s de facto segregated schools became a national story.“To me, Boston itself was a flea market of racism,” Russell wrote in “Second Wind.” “It had all varieties, old and new, and in their most virulent form. The city had corrupt, city-hall-crony racists, brick-throwing, send-’em-back-to-Africa racists, and in the university areas phony radical-chic racists (long before they appeared in New York).”But as time passed the city changed, and so did his perception of it.Russell helped promote Boston with a radio spot in the weeks leading up to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which was held there. “I think there are a lot of things that are happening to make it an open city, where everybody’s included and there’s nobody that’s deemed unworthy,” he said.Boston honored Russell in 2013 with a bronze statue in City Hall Plaza.In his late years, Cousy became remorseful over his failure to speak out against the racism Russell faced when they were teammates, and in February 2016 he sent him a letter expressing regret.Russell coached the Sacramento Kings in 1987.Icon Sportswire / Getty ImagesAs related by Gary M. Pomerantz in his book “The Last Pass: Cousy, Russell, the Celtics, and What Matters in the End” (2018), Cousy did not hear from Russell until two and a half years had passed. Then Russell phoned him.Cousy asked Russell if he had received the letter.“Russ said he had,” Pomerantz wrote. “Nothing more was said about it. Cooz had hoped their conversation would rise to a more substantive level. Still, he had made his last pass to Russ. He felt at peace.”Russell worked as an ABC Sports commentator for N.B.A. games in the early 1970s, his high-pitched cackling laugh on the air showing viewers a side of him that only his teammates had seen. Then he returned to coaching.He became coach and general manager of the Seattle SuperSonics in 1973, taking over a team that had never been in the playoffs in its six seasons, and led them to a pair of playoff berths in his four seasons there.He became the coach of the Sacramento Kings in 1987, but was removed in March 1988 with the team mired at 17-41; he was named vice president in charge of basketball operations. He was fired from that post in December 1989.Long after his N.B.A. career had ended, Russell made himself more accessible and capitalized on commercial opportunities.In 2009, the M.V.P. award for the N.B.A. finals was renamed the Bill Russell N.B.A. Finals Most Valuable Player Award. Russell attended the news conference where the name change was announced.Matt York/Associated PressIn 1999, he agreed to a public ceremony at the Fleet Center — the successor to Boston Garden — for the 30th anniversary of his last championship team and his retirement as a player as well the second retirement of his number. The event was also a fund-raiser for the National Mentoring Partnership, whose programs he had helped develop as a board member. “There are no other people’s kids in this country,” he told the crowd. “They’re the children of the nation, and I refuse to be at war with them. I’ll always do anything I can to make life better for a kid.”He made commercials, signed autographs for serious collectors (for a fee) and delivered motivational speeches.Russell married for the fourth time, to Jeannine Fiorito, in 2016. His first marriage, to Rose Swisher, ended in divorce, as did his second marriage, to Dorothy Anstett. His third wife, Marilyn Nault, died in 2009 at 59. Russell had three children from his first marriage — William Jr., Jacob and Karen Kenyatta Russell. William Jr., known as Buddha, died in 2016 at 58. Russell’s brother, a playwright and screenwriter under the name Charlie L. Russell, died in 2013 at 81. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available. Russell was uncompromising when it came to his principles. “There are two societies in this country, and I have to recognize it, to see life for what it is and not go stark, raving mad,” he told Sport magazine in 1963, referring to the racial divide. “I don’t work for acceptance. I am what I am. If you like it, that’s nice. If not, I couldn’t care less.”He was also an immensely proud man.“If you can take something to levels that very few other people can reach,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1999, “then what you’re doing becomes art.” More

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      Bill Russell Paved the Way for Black Coaches to Defy Doubters

