The Boston Celtics and the Price of History

Four months before the season unexpectedly plunged into disarray, the wider Boston Celtics organization gathered in a theater to commemorate yet another championship victory. I checked in at a small desk and entered, just a few blocks from significant historical sites: the Brahmin church where Bob Cousy delivered a eulogy for John Havlicek, and the four-star hotel that was Red Auerbach`s residence. For months, I had been deeply immersed in the history of Boston basketball that permeated the city, finding no artifacts more imbued with meaning than the living individuals who had witnessed this history and, in certain instances, shaped it. This evening`s celebration was a significant assembly of these witnesses and key figures, a gathering where an ancient magic seemed to fill the air. Bill Russell`s daughter, Karen, appeared regal in her flowing attire as she conversed with the Boston press corps. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were focal points of attention. Jackie MacMullan introduced me to Celtics guard Jrue Holiday. Dan Shaughnessy and his wife circulated near the bar, while 1981 Finals MVP Cedric Maxwell found a small bistro table and settled in. “The connection is family,” Red Auerbach`s youngest daughter, Randy, remarked. “It`s part of our DNA.”

The event on this snowy Friday evening was the premiere of Bill Simmons` HBO documentary series, “Celtics City,” which narrates Boston`s history through the lens of its basketball team. Sam Cassell, who earned a title as a backup guard in 2008 and another last season as an assistant coach, exchanged greetings with players and staff spanning multiple generations.

“This is more than just a job!,” he later exclaimed. “Being a Celtic is a way of life!”

The 2024 Larry O`Brien Trophy, gleaming brightly, was displayed on a pedestal in the center of the party. No one present felt too detached to savor the moment; even owner Wyc Grousbeck took a photograph. The gathering celebrated the previous season`s triumph, even as the current team was striving to secure a second consecutive title. Jayson Tatum embodies the core challenge facing this Celtics generation: he must respect the glorious past while remaining focused on future success. Professional athletes like Tatum intensely concentrate on the present, aiming to forge a future so luminous that their names will be remembered forever. However, athletes pursuing this dream in Boston encounter a complex opportunity and burden. Tradition offers vitality but also carries significant weight. When Bob Cousy retired, Bill Russell famously stated that Cousy`s memory was now their true adversary, just as much as the Lakers, and he was serious.

When Grousbeck acquired the Celtics in 2002, he found an organization fragmented by Rick Pitino, who had demoted Red Auerbach from his role as team president. One of Grousbeck`s first actions was to take a private jet to D.C., where Auerbach resided, and bring him back to serve as team president. For over two decades, Grousbeck managed the team guided by a simple principle: What would Red do? He shaped the team`s destiny and earned two championships by looking to the past. This era was drawing to a close this season. His father, an 89-year-old pioneer in private equity, apparently required the family to divest from the team, which was Grousbeck`s passion project, for estate planning purposes. Amidst the celebration of last season`s achievements, uncertainty lingered regarding the current season`s aspirations. You could sense the shifting dynamics as the first game approached; new owners were expected. Furthermore, due to the NBA`s new collective bargaining agreement, designed to prevent the formation of dynasties, the existing team, which had reached two Finals and won one, was facing a ticking clock. In the theater`s foyer, Grousbeck noticed an older gentleman standing near the trophy and approached to pay his respects. It was Mal Graham, a retired state judge who, in an earlier phase of his life, had won two championships with the Celtics. Grousbeck and Graham shared a laugh and compared the size of their championship rings. Grousbeck`s ring was from 2024, Graham`s from 1969. They touched their rings together, like superheroes combining their powers.

“That`s the last back-to-back,” someone nearby whispered to me. This revelation was striking. The Celtics, whose identity is deeply rooted in the concept of an enduring dynasty, have not won consecutive titles since 1969, which was Bill Russell`s final season as a player. Nine different teams have achieved consecutive championships since the Celtics last did so 56 years ago: the Lakers, the Pistons, the Bulls (twice, including three-peats), the Rockets, the Lakers (with a three-peat), followed by the Lakers again (two titles), then the Heat, and finally the Warriors. Achieving multiple consecutive titles is central to the Celtics` lore, yet prominent figures like Larry Bird and Kevin McHale attempted and failed. Jo Jo White and John Havlicek also tried and did not succeed. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce similarly made the attempt but fell short.

