 Welcome to the complete collection of Bill Russell's greatest stories told by NBA players and legends. This week Bill Russell passed away at the age of 88, and with many of us unable to watch him during his NBA playing days, this video serves to showcase Bill Russell's greatest stories on the court, but also as a civil rights activist off the court. I won't keep you waiting with this one, if you enjoyed this video though I'd really appreciate it if you could leave a like, subscribe if you are new for NBA content and without further ado, welcome to the complete collection of Bill Russell's greatest stories. I'm here tonight to recognize and salute the legacy, the heroism and the courage of Bill Russell. But before we talk about that, we have to recognize something else, that Bill Russell is the greatest winner that sports has ever known. Bill the competitor will live on forever, and the things that he did on the court enabled his team to win 11 world championships. He'd come past my house on Thanksgiving, eat the food, sleep in my bed, and go out there and whip my butt. And my mother would say, well, we shouldn't feed Bill so well the next time. You know, whatever, I'm like, yeah, well, I'm gonna do something about that. Look at what his peers thought of him, and how they sort of genuflected before him. I'm talking about Jerry West. The greatest winner that ever played in basketball, Bill Russell. And Elgin Baylor. Bill Russell won 11, I think a 13 year championship every year, and the year he didn't win a championship, he was hurt. Julius Irving. He talked to me about his life and his feelings about things, and became very much a father figure at that moment for me and probably one of the most special people in my life. And the list goes, Kareem. That extraordinary contribution to the sport is one thing, and then his extraordinary contribution as an activist is something else. You know, and then on through the years, you know, Michael. Bill Russell won 11. And magic. Everybody knows without your rebound, there's no fast break. And Charles Barkley. What he's done for civil rights in his country is unmatched. Thank you. It's everything you've done for me and my family. Bill Russell, the man is someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men. He marched with King. He stood by Ali. When a restaurant refused to serve the Black Celtics, he refused to play in the scheduled game. 55 consecutive wins in college, back-to-back NCAA championships, 11 NBA championships and 13 seasons played. An Olympic gold medal in the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Speaking of legendary Celtics, Bill Russell. What he's done for civil rights in his country is unmatched. Him and Ali will always be, to me, my heroes as far as that goes. It's easy to be a social justice guy now when you've got $100 million, you're making $30, $40 million a year. But those guys did all the heavy lifting back in the day. For me, you know, obviously, you know, he drafted me into the NBA. And being drafted by him was a biggest honor. Honestly, he's the advocate basketball player. So he always would have an opportunity to teach you about life. He was my first coach. You got him fired. No, I didn't. Reggie Thiers got him fired. I had to sit next to him. He had a role. I had to sit next to him on every plane ride and every bus ride. And every pregame meal. So I have a million Bill Russell stories because of that. So I sat next to him and heard every single Boston Celtic story. So what they thought was going to be rookie Hazen actually turned out to be the best moments of my life. Would you tell a story about when he was telling about guys sitting on the bus? And so I heard every story you could imagine. Well, we had a terrible team, Shaq. So Bill Russell just came in the bus and he said, Kenny, I tried to move. He said, no, Kenny, you got to sit next to me. I said, coach, I can't move back there once. He said, no, because, see, he's a loser, he's a loser, and he'll never win. You want to be a champion one day? Sit next to me. I'm the only one out there who knows how to win. My favorite Bill Russell story was when he got stopped by the cops one time. And the cops started giving him a lecture, he said, hey, hey, hey, give me a ticket or a lecture. Can't give me both. Hey, give me both. I was sitting there in the rookie of the car going. I'm going to jail. I'm going to jail. I think that you're going to win at least two or three championships here, OK? And if you don't, but I see you play the way you should play. I'll share one of mine with you. This is a genuine friendship thing I'm talking about. But if you play the way you play and you dedicate yourself to doing it, they will come. You have no idea how proud I am of you. I couldn't be any more proud of you than I am of my own. Kendrick Perkins joining us now as well. A little 2008 Celtics reunion in the house, nodding and smiling. Well, first of all, Malika, hey, look, don't have me crying on TV. I remember Bill Russell, you know, to have KG attention the way he just did, KG was actually listening. KG was actually embracing the moment and hearing them out. KG actually almost got emotional as Bill Russell was talking to him. And you don't get that from Kevin Garnett a lot. Like Kevin Garnett, you don't get his undivided attention. Not Doc has, but I will say this. When you think about the great Bill Russell, I remember Doc used to always say, I rather perk you take charges than the block shots because all you're doing is blocking shots and they're going out of bounds. The great thing about Bill Russell is when he defended and he blocked shots, he kept them in play. It started fast breaks. It actually started to where