Red Auerbach has passed away this past Saturday at age 89…

Here are a few highlights:

• Coached the now-defunct Washington Capitols to two division titles in 1947 and 1949.

• The 1947 Capitols' .817 winning percentage remained the NBA's highest for the next 20 years. The team also won 17 straight games at one point during the season, a streak that would remain a league record until 1969.

• Coached the Tri-Cities Blackhawks for the 1949-50 season.

• Coached Boston Celtics from 1950 to 1966 winning nine championships, including a stretch from 1959 to 1966 when the Celtics won eight straight NBA championships.

• In 20 years as a coach, he won 938 regular season games, a record that would stand until Lenny Wilkens broke it in the 1994-95 season.

• Led Boston to 99 playoff victories, fourth all-time behind Phil Jackson, Pat Riley and Larry Brown.

• Finished with nine NBA championship rings, later tied by Phil Jackson.

• NBA Coach of the Year in 1965.

• Coached 11 Hall of Famers.

• NBA 25th Anniversary All-Time team coach. (1970)

• Coached in the NBA East-West All-Star Game 11 consecutive years (1957-67) and compiled a 7-4 record.

• Enshrined as a coach on April 13, 1969 in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

• Won the NBA Executive of the Year award with the Celtics in the 1979-1980 season.

• Named the greatest coach in the history of the NBA by the Professional Basketball Writers Association of America in 1980.

1) From the AP:

Passing of a legend - Celtics patriarch, Hall of Famer Auerbach dead at 89

WASHINGTON (AP) -- His genius was building a basketball dynasty in Boston, his gift was straight talk, his signature was the pungent cigar he lit up and savored after every victory. Red Auerbach, the Hall of Famer who guided the Celtics to 16 championships -- first as a coach and later as general manager -- died Saturday. He was 89. Auerbach died of a heart attack near his home in Washington, according to an NBA official, who didn't want to be identified. His last public appearance was on Wednesday, when he received the Navy's Lone Sailor Award during a ceremony in the nation's capital. Auerbach's death was announced by the Celtics, who still employed him as team president. Next season will be dedicated to him, they said. "He was relentless and produced the greatest basketball dynasty so far that this country has ever seen and certainly that the NBA has ever seen," said Bob Cousy, the point guard for many of Auerbach's championship teams, who referred to his coach by his given name. "This is a personal loss for me. Arnold and I have been together since 1950. I was fortunate that I was able to attend a function with him Wednesday night. ... I am so glad now that I took the time to be there and spend a few more moments with him." Tom Heinsohn, who played under Auerbach and then coached the Celtics when he was their general manager, remembered his personal side. "He was exceptional at listening and motivating people to put out their very best," Heinsohn said. "In my playing days he once gave me a loaded cigar and six months later I gave him one. That was our relationship. We had a tremendous amount of fun and the game of basketball will never see anyone else like him." Auerbach's 938 victories made him the winningest coach in NBA history until Lenny Wilkens overtook him during the 1994-95 season. "Beyond his incomparable achievements, Red had come to be our basketball soul and our basketball conscience," NBA commissioner David Stern said, "the void left by his death will never be filled." Auerbach's nine titles as a coach came in the 1950s and 1960s -- including eight straight from 1959 through 1966 -- and then through shrewd deals and foresight he became the architect of Celtics teams that won seven more championships in the 1970s and 1980s. Phil Jackson matched those record nine championships when the Los Angeles Lakers won the title in 2001-02. "Red was a true champion and one whose legacy transcends the Celtics and basketball," Sen. Ted Kennedy said. "He was the gold standard in coaching and in civic leadership, and he set an example that continues today. We all knew and loved Red in the Kennedy family." Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969. The jersey No. 2 was retired by the Celtics in his honor during the 1984-85 season. "He was a unique personality, a combination of toughness and great, great caring about people," said author John Feinstein, who last year collaborated on a book with Auerbach on the coach's reflections of seven decades in basketball. "He cared about people much more than it showed in his public face, and that's why people cared about him." With the Celtics, he made deals that brought Bill Russell, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale to Boston. He drafted Larry Bird a year early when the Indiana State star was a junior to make sure Bird would come to Boston. "Red Auerbach was one of the most influential people in my life," Bird said. "Not only was he an inspiration to me throughout my career, he became a close friend as well. There could only be one Red Auerbach and I'll always be grateful for having the opportunity to experience his genius and his dedication to winning through teamwork." Auerbach coached championship teams that featured players such as Russell, Cousy, Heinsohn, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones and Sam Jones, all inducted into the Hall of Fame. After stepping down as general manager in 1984, Auerbach served as president of the Celtics and occasionally attended team practices into the mid-1990s, although his role in the draft and personnel decisions had diminished. "Red was a guy who always introduced new things," Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca told The Associated Press in an interview this month. "He had some of the first black players in the league and some people didn't like that, but you've got to do what's right for the fans." When Rick Pitino took the president's title when he became coach in 1997, Auerbach became vice chairman of the board. After Pitino resigned in 2001, Auerbach regained the title of president and remained vice chairman. When the team was sold in 2002 to a group headed by Wyc Grousbeck, Auerbach stayed on as president. Through all those changes and titles, Auerbach didn't lose his direct manner of speaking, such as when he discussed the parquet floor of the Boston Garden shortly before the Celtics' longtime home closed in September 1995. "The whole thing was a myth," Auerbach said. "People thought not only that there were dead spots, but that we knew where every one was and we could play accordingly. "Now, did you ever watch a ballplayer go up and down the court at that speed and pick out a dead spot?" he asked. "If our players worried about that, thinking that's going to help them win, they're out of their cotton-picking mind. But if the other team thought that: Hey, good for us." As Celtics president, Auerbach shuttled between Boston and his home in the nation's capital, where he led an active lifestyle that included playing racquetball and tennis into his mid-70s. Auerbach underwent two procedures in May 1993 to clear blocked arteries. He had been bothered by chest discomfort at various times beginning in 1986.
Auerbach was also hospitalized a year ago, but he was soon active again and attended the Celtics' home opener. Asked that night what his thoughts were, he replied in his usual blunt manner: "What goes through your mind is, 'When the hell are we going to win another one? I mean, it's as simple as that." Auerbach had planned to be at the Celtics' opener this season, in Boston next Wednesday against the New Orleans Hornets. In his 16 seasons as the Celtics' coach, Auerbach berated referees and paced the sideline with a rolled-up program in his clenched fist. The cigar came out when he was sure of another Celtic triumph. He had a 938-479 regular-season coaching record and a 99-69 playoff mark. Auerbach had a reputation as a keen judge of talent, seemingly always getting the best of trades with fellow coaches and general managers. In 1956, he traded Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan to St. Louis for the Hawks' first-round pick and ended up with Russell -- probably the greatest defensive center of all time and the heart of 11 championship teams.
In 1978, he drafted Bird in the first round even though he would have to wait a year before Bird could become a professional.
Before the 1980 draft, the Celtics traded the No. 1 overall selection to Golden State for Parish and the No. 3 pick. The Warriors took Joe Barry Carroll. The Celtics chose McHale. In 1981, Boston chose Brigham Young guard Danny Ainge in the second round. Ainge was playing baseball in the Toronto Blue Jays organization at the time, but was freed after a court battle to play for the Celtics. In June 1983, another one-sided deal brought guard Dennis Johnson from Phoenix for seldom-used backup center Rick Robey. Born Arnold Auerbach in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Sept. 20, 1917, he attended Seth Low Junior College in New York and George Washington University. His playing career was undistinguished. In three seasons at George Washington he scored 334 points in 56 games. He would often attend games at GW's Smith Center, where the court is named in his honor. As a coach, he was an instant success, posting the best record of his career in his first season. He led the Washington Capitols to a 49-11 mark in 1946-47, the NBA's debut season, and took them to the playoff semifinals. The Capitols had winning records the next two seasons under Auerbach, who moved on to the Tri-Cities Blackhawks for one season in 1949-50. They had a 28-29 mark, Auerbach's only losing record in 20 years as an NBA coach. In the NBA's first four seasons, the Celtics never had a winning record. But Auerbach changed that dramatically when he succeeded Alvin "Doggy" Julian as Boston's coach for the 1950-51 campaign. They went 39-30 that year, and the Celtics never had a losing record in his 16 seasons on the bench. Boston's lowest winning percentage was .611 in his last 10 seasons. His last game as coach was on April 28, 1966, when Boston edged the Lakers 95-93 in Game 7 of the finals to win the NBA title. He was just 48 years old, but ready to move on. On Feb. 13 of that season, Auerbach was honored at halftime of a loss to Los Angeles at Boston Garden.
"They say that losing comes easier as you grow older," he said after the game. "But losing keeps getting harder for me. I just can't take it like I used to. It's time for me to step out." Russell became player-coach the next season, while Auerbach concentrated on his job as general manager. Russell was the first of five Boston coaches who had played for Auerbach. Auerbach is survived by his two daughters, Nancy Auerbach Collins and Randy Auerbach; his granddaughter, Julie Auerbach Flieger, and three great-grandchildren.