The 2024-25 season was anticipated to be Jayson Tatum`s opportunity to achieve this.

Only two men remain.

Bob Cousy, now 96, and Satch Sanders, 86, are the last survivors of a once-dominant era, the foundational figures of the Celtics` culture. They are not the sole remaining teammates of Russell – two-time champion Bailey Howell, currently 88, lives just two hours southeast of me in Mississippi – but they hold a more significant status in Boston: they are the living icons of the dynasty, the ones with the championship rings. Cousy possesses six, and Sanders eight. John Havlicek, Tommy Heinsohn, and K.C. Jones also had eight. (K.C. added two more as a coach in the 1980s.) Sam Jones claimed 10, and Russell, of course, eleven. Their jersey numbers hang retired in the arena rafters. Their photographs adorn the walls of every traditional Boston establishment. Their influence is a tangible presence in the TD Garden and around the team. Fans still wear their jerseys. They are frequently mentioned and revered, their names akin to a sacred text.

“Fortunately, we still have Satch and Bob,” Brad Stevens, the Celtics` president of basketball operations, commented to me.

“Cooz,” is what Randy Auerbach calls him.

“Every time Bob Cousy calls, I react immediately,” said Jeff Twiss, a longtime member of the Celtics` PR staff.

“I genuinely tried to consider what Red would do, what Bob would do, what Bill Russell would do,” Grousbeck stated last year.

“I knew John Havlicek as well as anyone,” remarked Joe Kennedy, son of RFK and nephew of JFK, when we discussed the Celtics for this piece.

“I worked alongside Satch at the NBA,” Chris Havlicek shared. “Mr. Cousy I`ve known since the day I was born.”

Cousy typically only leaves his home for his customary Thursday night cocktail and pizza gathering at his country club. “I enjoy my two Beefeaters on the rocks,” he said with a chuckle.

He and Sanders communicate about once a month.

“Satch is enduring difficulties,” Cousy said with evident affection in his voice. “His wife has been in hospice for over a month, maybe a month and a half now. Ginnie is nearing the end of her life. I haven`t spoken to him in a few weeks. I remind him not to dwell on the past. We`re the only two left!”

Mostly, as is clear, they joke about mortality, a form of dark humor. Cousy makes references to the great basketball court in the sky. The quiet anticipation of death is treated with respect but is undeniably present. In Marcus Thompson II`s 2021 book about the NBA`s greatest dynasties, he astutely noted the impending series of funerals. “What was apparent then,” he wrote, “was how the grains of sand in their hourglasses were diminishing.”

“You`re not going anywhere,” Satch told his friend last year. “You`re only 95.”

“But I`m in a wheelchair now,” Cousy responded.

“Cooz, that`s just how it is.”

After nearly a year observing the Celtics` quest for a repeat championship, I flew to Boston for what seemed to be the final days of a once-promising season. There are seasons that build momentum, seasons that maintain it, and seasons where potential diminishes. This year, the Celtics experienced all three simultaneously, and now the end felt near. In the preceding week, they had squandered three double-digit leads (of 20, 20, and 14 points), falling behind 1-3 to the surging Knicks. In the closing minutes of the last of those losses, Jayson Tatum had suffered a frightening injury to his right Achilles tendon. The season and the pursuit of another title, though technically still ongoing, seemed almost secondary as Boston awaited Tatum`s medical evaluation. Sitting on the plane, I exchanged texts with Karen Russell, Bill`s daughter, whom I had first met at the HBO party. We chatted about how she enjoys visiting K.C. Jones` daughter in Atlanta to share authentic Southern soul food.

We discussed Tatum`s injury. If it were an Achilles injury, he would likely miss the entire following season. Karen and her brother had attended a baseball game that evening with their family friend Lenny Wilkens and did not learn of the news until they returned home. Karen, who has a nurturing disposition, tried not to worry excessively until an official diagnosis was announced.