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      When getting hired as a Black coach seemed “far-fetched,” as one coach said, Russell showed that it could be done — and that it could lead to championships.Bill Russell and Red Auerbach came to an agreement.Auerbach, the longtime Boston Celtics coach, had confided in Russell that he planned to retire from coaching. Russell and Auerbach had created a dynasty together, with Russell dominating at center and Auerbach cementing their championship victories with plumes of celebratory cigar smoke.They would each write down their top-five preferred coaches to succeed Auerbach and consider any name who landed on both lists.They found no matches. Auerbach had already approached Russell about taking over the job and continuing on as a player, but Russell, who had witnessed the toll coaching took on Auerbach, quickly rebuffed him.Now, after the lists crisscrossed candidates, Russell reconsidered his position and figured nobody else, beyond Auerbach, could coach Bill Russell quite like Bill Russell.“When Red and I had started to discuss my becoming coach, there were some things we didn’t have to say,” Russell wrote in his book about his friendship with Auerbach, “Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend,” in 2009. “For example, when I was finally named publicly, I didn’t know that I had just become the first African American coach in the history of major league sports.”It was 1966, and the distinction did not cross his mind until Boston news media members informed him. “When I took the job, one reporter wrote seven articles focusing on why I shouldn’t be coaching the Celtics,” Russell wrote.Russell, who died Sunday at 88, would go on to win two championships as the head coach of the Celtics, his 10th and 11th championship rings. He would also coach the Seattle SuperSonics and the Sacramento Kings and inspire a generation of Black players to try their hand at coaching, too. The skepticism that accompanied his hiring in Boston is perhaps less of an issue now, but still a factor in whether Black people are hired to coach in the N.B.A. today. Bernie Bickerstaff, who is Black, watched Russell take over as head coach of the Celtics just as he was about to enter into a life of coaching. He began as an assistant at the University of San Diego under Phil Woolpert, who had coached Russell at the University of San Francisco.Bernie Bickerstaff, who has been the head coach of five N.B.A. teams, said he was inspired by Bill Russell.Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images“At that time, you didn’t think about anything like that,” said Bickerstaff, who became the coach of the SuperSonics in 1985. “In fact, if you’re sitting back and you’re a young Black at that time, it seemed far-fetched.”Russell, the coach, mimicked Russell the player. He was a longtime civil rights activist who coached the Celtics during the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. “It rubbed a lot of Bostonians the wrong way,” Russell wrote in his 2009 book. “At the time, Boston was a totally segregated city — and I vehemently opposed segregation.”He demanded respect and competed fiercely during an era when he had no assistant coaches. He played and coached the Celtics for three seasons before closing out the N.B.A.’s most successful and long-lasting championship reign.“That speaks volumes in itself for who he was as a person and a humanitarian, if you understand the culture of this country, especially in certain places,” said Jim Cleamons, who is Black and became the coach of the Dallas Mavericks in 1996.Al Attles and Lenny Wilkens followed Russell as the next Black N.B.A. head coaches. They, like Russell, led teams to championships. It took a while for the rest of the professional sports world to catch up. Frank Robinson, Russell’s former high school basketball teammate, became Major League Baseball’s first Black manager, in Cleveland, in 1975. Art Shell became the N.F.L.’s first Black head coach in the modern era for the Oakland Raiders in 1989.“Bill Russell was an inspiration, period, with coaching,” Bickerstaff said. “But as a human being, during times when it wasn’t popular to be someone of our complexion, he stood up and he represented. He had no fear. He was genuine. He was a success. He was a leader on and off the court.”Russell became the fifth person inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and a coach when he earned enshrinement as a coach last year.Jim Cleamons was the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks across two seasons in the 1990s. Tim Clayton for The New York TimesBy then, something that seemed far-fetched when Bickerstaff broke into coaching seemed common. Half of the N.B.A.’s 30 coaches will be Black heading into the 2022-23 season, including J.B. Bickerstaff, Bernie’s son and the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.But as recently as 2020, only four Black coaches roamed N.B.A. sidelines. “There is a certain natural ebb and flow to the hiring and firing, frankly, of coaches, but the number is too low right now,” N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said before the 2020 finals.Other sports leagues continued to lag. Nearly two decades after Russell won his first championship as a coach, Al Campanis, a Los Angeles Dodgers executive, expressed doubt about the ability of Black people to hold managerial level positions.