2) SI.com’s Jack McCallum reflects:

Seeing Red - Auerbach was one of a kind and earned respect of all

The thing about Red Auerbach is that he remained relevant. It's a neat trick to pull off in the sports world where guys who hang around for a long time eventually get treated like the crazy uncle from Ipswich. Red, who died of a heart attack at 89 on Saturday night, had some of that crazy-uncle in him, to be sure. He growled and grumped his way through life, immune to irony, seeing the world in blacks and whites and no grays. I interviewed him on, oh, 37 different occasions and had to re-introduce myself each time; I'm sure that, had I stopped an interview to use the bathroom, I would've had to re-introduce myself upon re-entry. I was around a lot during the Bird Era, but that wasn't the same as being there in the '50s and '60s, when Red ran the Green and the Green ran the NBA. It was like that with anyone who wasn't in the inner sanctum to which Red held the key. After he hired Dave Gavitt to run Boston's basketball operations in the summer of 1990, Red did a television interview during which he was asked about the Celtics' still unresolved head coaching situation. "I'll hear from -- What's-his name, Dave -- about it," he told a broadcaster. Even by 1985, the year I began covering the league (the Celtics' last championship season by the way), Red was spending much of his time in Washington, and by my reckoning was a titular figure only, iconic but ultimately inconsequential. Not the case. I still remember the excitement in Kevin McHale's voice before a preseason practice. "Hey, Red's here today!" You could get McHale to goof on almost anybody at any time, but he had only the most respectful things to say about Red. It was the same with all the Celtics, Larry Bird included. Bird always had (still has, even though he wears designer suits as the Indiana Pacers' president of basketball operations) a kind of blue-collar resistance to bosses. He didn't snuggle up to owners or team execs. But when Red came around, Bird always treated him with deference. I can still see them huddled together after practice, Bird leaning over and laughing as Red gestured with his cigar, at times, in the later years, unlit. There was always an attempt around Celtic Land to sell the idea that Red was involved in every decision, even into the 1990s. That wasn't the case. Red was a guy who had bamboozled the rest of the league for years with his knack for recognizing talent and motivating his guys, and he simply didn't have the patience to sit in his office and study, say, the ramifications of the salary cap. But he was consulted on major issues, for, on certain matters, there is nothing that beats seat-of-the-pants instincts; for over three decades, Red's were as good as anyone's. An outsider can only guess, ultimately, what the latter-day Celtics got from this man who won his first championship when cities like Fort Wayne and Rochester and Syracuse had pro franchises. But I think it was a sense of bravado. Red never lost it. He walked in a building -- any building -- and it was 1957 all over again and he was going to smirk at you, turn his boys loose, kick your ass, then light a victory cigar in your face. His self-confidence was contagious, and if the current Celtics weren't rolling over the opposition like the old Celtics did, well, their feeling was: Red is still here and we just might do it again. Red is not there anymore and, already, the Celtics -- and the game itself -- feels a little less special.