“I`m struggling to not feel concerned,” she admitted to me.

Uncertainty cast a melancholic pall over the franchise. How long would Tatum be sidelined? Would he fully recover? When would the sale of the team be finalized? New ownership would undoubtedly wish to influence the team`s direction. And because of the new collective bargaining agreement, a metaphorical clock had been counting down for the current team for a year. It felt somewhat like a doomsday countdown, and when Tatum collapsed on the court at Madison Square Garden, the minute hand seemed to race toward midnight. Concurrently, with Cousy at 96 and Sanders at 86, the living link between the uncertain present and the glorious past has never felt more tenuous or vulnerable.

The next morning, with eight long hours until Game 5, I went to see a salvaged piece of old Boston history, preserved from destruction by Ted Tye, a Celtics season-ticket holder and successful businessman. It was one-fourth of the scoreboard that hung in the original Garden during the final two Bill Russell championship wins, the last consecutive titles. After the Garden was demolished, the scoreboard remained for years in a suburban mall food court, gradually becoming an ordinary backdrop amidst pizza and burgers. When that mall was subsequently torn down, a foreman supervising the demolition frantically called Tye.

“We`re about to demolish the scoreboard,” he alerted him.

“Stop everything,” Tye instructed.

Tye is a collector of Boston sports memorabilia, so he arranged for the scoreboard to be dismantled, loaded onto a flatbed truck, and transported to an empty warehouse he controlled. It sat there for years, stripped of its extensive, outdated electrical components, merely an empty shell. Eventually, he installed one section of the sign in a new building located on the site of the former Boston Herald offices, visible to cars from the adjacent elevated freeway. The original lightbulbs were no longer functional, so Tye installed new electronic panels that display the month, date, and time. This scoreboard, first installed in 1967, was hanging above the court the last time Tye saw his father alive, at a Celtics game in the Garden in 1989. While watching the new HBO series, Tye recognized a familiar face and paused the screen, finding himself sitting directly behind Red Auerbach alongside his late father. The Celtics are deeply intertwined with many aspects of his life, and like most people I encountered in the city, Tye was eager to discuss Tatum`s situation, expressing concern for the future of the star player and the team he led.

“That`s a significant injury,” he commented to me. “You wonder if Brad Stevens might consider breaking up the team now.”

The second quarter…

On October 22, 2024, the Boston Celtics presented championship rings to the players and unveiled the franchise`s 18th banner. It was the first game of the season, uncharacteristically warm for the city, with cirrus clouds and haze blurring the blue sky. Bob Cousy arrived several hours early in a car provided by the team. VIP guests waited in a tent in the parking lot, where the governor of Massachusetts, who had worn Cousy`s No. 14 throughout her junior high and college basketball career, expressed how proud she and the state were of him. The arena gradually filled with spectators as the VIP tent emptied. Cousy waited in the tunnel in a wheelchair. Celtics PR veteran Jeff Twiss pushed him out onto the court when signaled by event staff. Cousy looked up at him.

“Don`t mess this up,” he instructed.

Former champions were introduced onto the court individually, each announced as if they were royalty.

“Six-time NBA champion, Number 14, Bob Cousy!”

Twiss maneuvered Cousy to center court, through a long line of fans and dignitaries, and Bob acknowledged the crowd with a wave. He is the only living player to have witnessed the raising of both the first and the most recent Celtics championship banners. Shaughnessy`s column in the following morning`s Globe noted: “Cousy played with John Havlicek, who played with Cedric Maxwell, who played with Kevin McHale, who played with Rick Fox, who played with Antoine Walker, who played with Paul Pierce, who played with Avery Bradley, who played with Jaylen Brown.”

Cedric Maxwell followed Cousy, representing two of the three titles from the 1980s, then came three members of the 2008 team, the most recent champions prior to 2024: “Number 20” Ray Allen, “Number 5” Kevin Garnett, and “with the 2024 Larry O`Brien Trophy, The Truth, Number 34, Paul Pierce!”