“I don’t believe it’s prejudice,” Campanis said in an interview on ABC’s “Nightline” in 1987. “I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let’s say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager.”M.L.B. recently commemorated the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s major league debut, yet only two of its current managers — Houston’s Dusty Baker and the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts — are Black.In the N.F.L., Brian Flores, the former coach of the Miami Dolphins, recently sued the league over discriminatory hiring practices. Flores is the son of Honduran immigrants. The N.F.L. created a diversity advisory committee and mandated that every team hire a minority offensive coach after Flores’s suit.Russell did not talk often about being the first Black coach in a major sports league. But after his hiring, he felt the stress that awaited him as the “the first Negro coach,” as he wrote in his book.The hope of his relationship with Auerbach evolving from a superficial coach-player bond into a deeper friendship comforted him.“So I started looking forward to that,” he wrote.Russell left the Celtics in 1969 but took over the SuperSonics from 1973 until 1977. He guided Seattle to the franchise’s first-ever playoffs, but the success he found in Boston eluded him.Russell coached a final season with the Sacramento Kings in 1987-88 before he was fired and moved into the front office after a 17-41 start.J.B. Bickerstaff, Bernie Bickerstaff’s son, has coached the Cleveland Cavaliers since 2020. He’s one of 15 Black coaches in the N.B.A.Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images“With a lot of truly great players, it was tough for him to understand why regular players did not have the same drive, focus and commitment to winning that he did,” Jerry Reynolds, an assistant for Russell on the Kings, said in an interview Sunday. “There’s just not very many people wired like that. That’s why they’re great. In some ways, it was hard for him to understand that. Most of the guys, they wanted to win. They didn’t have the need to win every game like him.”All along, Russell remained true to who he was while coaching.Bickerstaff recalled Russell offering a set of golf clubs to one of Woolpert’s sons instead of signing an autograph for him — an act that Russell was known to steadfastly refuse throughout his career.Cleamons said that a booster introduced his high school team to Russell shortly after it had won the Ohio state championship. Russell hardly looked up from his soup. He hated to be interrupted from a meal.Cleamons understood the mind-set after reading Russell’s autobiography.Before being thought of as a basketball player, before being looked upon as a coach, Russell wanted to be viewed as a human being.“He was a little bit like Muhammad Ali,” Reynolds said. “He was always who he was. Society and people changed. Things changed to fit more like it should have been all along.” More

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      Among Pro Athletes, Bill Russell Was a Pioneering Activist

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      Russell marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke out against segregation in Boston public schools and backed Muhammad Ali in his opposition to the Vietnam War.It’s easy to remember the shots that Bill Russell blocked or the N.B.A. championships he won. After all, there were so many of each that he is considered one of the greatest basketball players in history, and in some corners, the greatest, period.But after his nearly nine decades of life, his most consequential legacy has less to do with the sport he dominated than his work off the court. From the time he was a young man to his death at age 88 on Sunday, Russell was a civil rights activist who consistently used his platform as a celebrity athlete to confront racism, no matter whom it alienated or what it did to his public popularity. And he was one of the first to do so.Now, it is common for athletes across many sports to be outspoken, no doubt inspired by Russell. The N.B.A. players’ union encourages its members to be passionate about their politics, especially around social justice. Without Russell’s risking his own livelihood and enduring the cruelties he did as a Black player in the segregated Boston of the 1950s and 1960s, athlete activism would look much different today, if it existed at all.“The blueprint was written by Russell,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said in an interview on Sunday. He continued: “It is now trendy on social media to take a stand. He did it when it was not trendy. He set the trend.”Spike Lee, the director and longtime N.B.A. fan, said in a text message, “We are losing so many greats my head is spinning.”Lee said Russell “is right up there with Jackie Robinson as changing the game in sports and activism in the United States of America, and we are all better because of these champions.”Russell, a native of West Monroe, La., was a trailblazer from the moment he set foot on an N.B.A. court.