Monroe: Winning Standard Belongs To Russell

**duncan228** · 02-15-2009

Winning standard belongs to Russell
Mike Monroe

PHOENIX — This is going to be tough for Tim Duncan to take: Bill Russell doesn't think there are any really good defensive players in today's NBA.

Russell was on hand Saturday for an announcement that effectively honors him as the greatest winner in league history. Henceforth, the Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals will be presented the Bill Russell Trophy.

Asked afterwards what he thinks of today's players, the great defensive center said there is much to like.

“I think they are incredible players,” he said. “Unfortunately, for me, none of them are really good at defense, and that was always my approach: Defense first, and then offense.”

He makes an allowance for the reigning champion Celtics.

“I told Kevin (Garnett) and the guys, especially Paul (Pierce), that they were playing like Celtics.”

That, of course, means they win with defense.

Russell, who has 11 championship rings, never won the Finals MVP award. Of course, the league didn't get around to awarding a Finals MVP Award until 1969, Russell's final season as a player for the Celtics. He also was head coach that season, and the Celtics defeated their archrivals, the Lakers, in a memorable series.

Lakers guard Jerry West was named MVP of that series, the only player on a losing team so honored.

Russell, who turned 75 on Thursday, swears he doesn't care about any of it. The only thing that ever mattered to him was winning championships.

The secret of the NBA's all-time winning dynasty, he said, was a true team approach.

“We were unique,” Russell said. “For example, all our players, all five players, had an assignment on every play. Whether they were the shooter, or far away from the shooter, so that every goal scored was a team effort.”

It didn't hurt that he played with teammates like Sam Jones, K.C. Jones, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Tommy Heinsohn and Don Nelson.

Russell was one of the NBA's true pioneers. He played in Boston in the 1950s and 1960s, acknowledging that it was not easy to be an African-American in a city that was occasionally racially explosive.

He said he managed to have “the time of my life” in the Hub City by managing adverse situations with planning, discretion and intelligence.

He told a story about buying a house in Reading, Mass., in his second season with the Celtics. Each time the team went on the road, he would return to find his garbage cans overturned.

“Being the citizen I am,” he said, “I wandered down to the police station and talked to the captain of police.”

Russell suggested to the captain that he could call the station from the road, and perhaps the captain could arrange to have his officers patrol his area a little more diligently than it seemed like they were.

The captain told him the problem “probably was raccoons.”

Russell then inquired about getting a gun permit.

“The raccoons heard about that,” he said, breaking into his signature cackle-laugh. “They never turned the trash cans over again.”

Sometimes, it seems, the best defense is a great, intelligent bit of offense.

**duncan228** · 02-15-2009

**Summers** · 02-15-2009

Those are great pics. I caught the short interview Cheryl Miller did with him. He said Stern called his wife about a month ago before she died to tell her about renaming the trophy but asked her not to tell him. He said as she was going he kept asking her if there was anything she needed to tell him and she just said Nope!

**raspsa** · 02-15-2009

Its time the league recognized Russell as the ultimate winner.. I read somewhere that the city of Boston is only now considering putting up a statue or some sort of monument in his honor.. my favorite player of all time, Duncan is second.