Pierce spun the trophy around for everyone to see. KG thumped his chest, partially concealed behind dark sunglasses. They assembled as Adam Silver presented the championship rings. Jaylen Brown rested his left arm on Bob Cousy`s wheelchair. Jayson Tatum stood on Cousy`s other side, with an arm around Ray Allen. Silver announced that this title placed the Celtics ahead of the Lakers as the winningest franchise in league history, 18 to 17, which prompted KG to clap loudly enough for his reaction to be picked up by Silver`s microphone.

“Eighteen banners,” Silver proclaimed, looking up, then towards Bob, before continuing. “And of course, six of those rings belong to Bob Cousy!”

The crowd responded with a deep, resonant cheer of COOZ, a sound that might be mistaken for boos by those unfamiliar with the tradition. The ceremony concluded, and Twiss wheeled Cousy back beneath the arena. He slipped into a waiting car, heading home to watch the game.

The world outside the arena felt unfamiliar to him as the car traveled through the streets. Where exactly had the old Boston Garden been located? Was it here, or a block away? Cousy gazed out the window, leaving the cheering crowd behind.

“I`ve had my time in the spotlight,” he reflected.

Bill Russell and K.C. Jones were college roommates and remained close friends throughout their lives. Satch Sanders discovered that Cousy would curse at you in French if you failed to catch one of his passes. Tommy Heinsohn learned that Cousy frequently awoke in the middle of the night from chronic nightmares, sometimes screaming as he jolted out of bed. A few of them, including Cousy, pocketed matchbooks featuring the presidential seal during visits to the White House. President Kennedy eagerly came to greet them upon hearing his hometown team was visiting, and the players said their goodbyes one by one. Satch Sanders became flustered when he reached the president and, overcome by nerves, blurted out, “Take it easy, baby.” Kennedy erupted in laughter, joined by the rest of the Celtics, and they would tease Satch about the incident for the rest of his life.

They played gin rummy or hearts on the back of turboprop airplanes, usually Russell, Heinsohn, and Cousy. During a goodwill tour behind the Iron Curtain, the entire team persuaded two Polish coaches to dress up as secret police, complete with fake badges, and pretend to arrest Heinsohn, who was completely taken in, chain-smoking cigarettes until Cousy and Auerbach burst in, laughing. Russell once entered the locker room wearing a cape. “Here comes Batman!” Cousy quipped.

Few teams have been as thoroughly chronicled as the Celtics of the 1950s and `60s. Gary Pomerantz`s book about Cousy and Russell, “The Last Pass,” stands out. Bill Russell authored three different memoirs, published in 1965, 1979, and 2009. These books, along with dozens of others written about and by members of those teams, paint a detailed picture of a specific time, place, and a camaraderie that persisted long after their playing days ended. They didn`t always get along, but they shared a deep affection for one another. Their lives were inextricably linked.

Sam Jones dedicated effort to persuading Bill Russell`s son, Buddha, to declare Sam his favorite basketball player. Russell loved lifting one of the Cousy girls high into the air, exclaiming with joy, “Hey, little Cooz!” Sanders frequently lost his contact lenses, and on one occasion, a game was delayed as ten players crawled around on the court searching for the missing lens. Bill Russell, of course, found it. “Here, Satch,” he announced triumphantly. “Do I have to do absolutely everything for this team?”

Heinsohn acted as a unifying force for the team. He would sit with radio announcer Johnny Most in late-night hotel lobbies, listening to Most`s stories about serving as a gunner on a B-24 in World War II. Everyone held Heinsohn in high regard. During one Finals series, he had a confrontation with Wilt Chamberlain. “Do that one more time, and I`ll knock you down,” Wilt threatened. Heinsohn held his ground. “Bring your packed meal,” he retorted.

K.C. Jones would sing whenever the opportunity arose. Satch could do an excellent impression of Russell. Russell often faced ridicule for getting his low-slung Lamborghini stuck in the snow. One evening, Cousy and Heinsohn were at the bar of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel with Lauren Bacall. Tall, measuring 5`8″ without shoes, she wore perfume that smelled of roses and blackcurrants. Bob had his gym bag with him. Lauren snatched it, pulled out a jockstrap dramatically, and flung it across the bar at him. He dodged the smelly projectile and threw it back.