he kept, they got the position back. And when you talk about winning at the highest level, he is one of the most unselfish greats to ever play the game in my eyes. The true definition of what Doc used to always preach, losing yourself in the team. Michael, we can spend time discussing Bill Russell's basketball legacy in a moment, but I'd rather ask you, what is Bill Russell's impact on American society? Wow. That's a great place to start. Every generation has a responsibility to teach the next. One thing I learned about Bill was how he drew inspiration from his grandfather, whose model was, a man has to draw a line within himself that he will not allow any man to cross. Bill learned from that and added his own model. You disrespect the line, you disrespect me. More than 50 years later, Bill and his grandfather's models still resonate powerfully and still speak loudly for Bill's beliefs. Bill's dissatisfaction with the injustices of the world never changed. His hope for a better tomorrow, Bill has led the way that inspires all of us, the next generation, to follow his lead. I was a huge fan of NBA history and I read all about that whole era and Bill Russell and the all-star game where the players decided to strike in two hours before the game for better rights. It wasn't just about civil rights, it was about union rights and player rights, but it all sort of blended together. I'd like to use the word and think of the thought of activism even more than pioneering and he was both. We talk about civil rights and activism and pioneering and Bill Russell endured. He endured a lot. At the time he was dealing with a lot of racial issues in Boston and stories, people were throwing things at him during the game and yelling the craziest things from the court. I said, well, how did you deal with it? He said, well, I internalized it and I felt like the best thing that I could do is use that as fuel as opposed to just simply having an emotional outburst to them. I decided to use that as energy to enhance my performance, right? So even though it seems as if he's not, he's tuning out the noise, he isn't. In today's game, if some of the things that were being said that he was telling me, I mean there would be riots, there would be fights, but some of the intolerance that they had to put up with, some of the comments that was made towards them, that was a predominantly white audience, white fan base, and to break through and basically have to turn the other cheek because they had to sacrifice so we could sit on this couch, make millions of dollars, talk about basketball, have a great life. We can't forget the people that laid the ground for us because a lot of those players didn't have a voice. And a lot of times I feel that we're speaking for a lot of those players in the 40s, 50s and 60s and that's what I'm so appreciative of and every time I see them, I let them know that, that thank you, thank you for everything you've done for me and my family. I would say the most important and impactful or one of the most important impactful athletes that ever lived. He's certainly the most impactful basketball player and I don't say that because he won at every level, which he did. I don't say that because he won 11 championships in 13 seasons, which will never, ever, ever be duplicated. I say it because in the face of all that was so much to lose, John. Bill Russell may have been in the toughest position of all because he was working and living and trying to play for a team in Boston. A place that was certainly not friendly, not hospitable, usually, to African American men. The Boston Celtics was the first NBA team to start five black players. Now they were rewarded for being so progressive. With titles. Yes. But the city did not appreciate it. That means that there was really no connection for me between the fans in Boston and the Boston Celtics. This man was a fearless civil rights activist at a time when our country was really very racially divided, particularly by the way in the city he was playing in. Playing a game in 1961 and getting the key to the city and then they go back to the hotel and they're not able to stay there with the other white players and Bill Russell goes and wakes up the mayor in the middle of the night at two or three in the morning and gives him back the key to the city. We have to realize that everyone that hates another person, another race is not the same and I think Red Arbuck did a great job of showing Bill Russell that. You know Bill Russell has always been my favorite pioneer. He told me a story one time after the game they all went to a hotel and of course they wouldn't let the black players there and Red Arbuck had enough and he took the whole team and he moved to a different hotel. So you know I just think that people like Red Arbuck showed us that everybody is not the same. We know about 1961 when the Celtics were playing an exhibition game in Kentucky. And I went to a restaurant down the street and the preparer asked me where I wanted. I said this is a restaurant, isn't it? I'd like to get something to eat. He told me no. We played a game and we were booked to play a game in Lexington, Kentucky. Casey went down to the restaurant in the hotel we were staying and they would not serve it. I decided and the other guys decided to go with me not to play. So I told Red we were leaving. I said because it's important to me that everybody everywhere knows that the black players decided they have to stand up for themselves. And that was it? Yeah. And two of his black teammates were refused service in the coffee shop of the hotel and Bill Russell went up to Red Arbuck's room and knocked on the door and said Red we're going home. And they didn't play