3) From Ken Shouler of ESPN.com

"One night, during a bad snowstorm in Boston, [player-coach Bill] Russell wasn't able to get to the game. So Red was the substitute coach that night. "Early in the game I missed a few shots in a row that I normally expect to make. My head was kind of hangin' a little bit. "Red called a timeout and he says to me, 'Howell, forget about missing those shots. I will worry about you missing those shots. You just remember if you get any more like that, if you don't take them, you gonna be over here on the bench with me.' "So I went out and started callin' for the ball; I thought I had a hot hand. "He was a master at handling people -- a master psychologist." Time and again you hear Celtics describing Red as "a player's coach." To the world outside his own huddles and locker room he was ornery and miserable, a boisterous dynamo who peered at you through cigar smoke after his troops had impaled yours. But not with his own players. He supported them. He had their backs. They knew it, so they did everything to please him. He emphasized people far more than X's and O's. "Red Auerbach convinced his players that he loved them," said Earl Lloyd, the NBA's first African-American player. "So all they wanted to do was please him." It was the best way of getting the maximum from his squad. He did it to squeeze even the slightest of advantages from situations. Sure, he could be the consummate actor on the sidelines -- waving his arms, stomping his feet, tearing at his hair. He received more fines and was thrown out of more games than any other NBA coach. He was even tossed out while coaching the All-Star Game in San Francisco's Cow Palace in 1967, Rick Barry recalled with a laugh. What does Lloyd remember most about Auerbach's teams? "That they won more than anybody else," he laughs. "That about sums it up." Before Auerbach's nine championships in 10 years (1957-66), before the signature victory cigar on the bench that signaled the enemy was somewhere between simmering and cooked, before Celtic mystique and the parquet floors, there was Brooklyn. Arnold Jacob Auerbach was born on Sept. 20, 1917, the son of Marie Thompson and Hyman Auerbach, a Russian immigrant. Red grew up in the familiar and hardscrabble Brooklyn neighborhood called Williamsburg, where his father ran a dry cleaners. Red helped out with some of the pressing duties and also earned nickels washing taxi cabs. He was a teenager during the Depression, when unemployment in New York rose as high as 50 percent. "I appreciated the fact that my father was a hard-working man," Red once recalled, explaining his father's influence. "Also that he was well liked." Auerbach gravitated to basketball because that's what he had. "In my area of Brooklyn there was no football, no baseball," he said. "They were too expensive. They didn't have the practice fields. We played basketball and handball and some softball in the street." Red, who stood 5-foot-9, went to Eastern District High School and began courting basketball. As a senior, he made all-Brooklyn, second team. After Seth Low Junior College (part of Columbia University) closed in Brooklyn during his freshman year, he transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. It was there at GW, under coach Bill Reinhart, that he learned the running game that would later become a Celtics trademark. With Reinhart's recommendation, Auerbach landed a position as basketball director at prestigious St. Albans Prep in suburban Washington. Coaching, not playing, was his future. He married Dorothy Lewis in the spring of 1941. He also got his master's degree and joined the faculty at Roosevelt High School in Washington, teaching history, health and physical education. An article that he wrote on indoor obstacle courses for the Journal of Health and Physical Education was the beginning of a publishing career that eventually included five basketball books, translated into a half-dozen languages. To make extra money, he refereed basketball games. In 1943 he enlisted in the Navy. By the time Auerbach was discharged in 1946, Walter Brown had helped start the Basketball Association of America. Mike Uline, owner of the Washington Caps, wanted to hire Auerbach as coach. But Auerbach was married and soon to start a family, so the move was risky for him. "I had a permanent job already, but I felt I could always get a job if it didn't work out," he recalled. He took the job, filling a roster with the names of players he remembered from his days in the Navy. Red was only 29. "Some of the guys on the team were older than me," he said. "I just sold the guy a bill of goods to get the job. A lot of guys had better credentials." He paid no one on the team more than $8,500 and insisted on defense and conditioning from his players. In the 1946-47 season, his team finished 49-11. After three years of coaching the Washington Capitols and the Tri-Cities Blackhawks of Iowa in the BAA, and winning 143 of 225 games, he was hired by Brown to coach the NBA's Boston Celtics. Brown was in debt and looking for a head coach for one last go-around with Boston. Fortunately, Auerbach had Bob Cousy during his first year at the helm, helping him turn the Celtics from a 22-46 team in 1949 into a 39-30 team in 1950. Cousy was good right out of the box, scoring 15.6 points and averaging nearly five assists a game in his rookie year. But Auerbach almost didn't get him. Auerbach wasn't short on opinions about who should play on his team. "Am I supposed to win here, or take care of local yokels?" he asked, suggesting that Cousy was touted merely because he played at nearby Holy Cross. Auerbach passed on Cousy in the draft, instead selecting 6-11 center Charlie Share. Local fans were irate. Due to outrageous fortune -- several teams had folded -- Brown offered Cousy $9,000 a year. He signed. Had Cousy taken umbrage at Auerbach's "local yokel" remark and not signed, things might have turned out very differently. Celtic luck may have been born right there. Besides Cousy, the Celtics had a 20-point scorer in Ed Macauley. "We