Bill Russell, Who Transformed Pro Basketball, Dies at 88 ~ NYT

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.

Bill Russell with his coach, Red Auerbach, in December 1964 after scoring his 10,000th career point in a game in Boston Garden. In a 1980 poll of basketball writers, he was voted the greatest player in N.B.A. history.

Credit…Associated Press

By Richard Goldstein

July 31, 2022Updated 4:35 p.m. ET

Bill Russell, whose defensive athleticism at center changed the face of pro basketball and propelled the Boston 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.”

He 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.

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