On road trips, due to his seniority and star status, Cousy was typically assigned a large suite to himself. Hotel rooms became his entire world. In contrast, Heinsohn enjoyed painting, mostly watercolors, looking out from his hotel window. This was a team comprised of fascinating, distinct personalities. Russell was an avid reader; the book that most deeply affected him was a biography of the complex Haitian revolutionary leader Henri Christophe, who constructed a fortress to defend Black people from their enslavers. The fortress still stands and is a rare monument in the Western Hemisphere built by a Black man. That fact, and particularly that specific phrase, resonated deeply with Russell: a Black man.

Cousy also consumed books voraciously: histories, novels, memoirs. Theodore H. White`s “The Making of the President 1960” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” were among them. Harper Lee`s novel had a profound impact on him. Occasionally, Heinsohn would convince Bob to join him for a drink or two. Like Russell, Cousy was a complex, private individual, carrying deep emotional scars from his challenging upbringing, marked by poverty and violence. He would sometimes murmur to himself in French throughout the night, his subconscious never fully at peace.

“In later years, as the pressure mounted, Cousy experienced the torment that only a superstar can truly comprehend,” Russell wrote. “The reality for a superstar involves lonely nights, grim hotel rooms, and nightmares. Cousy himself shared a story about his nightmares and sleepwalking becoming so severe that he eventually had to tie himself to his bed. Cousy`s nightmares were so terrifying that he once sprang naked from his bed and ended up running into trees while fleeing his frightening dream—and this occurred during the offseason.”

On the court, everything revolved around Russell. Most NBA players caught in a defensive trap would yell, “Help.” Russell`s Celtics would shout, “RUSS!” Every offensive play began with a pass directed to Russ. However, outside the team, much of the recognition went to the charismatic and famous Cousy.

Reporters and fans attributed Celtics victories to Cousy. They praised Cousy`s genius, his talent, his leadership. For years, the press attempted to provoke him into making negative comments about Russell, but he consistently refused. To a significant portion of the public, a white star in Boston was seen as the central figure around whom the Black star revolved. Reporters wrote effusively about Cousy, crowding him in the locker room, which was hurtful to Russell.

He never forgot the college incident where, after leading his team to one of two national championships during a 55-game winning streak, a white player was named the Most Valuable Player in Northern California instead of him. Forty years later, simply mentioning the name Ken Sears could still irritate him. Consequently, he resented the way Cousy was lionized, even while acknowledging Cousy`s greatness as a player.

Russell wrote: “I would encounter situations like this: After blocking fourteen shots, scoring twenty-three points, and grabbing thirty-one rebounds against an opponent like Chamberlain, with the Celtics leading in the Eastern finals, I would leave the dressing room and someone would say: `Let me shake your hand. I`ve just shaken the hand of the greatest basketball player in the world, Bob Cousy. Now, I want to shake the hand of the second greatest.`” The season Russell played without Cousy, the Celtics` attendance decreased by 1,500 fans per game.

As teammates, the two men discussed basketball extensively but little else. Cousy would read the news and see all of Russell`s statements about racism in Boston and America, but he never brought it up with him. “He pursued his path, and I pursued mine,” Russell wrote.

Pomerantz suggested that Bob Cousy was simply too consumed with being Bob Cousy to engage with the burden of Russell`s experiences with American racism. If Russell did not know how to have a conversation beyond superficial topics with Cousy, Cousy similarly lacked the ability to connect on a deeper level. Both would later admit to feeling terribly lonely. They spent thousands of days side by side yet never truly understood each other.

Pomerantz drew a comparison between them and Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

“The issue was,” he observed, “they both genuinely wanted to be Ruth.”