in that exhibition game. And if you can imagine this John there were actually people that wrote. Although one of the newspapers in St. Louis wrote that the black players embarrassed the Celtics and they should be suspended and fined. You know we talked about pioneers and we talked about Bill Russell who was my first coach who drafted me in the NBA and I'll never forget the story because he was an eye opener in terms of cultural experience for me. We were talking and debating about European plans and flux into the NBA. I was watching him you know looking at a script figuring out what was going on. I'm like what's that he's like oh some foreign players I'm looking at. I said coach did you tell me there's not a great basketball player in Alabama that you got to go all the way to Europe to get this guy. And all of these guys coming in and then I was saying well you know how they're taking jobs they're not really that good. They're not true big men. All of those things that we were talking about. He stopped me and he said Kenny. He stopped me he said grab me and he said never say that. Coach what are you talking about? He said as a black man you could never talk about not inclusion. And I was like whoa he took a small basketball moment as a jest and taught me a life moment about inclusion and about life. So in there learning like everyone talked about these basketball lessons you learn life lessons from guys like that that went through things that you would never think you'd ever go through. And when you talk to those older black guys who did all the heavy lifting of us they always talked about the only time they felt comfortable when they were around their teammates because they couldn't eat together. They stayed at different hotels but one thing about sports I've never been on a team that had any racial issue because like you love your teammates. You're like I never said old dude's white, old dude's Jewish, dude's Hispanic. Like when you play sports you're like... Can he play? Can he play? Sports really has changed to me society because it's been an example of hey those two guys can hang along. I really think young kids take from those lessons. I really do. Elgin Baylor here on The Rich Eyes & Show. The best player you've ever played against? Against? Well you know it depends on what you're looking for in the player. If I had to pick one player to start a franchise you take a guess who you think I would take? Of all time in the history of the game? Of all the players in the history of the game. Wilt? No. Russell. You're right. Bill Russell. Bill Russell won 11, I think a 13 year championship every year and the year he didn't win a championship he was hurt. I mean the guy was just incredible. And think about it see people look at the score, look at statistics. The guy is incredible. I mean the way you know the way he played you know and people were just shocked they said Russell and they're just looking at his stats and see the guy there with 12, 13 points again. Sure. But looking at intangible things hey he's going to save you 30, 40 points. Well I think the most underrated part of Bill Russell that people don't talk about enough that he was a gigantic mentor to four or five generations of NBA superstars. Obi Bryant spent hours on the phone talking with Bill Russell. When I was still playing and searching for ways to get better I decided to give Bill a call. What I've learned since is even more than I imagined possible. I learned how Bill was so masterful at winning. You cold called him. I did. Why? Well I wanted to learn. I think the most important thing that we can do when you want to learn is actually pick up the phone and ask and so I picked up the phone and I reached out to Bill Russell that began a great relationship of mentorship and he had a lot of great stories to share with me. When Bill Russell was a player the great Will Chamberlain you know could score a million points that Bill Russell admitted to Kobe that often when the game was in hand he would allow Will to score. My game plan was to get him in a rhythm that he's comfortable with. Now that may require he gets 45 points but if we play it right he gets 45 we win the game. So Will would feel better about the matchup they had just had and walk away thinking well I did my part. I mean amazing things. I can't tell you the amount of NBA superstars that have shared the impact that Bill Russell has had on their life. People know Bill for his cutthroat nature and he definitely has a cutthroat nature but what they don't know is that Bill won by relying on his team to do what they do best. For example, he said when I played I could handle the ball. He knew he could handle the ball with the best of him but he knew that Cousy was the best of him at handling the ball. I could score the ball and I could pass the ball but it was really important in order for us to win I had to look at my teammates and say okay there's other players here that do that better and what I do best is defend and rebound so I'm going to completely focus on that. That is the definition of true leadership. Vision, trust and sacrifice. That's what lies at the heart of a champion and a small sliver of what's inside the mind of this basketball genius. When I watched you guys play it was always built up like you guys were such bitter rivals not only on the court but off the court too but then I read somewhere that every time you played against each other you would pick one another up from the airport. You know, you would have thought if you saw the two of them before a game that he was talking to his loving brother. When I was a rookie, Welp was a freshman at Kansas. We played a Sunday game in St. Louis and he drove to St. Louis