Projo: Will Celtic Players Actually Listen To Russell?

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

        10.13.99 00:04:05
        CELTICS
        When Bill Russell talks, will Celtics be
        willing to listen?

By MIKE SZOSTAK
Providence Journal Sports Writer

WALTHAM, Mass. -- To a man, they recognize the
magnitude of his accomplishments.

Back-to-back NCAA championships. An Olympic gold medal.
Eight consecutive NBA titles, 11 rings in his 13-year
career. Five NBA MVP awards. Hall of Famer.

The new millennium Boston Celtics, only two of whom had
arrived on this planet when he played his last game,
say they will listen to the old man with the
high-pitched cackle.

But will the cell-phone Celtics really listen to what
Bill Russell says about teamwork and tradition,
sacrifice and winning? We shall begin to find out
tonight, when the Celtics open their eight-game
preseason schedule against the Charlotte Hornets in the
FleetCenter.

At the behest of president-coach-spinmeister Rick
Pitino, Russell has agreed to help the Celtics, from
Pitino to free-agent rookie guard Wayne Turner. Russell
is in town this week to observe and to opine.

``We're ecstatic to have Bill in to work with our team,
to work with me, to work with the staff on the insight
to what these banners are all about,'' Pitino said,
glancing at the championship cloth salvaged from Boston
Garden and now adorning the walls of the team's
Healthpoint practice facility.

``He is Celtic Pride. He started Celtic Pride along
with Red Auerbach. And this tradition is what Bill is
all about. We hope that some of his insights rub off on
the players as well as the coaches,'' Pitino said.

Several minutes later, perhaps buoyed by bullish
Russell comments like, ``This is potentially a really
outstanding team,'' Pitino said that if he can get his
players to believe half of what Russell says, ``we'll
be a playoff team.''

Perfect sound bites for the news at 6 and 11 in a week
when the Red Sox will complete their remarkable
comeback against the Indians and move on to New York
and the Yankees.

Blown away by Russell's locker room comments to the
Celtics last season when he was in town to hype his May
26 tribute, and no doubt impressed by the outpouring of
affection on that memorable evening itself, Pitino
wanted Russell to rekindle his relationship with the
team he defined from 1956 to 1969. Russell will visit
periodically, spending a week at a time in Boston to
work with Pitino, the Celtics centers and forwards and
the club's marketing types.

``The reason I'm here is to be as much help as I can to
Rick,'' Russell said. ``I think he's a great coach and
the perfect coach of this team. And I am a Celtic and
will be a Celtic from here to eternity. And my team
might need some help, and if I can do it I'll do it
because that Celtic Pride is not just a clich to me.
It's something.''

Russell will have to bridge the generation gap to reach
Pitino's Celtics. He is 65. He last walked off the
court on May 5, 1969, when Dana Barros and Pervis
Ellison were 2 years old. His head and goatee are
sprinkled with gray now. Wearing gray Celtic sweats,
black sneakers and a black cap, he looked like he had
just taken a walk through this corporate park
neighborhood with grumpy old men Walter Matthau and
Jack Lemmon. He did not look like the protagonist in
those epic battles with every New Englander's
antagonist in the 1960s, Wilt Chamberlain, who died
yesterday at age 63.

Wilt? Do the Celtics even know of Wilt, and Willis Reed
and Wes Unseld and Nate Thurmond and Dolph Schayes and
Bob Petit, Hall of Famers all who battled Russell in
the pivot and lost? Doubtful, unless they've popped a
CD-ROM of the NBA's greatest hits into their laptops.

So when Russell recalls how he attacked Wilt's
horizontal game, even at the cost of 40 or 50 points by
Chamberlain, the vertical force, will Vitaly Potapenko
relate? When Russell tells the Celtics that on occasion
he rested on offense but never on defense, will Antoine
Walker relate? When he tells them that only winning
counts, will Kenny Anderson relate? And when he and
Pitino have to explain what a guy-wire was (as in the
one Russell hit with his inbounds pass against Philly
in the 1965 playoffs, setting up John Havlicek's famous
steal), will any Celtic relate? I am not optimistic.

Walker, the Celtics man-child captain, said all the
right things Monday. `` . . . just having that winning
attitude, sharing stories, always positive . . . If he
can make a point here and there, that's gonna help the
team . . . We love his input. We need it. Everyone's
trying to listen to what he has to say. Everyone's
attentive.''

But as Walker uttered those words, his eyes seemed to
glass over, as if he were on robo-speak.

Russell's initial challenge with these Celtics, half of
whom have never experienced the NBA playoffs, is to be
relevant. He must frame his references in terms of Tim
Duncan, not Wilt Chamberlain. As for winning tradition,
he might mention the Chicago Bulls first. They last won
in 1998. The Celtics last won in 1986. Russell last won
in 1969.

Welcoming Russell back can't hurt. Although he was
marginally successful (162-166) as coach in Seattle
(where he still resides) from 1974 through 1977 and an
abysmal failure (17-41) before being dismissed in
Sacramento in 1988, Russell, like Ted Williams, is
secure in Boston's pantheon of sports gods. He should
generate goodwill, if nothing else.

Indeed, Russell's new role with the Celtics is much
like Williams's role with the Red Sox when, long after
he retired, he visited spring training and dispensed
advice on hitting. Except Russell will dispense advice
on winning, a goal more elusive than hitting a slider
at the knees. And Russell can't be sure his audience is
listening. Really listening.

              

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