The end of Cousy`s playing career arrived in 1963. The team hosted “Bob Cousy Day” on St. Patrick`s Day, or perhaps “St. Cousy Day” on “Bob Patrick Day”—one can imagine how this blend of traditions resonated in the Irish communities south of the Garden. Cousy arrived alone at the stadium that day, using a passageway from his hotel to the Garden. As the hotel door locked behind him, he discovered the arena door was also locked and knocked on it for a few minutes. A member of the cleaning staff inquired who was knocking so forcefully. “One of the players,” Cousy replied.

A stereo microphone was lowered from the rafters on a long black cord. A heavy wooden lectern, serving as a temporary pulpit, was set up. The Garden staff arranged chairs on the court for the Cousy family: one for his wife, Missie, and one each for his mother and father. His daughters stood alongside them, as did Bob. Owner Walter Brown presented him with a sterling silver tea set and a 1963 steel grey Cadillac. Red Auerbach read a letter from President John F. Kennedy, in which the president asserted that as long as basketball was played anywhere in the world, the rhythmic movement of the ball between teammates would stand as a tribute to Bob Cousy. Auerbach embraced him, and a fragile emotional barrier within Cousy broke. He began to sob, burying his head in Red`s shoulder. Walter Brown, the team`s founder and owner, spoke next.

He spoke about how the franchise was only five years old when Cousy joined. “Things were not always prosperous for the Celtics,” he recounted. “One year, circumstances were so difficult I couldn`t pay them their playoff money. Bob never complained.”

Brown emphasized that Cousy`s dedication was the reason the Boston Celtics team existed at all. He seemed to be urging the fans never to forget: there was no money, and he had already mortgaged his house and even sold some of his furniture. Cousy`s grace, and the grace of his teammates, ensured the team`s financial survival. This gifted all subsequent futures, from Russell to Bird to Tatum. Cousy spoke last, spreading his notes on the podium. His wife and two daughters joined him at center court. The girls held bouquets of flowers. Cousy fought back tears before he even began, looking up at the silently expectant crowd. He sniffled into the microphone.

“Mere words seem so insufficient to express what I feel,” he said, his voice breaking. He stopped and looked down. His daughter also wiped away tears. It felt like a Viking funeral. The crowd applauded as Cousy struggled with his emotions.

“I hope you will bear with me,” he said.

The mayor and the governor sent gifts. Cousy thanked all of them, and then expressed gratitude to his teammates` wives for their kindness to his family. His daughter handed him a tissue. He said he knew he would miss the brotherhood that dissolves the moment an athlete leaves a team. He broke down again. A heavy, emotional silence hung in the Garden.

“WE LOVE YOU, COOZ!” a fan shouted.

His younger daughter wiped her eyes. His mother, wearing a mink stole, also wiped her eyes. Bob`s voice cracked once more. He finally concluded his speech. He did not name his teammates specifically. He did not speak of Russell. He hugged his mother, then his wife, then his two daughters, and blew a kiss to the crowd. The organist played the familiar opening notes of “Auld Lang Syne,” and the Garden erupted. People stood through the haze of cigarette smoke, leaning over the loge decks. They cheered enthusiastically, the applause seeming to intensify. No one remained seated. They cheered for two minutes and six seconds.

The team gathered later at the Lenox Hotel on Boylston Street.

Russell stood to speak, loosening his tie.

“If Bob Cousy were this much less of a man,” he said, holding his enormous hands an inch apart, “I would have resented him.”

“I didn`t want to come tonight,” he admitted.

He paused, and everyone leaned in, knowing Bill Russell always spoke the truth.

“I am too mature to cry,” he stated.

Cousy was astonished.

“We regard each other as brothers,” Russell continued. “You encounter a person like Cousy not once a month, but once in a lifetime.”

He glanced at Cousy, feeling the weight of what their relationship might have been if they had been closer friends. Both men felt it. Their wives, Missie and Rose, cried together in each other`s arms.

Russell bowed his head and walked away.

Later, in private, he presented Cousy with a gift he had personally selected from a jewelry shop established in 1796, located directly across from Paul Revere`s silver store. It was a desk clock with bronze hour and minute hands, bearing an engraving on the back: “May The Next Seventy Be As Pleasant As The Last Seven. From The Russells To The Cousys.”