“My rookie year, in the championship series, I was the only Black player for both teams,” Russell once quipped to an audience while accepting an award in Boston. “And see what we did, we showed them diversity works.”Russell marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 in the prime of his playing career (he played for the Celtics from 1956 to 1969). He was invited to sit onstage behind King, but he declined. That same year, Russell offered his public support for demonstrations against segregation in Boston public schools, and addressed Black students taking part in a sit-in.When the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated, also in 1963, Russell contacted Evers’s older brother, Charles, in Jackson, Miss., and offered his assistance. The elder Evers suggested that Russell run an integrated basketball camp in the Deep South, something that would have been a significant safety risk for Russell. He said yes, and despite the death threats, went through with the camp.Russell, with Kenneth Guscott, left, and Marvin Gilmore, right, spoke at NAACP headquarters in 1964. Hal Sweeney/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesFour years later, when the boxer Muhammad Ali was faced with a torrent of criticism for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War, Russell, the N.F.L. star Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor and still playing at U.C.L.A.) gathered in Cleveland and decided to support Ali. This was not a popular stance, not that Russell cared.Russell wrote immediately afterward that he was envious of Ali.“He has absolute and sincere faith,” Russell wrote for Sports Illustrated. “I’m not worried about Muhammad Ali. He is better equipped than anyone I know to withstand the trials in store for him. What I’m worried about is the rest of us.”Russell’s activism made an impact on generations of athletes. That included Spencer Haywood, who played for Russell as a member of the Seattle SuperSonics, whom Russell coached for four seasons. (In 1966, Russell became the first Black coach in the N.B.A.)Haywood said in an interview on Sunday that he and Russell would often dine at a Seattle restaurant called 13 Coins after road trips, and Russell would regale him with stories about the civil rights movement. During these dinners, Russell lauded the young player’s willingness to sue the N.B.A. in 1971 for not allowing players to enter the league until four years after their high school graduation — a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and was eventually decided in Haywood’s favor.“He was teaching me because he knew what I had stood up for with my Supreme Court ruling,” Haywood said. “And he admired that in me. And I was so overwhelmed by him knowing.”Haywood said his teammates would jokingly refer to Russell as Haywood’s “daddy” because of how close they were. Sometimes, Haywood’s late-night talks with Russell came with surprising advice about activism.“He always used to tell me about not getting too carried away because we were in the ’70s,” Haywood recalled. “He was kind of guiding me, saying: ‘Don’t go out too far right now because you are a player and you need to play the game. But you’ve made one stand and you did great in that, but don’t go too far.’ He was, like, giving me a guardrail.”Russell never feared going too far as a player activist himself. He wasn’t deterred by the racist taunts he absorbed at games, or when vandals broke into his home, spray-painted epithets on the wall and left feces on the bed after he moved his family to Reading, Mass. When he tried to move his family to a different house nearby, some residents of the mostly white neighborhood started a petition to keep him out.“I said then that I wasn’t scared of the kind of men who come in the dark of night,” Russell wrote for Slam magazine in 2020. “The fact is, I’ve never found fear to be useful.”He didn’t always have the support of his teammates. In 1961, for example, the Celtics traveled to Lexington, Ky., for an exhibition game against the St. Louis Hawks. When the restaurant at the hotel would not serve the team’s Black players, Russell led a strike of the game. His white teammates played the game. Bob Cousy, one of Russell’s white teammates, told the writer Gary M. Pomerantz decades later for the 2018 book “The Last Pass: Cousy, the Celtics and What Matters in the End” that he was “ashamed” at having taken part in the game. President Barack Obama cited the 1961 story in giving Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.“For decades, Bill endured insults and vandalism, but never let it stop him from speaking up for what’s right,” Obama said in a statement Sunday. “I learned so much from the way he played, the way he coached, and the way he lived his life.”Russell addressed a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Boston in 2011.Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe activism didn’t stop as Russell got older. In recent years, Russell has been a public supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and Colin Kaepernick, the former N.F.L. quarterback who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality in 2016.