Boston Celtics' player Bill Russell hooks a shot during the NBA championship's final game in 1960 against the Saint Louis Hawks.Former Boston Celtics star Bill Russell, one of the sports world’s greatest winners as the anchor of a team that won 11 NBA championships, as well as the league’s first black coach, died on Sunday at the age of 88.
“Bill stood for something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect and inclusion that he stamped into the DNA of our league,” said NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Russell became a superstar in the 1950s and '60s not with flashy scoring plays but through dominating rebounding and intense defensive play that reshaped the game. He also had what team-mate Tom Heinsohn called “a neurotic need to win”.
The Russell-era Celtics teams were rich in talent. Heinsohn, Bob Cousy, Frank Ramsey, Bill Sharman, Tom “Satch” Sanders, John Havlicek, Don Nelson, Sam Jones and KC Jones, his old college team-mate, would all join him in the NBA Hall of Fame, as would their coach, Red Auerbach.
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