Authors: Bill Bradley
Russell uncovered another dimension to the game beyond the pure physical skills of shot blocking and defense. He plumbed the depths of an opponent’s personality, looking for the weak spot. He delighted in the mental aspect of basketball. Once he encountered a young opponent in a restaurant the night before they were supposed to play. The young player smiled and nodded; Russell ignored him. The next night the opponent played poorly, out of his rhythm, trying to make an indelible impression on Russell.
I remember a time in my sophomore year in the NBA when Russell was playing his last season, and the young Knicks, one year away from a championship, were playing the Celtics in the play-offs. I had hit three jump shots in a row and the Knicks were threatening the Celtic lead. Just prior to a free throw I was lined up next to Tom Sanders, who was guarding me, and across the lane was Russell. Russell caught my eye, looked directly at me, then at Sanders and shouted in an exasperated tone, “Come on, Satch, stop him,” and then nodded at me. Suddenly I did not feel as confident, or maybe I felt more determined to meet the challenge he threw at me, but at any rate I scored very little the rest of the game.
Tom Heinsohn, Russell’s teammate for nine years and now coach of the Boston Celtics, recalls that Russell’s greatest psyche jobs were on Chamberlain. When Wilt’s team came to Boston, Russell frequently invited him to dinner, softening him up for the game and making it difficult for Wilt to muster the personal antagonism he needed to play aggressive basketball. Russell, as audacious as it may seem, made sure Wilt always had plausible excuses for losing. He always told reporters that Wilt was the best center. Perhaps he said it because he sensed that as long as the Celtics continued to win no one (including Wilt) would believe the praise. Or maybe he realized that even he might not be able to stop an enraged Wilt for forty-eight minutes.
Wilt was stronger and offensively more potent, and though Russell could play even with him for most of a game, he never allowed Chamberlain a clear comparison. Heinsohn refers to the times when by the third quarter the Celtics would be up 20 and Russell would have outscored and outrebounded Wilt. Russell would go to the bench; Wilt would score 20 in the last quarter to outscore Russell for the game and then, according to Heinsohn, Wilt would “go to the locker room and bitch about his
team
not being as strong as the Celtics.”
Oscar Robertson recalls another facet of Russell’s mental game. When Wilt had the step advantage for a dunk shot Russell rarely tried to block it. Instead, he released toward the other basket so that when Wilt slammed the ball through, a Celtic would grab it and throw a long pass to Russell for an easy lay-in. There was no way Chamberlain could recover fast enough to prevent the lay-in. He could only chastise his teammates for not covering.
Russell’s commitment to the game was different from other players who treated basketball as a job and had difficulty developing the killer instinct. For Russell there seemed to be no separation between basketball success/failure and the rest of his life, which in part explains his nervous vomiting before games, his conflict with Cousy, and his insistence, year after year, that he, not some jockey, or football player, or golfer, was the greatest athlete of the sixties.
Russell never got as much recognition as he deserved. Race was one reason. During the early sixties no black artist got adequate publicity. Then, too, perhaps pro basketball did not have the national following sufficient to merit enormous press attention. Most probably, I think he was overlooked because his greatest accomplishments were in the game’s subtleties and in seeking to guarantee team victory in a society which tends to focus attention on the individual achiever.
Seattle’s inexperience shows in the first half as we spurt to a twelve-point lead. Frazier misses his first two shots in the third quarter. DeBusschere hits a driving hook but his man scores three quick baskets. Seattle is relaxed. They have nothing to lose. If they don’t make a comeback, no one will be surprised; but if they can overcome our lead they’ll be heroes for the night Willis can’t move well tonight. He misses two shots and has trouble getting up and down the floor. A Seattle guard makes two long jump shots and an incredible drive. The fans begin to sense a move. Our defense plays listlessly. The difference dwindles to two points, then Seattle takes the lead. Frustration shows on our faces. Seattle has shot fourteen free throws to our six during the quarter. With one minute left in the third quarter Earl Monroe gets his fourth foul. He argues with the official, who promptly assesses him with a technical foul.
“Why’d you do that?” I say to the official. “He didn’t embarrass you out here.”
“Yeah,” the ref barks back, “but he said the magic word.”
“What!”
“Anytime someone says motherfucker on my court, I’ll give a technical.”
“Why, you never heard it before out here?”
“Every time I do it’s a T.”
“Oh,” I say, “but you wouldn’t if he said shit-face or son-of-a-bitch, you mean if he called… you… a
motherfucker
, that’s the only time you’d give a technical. Not if he called you just an asshole.”