“Bill Russell was a pioneer,” Etan Thomas, a former N.B.A. player and political activist, said in a text message Sunday. Thomas said Russell was “an athlete who used his position and platform to stand up for a bigger cause.” He added that “he was the type of athlete I wanted to be like when I grew up.”Russell’s influence in leading the 1961 strike could be felt in 2020, when the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play a playoff game as a protest of police brutality. On Twitter, Russell wrote that he was “moved by all the N.B.A. players for standing up for what is right.” In a piece for The Players’ Tribune weeks later, Russell wrote, “Black and Brown people are still fighting for justice, racists still hold the highest offices in the land.”Sharpton pointed to those actions as Russell’s legacy.“He did it before some of these guys were born,” Sharpton said. “And I think that what they need to understand is every time a basketball player or athlete puts a T-shirt on saying something about Trayvon or ‘I Am Trayvon’ or ‘Black Lives Matter’ or whatever they want to do — ‘Get your knee off my neck!’ — they may not know it, but they are doing the Bill Russell.” More

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      Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Others React to Bill Russell’s Legacy

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      Magic Johnson said the Celtics great was his idol. Michael Jordan called him a pioneer. Jaylen Brown called him one of the greatest athletes ever.Bill Russell had more N.B.A. championship rings than he had fingers and as many Most Valuable Player Awards as all other Boston Celtics players combined.But in the hours after Russell’s family announced his death on Sunday, N.B.A. players remembered him as so much more.Legend. Trailblazer. “Everything we all aspired to be,” Isiah Thomas, the Hall of Fame point guard from the Detroit Pistons, said in a post on Twitter.Russell, 88, spent 13 seasons with the Celtics in the 1950s and 1960s, including three as a player-coach. He was the first Black coach in the N.B.A., and he was known for his civil rights activism during and after his playing days. He has remained visible around the N.B.A. as a fan, mentor and symbol of greatness. The finals M.V.P. trophy is named after him, and he would often attend games wearing a purple hat with the initials of one of his favorite players, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in 2020.Players across basketball generations hailed him on Sunday.From the 1980s, there were Thomas and another Hall of Fame point guard, Magic Johnson of the Lakers.“Bill Russell was my idol,” Johnson said on Twitter, citing Russell’s basketball talent and position on the “front line fighting for social justice.”He continued: “Despite all of his achievements, he was so humble, a gentle giant, a very intelligent man, and used his voice and platform to fight for Black people.”Michael Jordan, who dominated the 1990s with the Chicago Bulls, said in a statement that Russell was a “pioneer.”“He paved the way and set an example for every Black player who came into the league after him, including me,” Jordan said. “The world has lost a legend.”Notable players from the 2000s also spoke of Russell with reverence and a warmth that showed the Celtics icon’s lasting influence in the league.“I can go on all day about what u meant to me,” Paul Pierce, the Celtics Hall of Famer, said in a tweet.Pierce, too, called Russell a “pioneer” and “trailblazer.” He also mentioned his “great laugh” and shared a picture of Russell talking with Pierce and other N.B.A. players. “I’ll never forget this day we was like kids sitting around a camp fire listening to your stories,” Pierce wrote.Pau Gasol, whose Lakers faced Pierce in the finals twice, shared a picture on Twitter of himself with Russell, calling him “one of the most dominant players in @NBA history.”“I’ll forever be honored to have met you,” he said.Players from the 2010s and present day also pointed to Russell’s humor, activism and basketball skill.Noting on Twitter that there was no 3-point line or social media during Russell’s heyday, Celtics guard Marcus Smart posted a list of Russell’s accomplishments.“Just played and dominated in a day and a league that was def not soft,” Smart said.Smart’s teammate Jaylen Brown shared a photo of Russell with Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jim Brown in 1967, when a group of Black athletes were showing support for Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War.Calling Russell “one of the greatest athletes ever,” Brown said: “Thank you for paving the way and inspiring so many Today is a sad day but also great day to celebrate his legacy and what he stood for.”In recent years, N.B.A. players — Brown included — have more prominently carried on Russell’s legacy of civil rights activism. Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul, who was the president of the players’ union during its social justice efforts after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, also posted about Russell on Twitter on Sunday.“Unapologetically himself at all times!! The ultimate leader and just happened to be one of the best hoopers ever! RIP Mr Russell, you will be dearly missed,” he wrote. More

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      A Paean to the Gods (and Shammgods) of New York City Hoops

