Red

Without Arnold "Red" Auerbach, the Boston Celtics may have folded as many of the other original NBA franchises did. Certainly, team owner Walter Brown had lost money and borrowed significant sums to keep the club alive, but in the first four years of the franchise, the Celtics never won and elicited very little enthusiasm in the local sports populace.

In contrast, Auerbach had coached successfully with the Washington Capitols for three years, starting in 1946–1947, compiling winning records each year. But philosophical and perhaps personal issues developed between him and the team owner, so Red resigned and accepted an offer by Ben Kerner to coach the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. If Red had issues before, they increased exponentially in his experiences with Kerner, a man he despised. Even though the Blackhawks achieved a mediocre 28–29 record, Kerner interfered one time (literally once) too many with player personnel decisions for Red's tastes, so he resigned after one year.

An inauspicious history with two previous professional club owners behind him, Auerbach accepted the offer of a now desperate Walter Brown to coach Boston. The two bonded, as Brown only concerned himself with performance and results, allowing Red to direct his faculties toward winning. The two got along fine. Soon Red rooted into team culture the need for each player to appreciate his role and to subordinate personal honors to team titles. An aficionado of fast-paced action, Red instituted the fast break into the Celtics' offense, as guards whisked downcourt to score before the opposition set up defensively.

Red Auerbach did not live in Boston, not full-time, anyway. He always considered the Washington, D.C., area his primary residence and spent his off-season time there with his wife and two daughters. He visited Washington as schedules and time permitted during the season and returned to his family once the playoffs ended, but he ensconced himself in Boston the remainder of the year.

He maintained an apartment in the Hotel Lenox in Boston's Back Bay for several years and probably enjoyed the relative anonymity of this lifestyle, as most of his neighbors were visitors from out of town or from outside of Massachusetts, and probably had no inkling of the identity of the balding chap clutching cartons of Chinese food in the elevator up to his room.

With NBA franchises crashing all over the place, Auerbach persevered, picking up center "Easy" Ed Macauley and, whether he wanted to or not, a flashy dribbler named Bob Cousy. Adding a sharpshooter named Bill Sharman, he molded his men into a playoff team, but they never won the last game of the Finals. He needed a big man, and through considerable finagling, he landed Bill Russell on his team, thus creating the most dominant club in league history.

Detractors assert that Auerbach did not know how to coach until Bill Russell joined the team, and anyone could have won from that point forward. Disliking the man is one thing, failing to understand him is quite another. For instance, the Red Sox's general manager starting in the mid-1960s, Dick O'Connell, considered hiring Auerbach as the major league team's manager, due to Red's unique ability to maximize the potential of each player he coached. A star player under Auerbach backed up this analysis, confirming that Red knew how to form a team around the right blend of players and then get each player to excel. He could press the right buttons as easily as lighting a cigar, even if he stayed with the Celtics and did not take the helm of the Red Sox.

He made friends and enemies all over the place, lacing into officials and alienating opposing coaches and players. Lakers coach Fred Schaus once said, "I respect Auerbach as a coach. But I don't like him. I just plain don't like him. And he knows it." Often, even some Celtics did not get along with him, as he bargained very hard at times with stars and subs alike for their contracts. The smart ones circumvented Red and negotiated directly with team owner Walter Brown, until Brown died in 1964. Thereafter, serving most years as general manager, he drove some very good players out of town over relative chump change, often letting the valuable player walk or endure a trade out of town. On occasion, he replaced the departing player with a chump.

He coached the team through the end of the 1966 season, retiring a champion,...