Bob and Missie placed the gift on a mahogany table in their dining room, where it remains today. He has sold most of his memorabilia: championship rings, an autographed picture from President Kennedy, and a basketball commemorating his 5,000th assist. Nearly everything.

“But not that clock,” Pomerantz noted.

“Four, three, two, one,” a coach counted during practice as Jayson Tatum worked against a double team at the end of a possession, quarter, or game. He missed the shot. The coach retrieved the ball, and the drill continued.

“Seven, six, five.”

Tatum was the last player remaining on the court at the Auerbach Center. He is pursuing greatness, a path that often leads to a challenging existence. Cousy suffered from nightmares. Russell stared at hotel walls until he felt he was losing his mind. Bird remains reclusive. Tatum was nearly alone in the Auerbach Center, moving from one side of the court to another, practicing jump shots, making and missing them, driving for layups.

“Twelve, 11, 10,” the coach counted.

Tatum dribbled near the elbow, moving fluidly, floating backward for a fadeaway jump shot that clanked off the back of the rim. The energy that converged in the Garden on Bob Cousy Night still existed as scattered elements, eager to coalesce once more. Each element carries a thread of ancestral information, waiting for the summoning sound of a horn. Bob and Russ. Heinsohn. Hondo. Satch Sanders. Sam and K.C. Jones. They paved the path that Jayson Tatum now traverses, moving along familiar stages. First, like Cousy and Russell, he has arrived at a moment of clarity, where he recognizes his significance to a place, a city, and its inhabitants. This is a beautiful stage in the journey of every great Celtic player, and he is currently there.

However, there is a second, more profound truth accessible to only a select few, it seems. Not so much external, but rather internal. The true culmination for any Celtics great is to attempt to understand what they meant to one another, and what they could have meant, to a teammate, to a rival. Traveling the path to greatness demands such intense self-absorption that the traveler might only realize too late that the entire purpose of the journey was the people with whom he shared the path. Fellow seekers, pilgrims, following the trail blazed by Cousy and Russ.

Tatum moved along the three-point line, shifted left at the top of the key, and missed the shot again. Driving down the right baseline, he executed a fadeaway shot that went in. He has won one championship and is contending for another. Living entirely in the present comes with a cost. One day, Bob Cousy and I were discussing championship rings and the experience of winning 11 titles in 13 years. Even now, he remains fixated on the ones that eluded them.

“It should have been 12,” he stated.

Bill Russell, he explained, injured his ankle in the 1958 Finals, and they lost the series without him. That occurred 67 years ago, yet it felt like yesterday. Jayson Tatum`s sneakers echoed in the gymnasium. He completed the drill and moved to the free-throw line. Jaylen Brown, the older generation of players say, is more inclined to study the past. He is the only current Celtic who has made an effort to get to know Satch Sanders. Tatum is preoccupied with establishing himself as Jayson Tatum.

Swish.

Swish.

Miss.

Russell 11. Sam Jones 10. Havlicek 8. Sanders 8. Cousy 6. Bird 3. Tatum 1.

Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish.

He composed himself. Received the ball. Dribbled, feeling the leather against his hand, then his fingertips. Bill Russell lived for 88 years. For 75 of those years, he was not a Boston Celtic. These careers are fleeting moments. Tatum exhaled.

Swish.

Russell played for six seasons after Cousy retired, and during that time, he thought extensively about tribes. He spoke about them constantly; that was his framework for understanding the world—small groups of people with their own customs, rules, and rituals. It was both his fundamental code and his perspective. Russell famously said he did not play for Boston, but for the Celtics. He viewed his team as a sacred assembly of individuals, a vehicle for exploration and a safe haven. They were not merely athletes entertaining; they were warrior kings. Yes, Russ was Black, Red was Jewish, Cousy was the son of immigrants, and Ramsey was from the South, but they all belonged to a tribe more powerful than the ones they were born into. In essence, they had been reborn. They were Celtics.