from Kansas and looked me up and we spent the day together on Saturday. And you'd never met him before that? No. And nobody knew that we knew each other. I cannot begin to describe to you as an opponent how good he was. But I had to show up. The other guy that you're most associated with and always have been something you almost don't even want to talk about anymore but I'm going to bring it up anyway is Bill Russell. People also theorize that the reason there has been a kind of thin feud between the two of you, if at all is because that Russell was always considered the more sensitive ball player, the more intelligent ball player, the more team-oriented ball player and ultimately, of course, the more successful ball player. The media portrayed the duel of the two giants as a struggle between good versus evil. Russell, the selfless team player against Chamberlain, the greedy individual star. The rest made those guys out to be bad guys in terms of hating each other but I think those guys liked each other and I think they liked to play against each other not because of Conrad or because of the experience of both of them. Chamberlain reveled in the spotlight unlike Russell who chose to maintain his privacy. You become the ultimate winner and the ultimate teammate and willed as this guy who had all these records but we all know winning is the only thing that matters. Did you feel like he was starting to resent you at all? No, I don't think so. I don't think so at all. I don't think either one of us ever resented the other guy. And they always chose to believe that you cannot be as good as we both were, apparently, doing our thing and really like you. I had to be envious of him. The only thing I was envious of him was the fact was that people would from time to time call me a loser. You always need the best to bring the best out in you so I was always fortunate to have to know that I was going to play against William Felt and Russell. Winning is only important if you beat the best. My friend Wilt, Norman Chamberlain was far away the best player I've ever played against. Wilt Chamberlain was indeed the most dominant player ever but I was taught from guys like Isaiah and guys like Mike that it's all about the championships. So Bill Russell has 11 championships that will never ever be matched again. I think the closest to that is Mike with six so I probably have to go with Bill Russell on that. Interesting, the 60s, the Celtics was really one of the first teams to integrate. So everyone in my family and around the community, we were Celtics fans because they had all the brothers. And you know, my father and my mother was like, hey you got a rupee of Celtics because, you know, they're breaking down racial barriers and everything else and even though we were in Chicago, the Celtics were the team they told us to root for and so when we went outside and played basketball and you ran a fast break, they would call it a Boston. How about this one? 1987 Eastern Conference Finals, John, Isaiah Thomas is about to beat the Boston Celtics defending champs on their own floor. Instead, throws the ball away. We also remember that, Bird stole the ball. When I threw the ball away in game five, 1987, we're playing the Celtics, got a chance to beat them. The next day, he's sitting at home in his house. He doesn't want to talk to anybody. You know, the worst times of my career, I go back home and I don't even want to get out of bed. People are calling. And the phones ringing, people are trying to call me. I'm not even thinking about going to practice. And his wife said, you got to take this call and Isaiah said, no, I don't want to talk to anybody. She said, no, no, you got to take this call. She goes, no, I think you should take this call. I go, no, really. And she looked at me as only she could. And she said, no, I think you should take this call. And I got on the phone and it was Bill Russell. It was Bill Russell saying, young man, get back on the horse and start riding again. Get back out there. It's a tough loss, but keep going. And prove to everybody who you are. And, you know, he said, I see you back here game seven. That was it. And here's Bill Russell. It was a legend for the Celtics. And that's, that's how he and I became friends. And over the years, we've always stayed in touch. He's always been a mentor, always given great advice. And, you know, we just had a day for the NBA. Now that he's gone, but he touched so many people and he touched so many of us doing his time here. You know, when you sit here and you say, well, you know, in 1995, they voted me as like the best or the most popular athlete, you know, was ironic that I'm the youngest of the three. So in essence, it's all related on who is watching now. If you ask 20 years from now, I'm pretty sure LeBron may beat me. There was a debate and Michael Jordan answered because I think LeBron is the best player now, but five is more than one the last time I look. So I'd have to take Kobe. Kobe or LeBron? In terms of dominance of the game of basketball at this stage, it is LeBron. Championship-wise, Kobe-Bron. Between the two, that'd be a tough choice to me, but five beats one. Where does championships rank as far as how good a player is or their accomplishments? Well, you know, I've tried to stay away from that. And the reason is I've never asked a player to play against a ghost. Past, present, and future. We could only play against the guy that showed up while we were playing. I won six championships. Bill Russell won 11. Does that make Bill Russell better than me and make me better than him? No, because we play at different eras. So when you try to equate who's the greatest in all time, it's an unfair parallel. It's