There have been a lot of great coaches in basketball. In high school, we saw Bob Hurley Sr. of St. Anthony’s and Morgan Wootten of DeMatha.
In college, we’ve seen Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, and John Wooden.
And in the pros, we’ve seen Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, and perhaps most of all, Red Auerbach.
What he built in Boston is still astonishing. The Celtics were good, and when he saw that he had a chance to get the final piece, Bill Russell, he swung a trade that made it happen.
Russell won the last game of every season he played in the NBA except for two: 1958, when he was injured, and 1967, when the Philadelphia 76ers had a truly great team.
After Russell retired, Auerbach rebuilt around an undersized Dave Cowens and John Havlicek, and then again around Larry Bird.
But it wasn’t just about talent. It was about how he dealt with people. Auerbach had many talents, and was an intense competitor, but his greatest talent may have been his insights into people. He knew how to deal with Russell, which wasn’t easy. He knew just how far he could push Bob Cousy.
He knew how to deal with every player on his team as a coach or under his supervision as GM or team president.
This video gets into a lot of what made Auerbach one of, at a minimum, the two or three best coaches in the history of basketball. He was unbelievably good at what he did.
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