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      Some of the most memorable characters in New York basketball history gathered in Manhattan for a screening of the documentary film “NYC Point Gods,” a tribute to — well, to them.There is little left that defines New York City basketball, save for the Knicks’ eternal search for an impactful lead guard. It’s a search that has always been inflamed, exacerbated and magnified by the abundance of point guards bred by the city.There was the incandescent Pearl Washington, who rode a motorcycle and sometimes wore a fur to playground games, and whose tremendous dribbling for Syracuse destroyed Georgetown’s dominant full-court press in the Big East tournament.And God Shammgod, the worshiped Harlem guard who played a game within the game by offering the ball up to defenders with his right hand and then ripping it back with his left. The move, still replicated in N.B.A. games by Russell Westbrook and others, is known as the Shammgod.From them and others, New York point guards learned that moxie, flair and unimpeachable handles were just as important as the ability to initiate an offense. But the era that established the archetype of the New York point guard — pillared in the 1970s and 80s by Catholic schools that have since closed for lack of funding and playground courts that saw their rims removed during the Covid-19 pandemic — is gone.For a rare moment on Wednesday night, it was reanimated at a screening of “NYC Point Gods,” a feature-length Showtime documentary that pays homage to the guards who gave the city its rep. The film was produced by Kevin Durant and his business partner and agent, Rich Kleiman. Durant, a New York transplant, wore Dior as he doled out hugs to the documentary’s subjects. Kleiman, a native, gleamed in gold aviator glasses as he introduced the film to shouts from the audience that referred to him as Ace, as in Rothstein, the protagonist of the movie “Casino.”Durant and God Shammgod greet each other at the premiere.Theo Wargo/Getty ImagesThe venue was Manhattan West Plaza, a cathedral to the power of real estate development ordained into usefulness by a New York tradition: hoopers paying homage to hoopers.That term is an honorific that disregards professional status and statistics and can be conferred only by another hooper. It doesn’t matter if you had a 20-year N.B.A. career or if your best performances are now remembered only by basketball griots. There’s a reverence among hoopers. Did you make those who watched you play love the game as you did? Did you give the crowd an “I was there when” story?Outside the Midnight Theatre, camera flashes greeted Rafer Alston and Kenny Anderson, who walked the red carpet with his mom. Sabrina Ionescu, of the W.N.B.A.’s Liberty, sidled up for hugs with Nancy Lieberman and Niesha Butler. Jayson Tatum, of the Boston Celtics, deferentially cupped hands with Anderson as Paul Pierce spelled his name for a puzzled list-holding publicist.Once the film rolled, though, the guards’ trademark toughness washed away as they listened to each other’s stories. “It was very emotional, not just for myself, but, you know, I lived and witnessed those stories of the other guys and girls also,” said Mark Jackson, a former Knicks point guard who starred at St. John’s. Seated alongside his four children, he dabbed at his eyes as he heard Kenny Smith, a Queens-born retired N.B.A. champion, describe how Jackson’s smarts led him to a nearly 17-year pro career.Mark Jackson with his children.Amanda Westcott/ShowtimeAt its heart, “Point Gods” is the hoopers’ oral history of how the city created a lineage at the position. Shammgod developed his dribble because his gym teacher, Tiny Archibald, told him it would make him perpetually valuable to any team. Only by watching a V.H.S. mixtape compilation of point guard highlights called “Below the Rim” did he learn of Archibald’s previous work.That revelation drew a crack of laughter inside the screening, where, earlier, attendees jostled over seats and settled in with the shoulder-to-shoulder intimacy of the city’s bandbox parks. Dao-Yi Chow, a lauded fashion designer, sat near a far wall wearing Jackson’s Knicks jersey. Clark Kent, whose real name is Rodolfo Franklin and who goes by the Rucker Park-ian nickname “God’s Favorite DJ,” held down a back-row seat. Kent produced a chunk of Jay-Z’s debut “Reasonable Doubt,” which dropped in 1996, the year Jeff Van Gundy took over the Knicks.For his part, Jay-Z had welcomed Shammgod on a nearby rooftop patio before the screening. The rapper and mogul was a mainstay of Rucker Park’s Entertainer’s Basketball Classic in the early aughts, and his attempt to woo Kareem Reid from a rival’s team with a bag of cash is told by that rival, the rapper Fat Joe. The exact sum, rumored to be in the thousands, is bleeped out in the retelling as Joe recounts the Mafioso-style meeting he had with Reid to convince him not to jump ship. Reid, who had a cup of coffee with the N.B.A.’s Hornets in 2003, stayed.When the film showed LeBron James, Beyoncé and N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern (wearing Joe’s platinum and diamond chain) making summer pilgrimages to the park, a woman seated four rows from the screen yelped, “I