an unfair choice. I would never say one is greater than the other. That's me, and that's my opinion. You, Michael Jordan, and Will, do you have to pick one person? Who do you pick? Well, uh... You pick Bill Russell. That's right. That's right. For the reason, he would never distort you deep, and I play games in my peak. Where? I get six shots. I get closed out in the whole front court. The way I play, my team wins. Oh, I love it! I was distorting the offense! That was the most profound statement I've probably heard in a long time. I will agree, because, Ernie, if you know about basketball, there are some guys who distort your offense or they distort your defense. That was one of the smartest teams I've ever heard a basketball player say. I mean, that was awesome. What was it like playing the Boston Celtics in the 60s and early 70s? Well, Michael, you know, you played them a lot of times, and there weren't that many teams in the league, and they were battles. I mean, I respected them. What made them so good? Well, you know, the greatest winner that ever played professional basketball was Bill Russell, 11 world championships, and they made a trade that was, you know, they traded two white guys for a black guy then, which was in Boston, which was a city that wasn't, it was filled with racial tension, and pretty soon, his dominance as a defensive player, and they were just, they could win any game, an offensive game, a defensive game, a physical game, but they played a really fast-paced game, and of course, unless you were really knew how to play against Bill Russell, he was a menace out there, and it took me two years to figure out, you always had to see him before you drove. You could not, if you didn't see him, you better look to pass the ball. And so that took away a lot of layups, a lot of really close attempts to the basket, and he always seemed to, he was an amazing shot blocker. Michael, he was like the plastic man. He could drive pictures of him in the air, his body is like flat, and he reaches over, and your enormous runner really fast, wasn't a great shooter, but he could do everything that a team needed to make up for the mistakes that these other players made, particularly defensively, and his rebounding ability allowed them to run up and down the court, and that's why they scored a lot of points. By 1969, Russell had secretly decided he was done. This would be his final season. I knew before the season started it was going to be my last year, but I didn't tell anyone. Because throughout my career, I was always very careful not to say things that would change my teammates' For the sixth time that decade, Boston faced the Lakers in the finals. This time, the creaky Celtics were heavy underdogs. The Lakers didn't just have Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, now they had Will Chamberlain too. Fittingly, it came down to a Game 7. The Lakers had home court advantage, the Celtics had Russell, somebody who had never lost a Game 7. But Game 7 at home gave the Lakers owner Jack Kent Cook to celebrate, albeit a little too early. I want to set the game up for you so maybe you understand my attitude. I knew what he was going to say. Even though Russell owned them all decade, the Lakers were so confident before that Game 7, they stuck 10,000 balloons in the rafters to be dropped right after they won. I saw the owner of the Lakers coming down to stay us early before anybody had come into the gym along with the commissioner. He gave me a voice that said, Sam, I want to give you one of these sheets. It says, when the Lakers win the championship, the USC band would play happy days here again. And they had these seats behind the baskets where the USC band would sit. And the balloons would come out of the rafters and there must have been thousands of balloons. I had never seen, I didn't look up. Before the game, Russell found a copy of those celebration plans. So I took this sheet back to Bill Russell. I said, Russell, I'd like for you to see this sheet. And I want you to read it. The first reaction was to laugh, you know. I said, look at this. And guys, this is what I know. There's not a remote possibility or chance for the Lakers to win this game. I said, if this team played the best game, any team in history's franchise play, they would still lose. I said, it's impossible for them to win tonight. But then he says, we're going to change our game plan. We're going to run, run, run. We're going to run them into the floor. The key is defense rebound and outlet passing. I am the best that ever did that. We're going to run them out of the gym. Russell shoved it through. We're 17 points ahead going into the last quarter. Within about the last 30 minutes, they started making a comeback that you could not believe. They were scoring on every position we were missing. The Celtics miraculously celebrated one last title. And no, they never dropped those balloons. At the end of that game, you got interviewed by Jack Twine, and you literally couldn't speak. I'm here with Bill Russell. Bill, this must have been a great win for you. Exactly. I'm going to say what's in your mind right now, Bill. It must have been a great win. This is such a great bunch of guys, you know, and it's just been so fabulous the way they played for me. It sounds all funny, you know, talking like that. I told these guys before the game, I don't care what happens. I would trade you guys for the guys in the world. And I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you did, please help me out by leaving a like, subscribe if you are new, and hit that notification to date with all the new episodes. Here are two new episodes that you may enjoy and I'll see you next time.