Bill`s father, Charles Russell, enjoyed sharing phrases and guiding principles. A tribe, he would say, should be proud but never arrogant, powerful but never destructive. “You must acknowledge and accept other tribes,” he told his son, “And never claim, `My tribe can achieve this, therefore they are superior to yours.`”

Russell struggled emotionally and psychologically during those first seasons without Cousy. Medgar Evers was assassinated. John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Russell spent a significant amount of time staring at walls, often, as he has stated multiple times, “on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

Russell described basketball as “the loneliest life in the world. A world of bright lights, intense emotions, and substantial wealth—and deep reservoirs of loneliness. So deep. Such an abyss. You plummet far into it and spend your entire life striving to climb back out.”

Boston never truly felt like home, but the Celtics did. The team earned him his place among the lineage of proud male ancestors in his family. His grandfather, Jake, had driven the Ku Klux Klan off his land, firing a shotgun as they fled. His other grandfather used his own funds to establish the first school for Black children in his area. When a gas station attendant once called his father a derogatory name and threatened him, Charles Russell pursued the man with a tire iron. As an old man, Bill Russell would recall that moment and swell with pride. His inheritance was a fierce rhetorical and spiritual resilience.

Russell drove south the year after Cousy retired, passing through the Jim Crow states with his children to visit family. His son, Jacob, named after his grandfather, repeatedly asked to stop for food. In the boy`s normal life, his father was one of the most famous men in the country. But in the South, he was simply a Black man. It was deeply painful for Russell to keep gripping the steering wheel as his son pleaded, “Daddy, can`t we stop? Daddy, I`m hungry.”

Season after season, he led his team to victory after victory, eventually taking over as head coach when Auerbach stepped down. Russell became the first Black head coach in any of the four major American sports leagues. The Celtics had drafted the first Black player in NBA history, hired the first Black coach, and were the first to start an all-Black lineup.

Russell read, studied, and championed the causes that mattered to him. Martin Luther King Jr. met with Russell as he prepared for his “I Have a Dream” speech. King invited him to sit on the stage for the speech itself, but Russell felt he did not belong there and watched from the crowd. He ran a basketball camp in Mississippi in memory of Medgar Evers after the civil rights advocate was murdered. He supported John Carlos, Tommie Smith, and Muhammad Ali. Playing in Boston, he later stated, was a traumatic experience. His house was vandalized numerous times. His future neighbors in the suburb of Reading openly opposed his moving in and circulated a petition. Rose Russell cried when she heard about it. “They don`t want us here,” she said.

Not long after he had won the third of his 11 championships, a man approached Russell while he was stopped at a traffic light, behind the wheel of his new Lincoln. “Hey, [racial slur],” the man shouted. “How many dice games did it take you to win that car?”

For 13 seasons, he felt confined and isolated.

“As we got to know each other better, I think the thing that I was most curious about was how he handled all of the pressure,” his widow Jeannine Russell shared. “He was carrying the weight of the whole city, his team, the black community, and his own expectations on his shoulders.”

Finally, after the 1969 season, following two consecutive titles, Russell retired. He drove alone in his Lamborghini to California, accelerating across the vast expanse of the American West, heading back towards home—his old home in Oakland and his new one on Mercer Island in Seattle.

Decades passed, and the Celtics legends began to pass away. Red Auerbach`s daughters, who lived on opposite sides of the country, divided the responsibility for attending the funerals: Randy would handle those on the West Coast, and Nancy those on the East Coast. Their father deeply cherished these men, who remained forever young in the memories he held. “The phone would ring, and he would just light up,” Randy Auerbach recalled.

Auerbach hosted weekly lunches at a Chinese restaurant in D.C. and played tennis frequently with Sam Jones, who lived nearby. But in 2006, his health began to decline rapidly. Russell flew to D.C. to say goodbye. Red was sitting in his favorite chair. They reminisced fondly about the past. “What happened to that sports car you had?” Auerbach inquired, still teasing Russell about his Lamborghini. “We are driving a nice, slow minivan,” Russell replied. “It`s come to that?” Auerbach said with a laugh. Not long after, Red Auerbach passed away. His daughters personally contacted only two former Celtics players to deliver the news: Bill Russell and Bob Cousy.