was there,” “I was there,” “There too,” both tallying her attendance and bringing Harlem into the room.In another scene, the rapper Cam’ron — a Harlem native who played on several high school travel teams alongside some of the documentary’s subjects — explained that oohs and ahhs from the crowd were worth “five or six points” to a New York point guard.Cut to Anderson in a 1991 A.C.C. game. He’d been a high school legend at Archbishop Molloy in Queens, and New Yorkers who followed his career to Georgia Tech couldn’t wait to see him mix up Duke’s Bobby Hurley, who was notorious for his lax defense. The point guard cast hypes up what’s about to come, and Smith urges the director to pull the game footage up so he can narrate a grainy ESPN clip of the one-on-one clash.Kenny Anderson on the red carpet.Amanda Westcott/ShowtimeAnderson meets Hurley at the elbow, then takes his dribble behind his back and between his legs before gliding past a dazed Hurley for a floating layup. Unnoted was the fact that Duke won the game.Small matter. When it happened, only Dickie V’s hyperventilation on ESPN marked the moment as something special. “NYC Point Gods,” though, layered in the soundtrack of the hoopers who have told and retold the story as one of many chapters in their aggrandizing mythology.On film, though, Shammgod is awed. Stephon Marbury, who sported Anderson’s center-parted haircut in high school and followed him to Georgia Tech, leans into the retelling. The unscripted, ephemeral whoops from inside the screening, from N.B.A. stars and high school coaches and their playground peers, fell anew upon Anderson in the theater’s dark. More

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      Why the U.S. Offered to Swap Griner for Bout, a Russian Arms Dealer

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      The negotiations raise questions about what, if any, standards should apply when the United States agrees to trade prisoners.WASHINGTON — One is perhaps the world’s most notorious arms dealer, a man known as the “Merchant of Death” who sold weapons to terrorists, rebels and militants around the world before finally being hunted down and locked up for conspiring to kill Americans.The other is a basketball player who got caught with a little hashish oil.By no measure are they comparable, yet the Biden administration has proposed trading the merchant of death for the imprisoned basketball player as well as a former marine held in Russia on what are considered trumped-up espionage charges. In the harsh and cynical world of international diplomacy, prisoner exchanges are rarely pretty, but unpalatable choices are often the only choices on the table.Whether the swap would go through remained unclear. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made the offer public in part to reassure the families of Brittney Griner, the basketball player, and Paul N. Whelan, the former marine, that the administration is doing all it can to free them.Russian officials, who have long sought the release of the arms trafficker Viktor Bout, confirmed the discussion on Thursday but said Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov was too busy to talk with Mr. Blinken now.The disclosure of the negotiations raised obvious questions about what, if any, standards should apply when the United States agrees to trade prisoners, a conundrum that has challenged the nation’s leaders since its founding.The debate becomes all the more complex when it involves exchanging not soldiers on a battlefield or spies in a Cold War but dangerous criminals for civilians whose real crime is being caught up in wrong-place, wrong-time international intrigue.“The fact that Bout is a big fish isn’t really part of the calculus,” said Jeremy Bash, who was chief of staff at the C.I.A. when the United States made a high-profile spy swap with Russia in 2010. “We value our own citizens a thousand times more than we value the foreign criminal. Israel takes the same approach. They’d trade a thousand Hamas fighters for one I.D.F. soldier. We in the U.S. take the same attitude. We will do almost anything to save an American life.”Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer, arriving at court in Bangkok in 2010. He was extradited and convicted of conspiring to kill Americans.Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut other veterans of past administrations expressed concern that such exchanges, especially one that seems on its face to be as imbalanced as swapping a death-dealing arms merchant for an athlete who may have vaped, would only encourage the imprisonment of more Americans who could be used as hostages.“I take a pretty hard line on it,” said John R. Bolton, a former U.N. ambassador and national security adviser. “It’s one thing to exchange prisoners of war. It’s one thing to exchange spies when you know that’s going on.” But “negotiations and exchanges with terrorists or with authoritarian governments” become dangerous “because then you’re just putting a price on the next American hostage.”What to Know About Brittney Griner’s Detention in RussiaCard 1 of 5What happened? More