The referee’s face reddens.
“O.K., O.K.,” I say, “I just wanted to know so I could tell the team. Thanks.”
Basketball is impossible to officiate well. Most of the calls are dependent on judgment, which in turn is dependent on the official’s vision, his angle, his emotional state, and his partner. The result is colossal inconsistency. Sometimes I can make contact with hands all night without being caught and the next game the official calls three quick fouls for the same kind of play. Sometimes I can jump into my defensive man on the shot and get a foul, while the next night the same move is called charging. Players universally complain about officials. Too many fouls slow the game; too few calls make it physically dangerous. Each player has his own favorite official and his worst enemy. The players’ union has considered black-balling the poorest officials, but it is impossible to reach a consensus on who they are. The problem is experience. Pro basketball is very different from college, and only by officiating in the pro league can an official get experience. Teams of three or four officials would cover the game more thoroughly, but they would cost more money than the owners are willing to spend on the game. About the only thing that can be done is to eliminate personal idiosyncrasies and vendettas from officiating. There is no place for player baiting or quixotic technical fouls. A good example of how referees abuse their power is in their treatment of rookies, telling them to be quiet or to expect no breaks their first year. When I was a rookie I saw little action, averaging sixteen minutes a game. The first game I played in during the last quarter was at Boston. With a minute to go, I was fouled. I had one and one, two shots, and the Knicks were up by one. Needless to say, I was nervous. The referee, Earl Strom, handed me the ball at the foul line and said with a smirk, “Now we’ll see what you’re made of.”
Seattle opens their lead in the fourth quarter to eight points. Everything we do goes wrong. It is as if no one wants to touch the ball, much less shoot it. No one will take the offensive responsibility. When one of us finally asserts himself, it is outside the flow of the team and leads to forced shots. Holzman calls time out and berates each player.
“You gonna let that guy go around you again, Clyde?” he says. “All defensive team, my ass, their rookies can’t wait to get you.”
“Goddammit, box out!” he says to me. “We can’t let ’em keep getting three and four shots! They’ll push you right off the court if you don’t hit back! They get the ball anywhere they want it.
“Yeah, I know, those dumb cocksuckers,” he says pointing to the refs, “they aren’t gonna give us anything. Don’t waste your time again! I’ll do that. Let’s go out now and play some defense. Stop poundin’ the fuckin’ ball into the floor, guards; it’s gotta start with you. And you forwards, don’t stand around with your thumbs up your ass! Move to the open spot. O.K., let’s go.”
With three minutes left in the game Seattle leads by twelve. Suddenly we catch fire. Frazier steals two passes. Earl hits two jumpers. I hit one and DeBusschere gets a tap-in. It’s a four-point ball game now. The intensity of the game has doubled. They are beginning to panic. Russell calls time out with one minute to go. Upon returning to play, they hold the ball trying to play for a good shot, low, just before the twenty-four second clock expires. The ball rims the basket. Lucas, now playing center, gets the rebound, passes it to me. I feed Earl, going to the basket for a fast break lay-up. Seattle didn’t have anyone protecting. Now we’re just two points back with forty seconds left. They hold the ball again; the crowd is on its feet. Their young guard dribbles cautiously looking at the clock. Suddenly, as quick as a frog’s tongue, Frazier slaps the ball away from him, gains control, takes six dribbles, shoots and scores. The game is tied. The same guard immediately dribbles the full length of the court and fires a clumsy shot from the deep corner. It is a flagrant “get-backing” and as he launches it I figure we’ll have a chance to win when it misses. But, it goes in, eliciting tumultuous approval from the crowd. We call time out and set up a last-second play to try to tie the score. Twelve seconds remain. The play calls for me to shoot from the corner. Frazier in-bounds to Earl. When I come around Willis’s screen, the center switches on to me. I’m cornered. Earl begins to penetrate to the basket, sees DeBusschere, passes it. DeBusschere takes a 16-foot jump shot. It misses. We lose by two points and pandemonium breaks out in the Seattle Coliseum.
“Why you guys waited,” Holzman says in the locker room, “until three minutes left in the game to start playing defense, I’ll never know. We should have won by twenty. It’s a shame to let a bunch of rookies be heroes. Get a shower; bus leaves in thirty-five minutes.”
Two things strike me about the game as I shower. If Dave had hit the last shot we would have won. I know it. Yet to think he lost it is wrong. We all lost it in the third quarter when we stank. The important thing about a last-second shot is not just to make it but to have five guys willing to take it; ready to shoulder the responsibility. No one criticizes Dave; he accepted his role tonight. But our play in the last three minutes is more of a mystery. Why did we wait? The road, the time of the season and place in the schedule provides only a partial explanation. Some games need a spark to come alive—a fight, an embarrassment, a referee’s call, or an inspiring individual effort. Tonight we waited too long before we decided that indeed we might lose. Good teams have a tendency to be complacent. It is as if we tempted fate, sure of our ability to rescue any situation before disaster. The realization that a loss was imminent jarred us to action, but too late.
T
HE NEXT MORNING THE BUS LEAVES THE HOTEL AT
7:00
FOR
the airport. Most of the players are half asleep as we move through the wet, deserted streets of early morning Seattle and pull onto Route 5 toward Tacoma. Below and to the right of the freeway is the site of the new Seattle Superdome. A little later we pass the Boeing development center. Big 747 and 727 jet planes stand unattended on runways bordered by enormous repair hangars. On the other side of the highway is an abrupt incline crowned with apartments and houses. A sign on the side of one house says, “Jesus is coming.” As we approach the vicinity of the airport, Danny grabs the touring microphone in the bus for a little early morning entertainment. “On your left,” he begins, “is the Lewis & Clark bargain clothing store where Clyde—Clyde, wake up—for $15.95 you can get a whole suit, shirt, cuff links, an extra pair of pants, shoes, socks, underwear, and everything. On your right you will see a little white frame house with a picket fence; that was my birthplace.”
“Tell it, Big Time,” shouts a rookie.
“W. C. Whelan, do it,” says another.
The bus doors open and we stroll through the airport, wasting the forty-five minutes at the newsstand or coffee shop before departure to Phoenix. I buy a magazine and head for the gate. After take-off I open it to a story about Mickey Mantle at his home in Dallas, Texas.
“‘At night,’” the author, Roger Kahn, quotes Mantle as saying, “‘my knee can hurt so bad it wakes me up. But first I dream. I’m playing in the stadium and I can’t make it. My leg is gone. I’m in to hit and I can’t take my good swing. I strike out and that’s when it wakes me. Then I know it’s really over.’
“‘I loved it,’ he says, ‘his voice throbbing with intensity. Nobody could have loved playing ball as much as me, when I wasn’t hurt. I must have fifty scrapbooks. People sent ’em to me. Sometimes after breakfast when the boys get off to school, I sit by myself and take a scrapbook and just turn the pages. The hair comes up on the back of my neck. I get goose bumps. And I remember how it was and how I used to think that it would always be that way.’”
The words seem to jump off the page at me. I remember the last time we were in Portland, Oregon, when Mickey Mantle was staying at the same hotel. He was in town as part of his job with a Dallas-based insurance company. Five years out of baseball, he was the principal guest at a luncheon honoring the great Indian quarterback for the University of Washington Huskies, Sonny Sixkiller, who had just joined the insurance company. Mantle stood in the lobby for over an hour on that stormy afternoon. He chatted with Danny and said hello to some of us players, but mostly he just stared at the rain. As I watched from across the lobby and listened, the rain beating against the window began to sound like thousands of hands clapping in wild applause.
There is terror behind the dream of being a professional ballplayer. It comes as a slow realization of finality and of the frightening unknowns which the end brings. When the playing is over, one can sense that one’s youth has been spent playing a game and now both the game and youth are gone, along with the innocence that characterizes all games which at root are pure and promote a prolonged adolescence in those who play. Now the athlete must face a world where awkward naiveté can no longer be overlooked because of athletic performance. By age thirty-five any potential for developing skills outside of basketball is slim. The “good guy” syndrome ceases. What is left is the other side of the Faustian bargain: To live all one’s days never able to recapture the feeling of those few years of intensified youth. In a way it is the fate of a warrior class to receive rewards, plaudits, and exhilaration simultaneously with the means of self-destruction. When a middle-aged lawyer moves more slowly on the tennis court, he makes adjustments and may even laugh at his geriatric restrictions because for him there remains the law. For the athlete who reaches thirty-five, something in him dies; not a peripheral activity but a fundamental passion. It necessarily dies. The athlete rarely recuperates. He approaches the end of his playing days the way old people approach death. He puts his finances in order. He reminisces easily. He offers advice to the young. But, the athlete differs from an old person in that he must continue living. Behind all the years of practice and all the hours of glory waits that inexorable terror of living without the game.