had a good team, but we would get tired in the end and couldn't get the ball," Red recalled. A big man was sorely lacking. "We were good, but hadn't won yet," Cousy said. "But I remember one day in 1956, Red said, 'I think I'm getting a guy that will change things.'" To get Bill Russell required some legendary maneuvering that would take its place in Celtics lore. Rochester was drafting first, with St. Louis second, and the whole world knew about Russell's exploits at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and at the University of San Francisco, where his team won 55 straight. Rochester was strong up front and looked to draft Sihugo Green. Brown gave Rochester team manager Les Harrison additional incentive to avoid Russell. If Harrison passed on Russell, Brown would arrange for Rochester to get the touring Ice Capades two weeks later. Recalled Auerbach: "Walter got him the Ice Capades, and Harrison said, 'I give you my word that we'll stay away from Russell.'" But all this would have been for naught if St. Louis had picked Russell second. Auerbach called Ben Kerner to see if he would make a deal. Auerbach offered All-Star Macauley. Kerner badly needed stars to keep his franchise afloat, so he asked for Cliff Hagan, too. Auerbach agreed. With Russell in the pivot, the Celtics had a spider-armed, tireless intimidator. He had run track in college and could outrun everyone on the team. "Russell could change a game without scoring," says Don Nelson, a teammate of Russell's in the 1960s. Cousy recalled how Russell would deliberately goal-tend a few shots at the outset of the game -- just to intimidate the other team. He also recalls that Russell's fury on the court was owed in part to the racial slurs he endured. "What made him special was his fantastic reactions," Red remembered. "He was a brilliant guy; you couldn't fool him twice. He had long arms. He was interested in defense. Most big men were interested in scoring. Russell was the opposite; he'd let the other guys shoot the ball." In his first year, Russell led the team in rebounding. Behind rookie Tommy Heinsohn's 37 points, the Celtics won their first world championship that year, winning Game 7 in an agonizing three overtimes, 125-123. In 1958, Russell injured his ankle in the Finals against St. Louis and the Hawks won in six games. It was the last time any team other than Boston would win the title for eight straight years. Former NBA coach Hubie Brown remembered what worked so well: "[Red] had a relentless fast break, pressure defense and Bill Russell in the back that allowed him to play this style. They were also very organized in their play sets. Then, I feel he had the ability to motivate them individually, because it is extremely difficult to maintain excellence. It comes down to that ability to maintain excellence. He knew how to push the right button on each guy to get him to be subservient to the team." Through it all, Red typically ate Chinese food in his room between games, conserving his energy for the grueling travel demands that included more trains and cars than planes. The 1960-61 squad may have been the Celtics' finest under Auerbach. The team went 57-22 and, amazingly, had six scorers averaging between 15 and 21 points a game without one finishing in the top 10. As Brown observed, under Auerbach, the Celtics understood the maxim "There is no 'I' in team." "In any good coach is the ability to communicate," Auerbach explained. "In other words, a lot of coaches know their X's and O's, but the players must absorb it. Team was important. We didn't care who the starting five was. The sixth-man concept was my idea." Frank Ramsey and John Havlicek were the first two players to perform in that role. Auerbach could be a taskmaster in practice. Sure, the Celtics were knee-deep in talent, but they also worked harder than other teams. "Defense and conditioning were the best parts of those teams," says former Celtic Tom "Satch" Sanders. "In those days you had eight teams, 10 guys, 80 players altogether," Brown said. "Nobody had a two-year contract. Everybody played year-to-year." Boston took on all comers, but Los Angeles in particular was victimized more than the rest. In the 1960s, the Lakers never quite had enough to get them over the top. Six different times in the playoffs (1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968, and 1969) the Lakers ran out of gas against Boston. Three of those series went the full seven games. As the Celtics' routinely whipped the opposition, Red would frequently sit back and enjoy the end of the game -- with a cigar. Hence, the "victory cigar." "It all boils down to this," Auerbach said. "I used to hate these college coaches or any coach that was 25 points ahead with three minutes left to go, and they're up pacing and they're yelling and coaching because they're on TV, and they want their picture on, and they get recognition. To me, the game was over. The day's work is done. Worry about the next game. "So I would light a cigar and sit on the bench and just watch it. The game was over, for all intents and purposes. I didn't want to rub anything in or show anybody what a great coach I was when I was 25 points ahead. Why? I gotta win by 30? What the hell difference does it make? "The commissioner [Maurice Podoloff] said you can't smoke the cigars on the bench. But there were guys smoking cigarettes on the bench. I said, 'What is this, an airplane -- you can smoke cigarettes but not cigars?' No way. I wouldn't do it." Sanders didn't mind the smoke on the bench, "but the locker room was another story; it was close quarters in there!" Would Red put out his cigar? "Are you kidding?" Sanders snaps. "I smoked all different cigars at that time," Auerbach says. "Sometimes fans would give me some. I did TV promotions for King Edwards." On April 28, 1966, Auerbach, who earlier in the season had announced he'd be retiring, coached his last official game. Appropriately, it was a Game 7, at Boston Garden, against Los Angeles. Russell had 25 points and 32 rebounds, enough to offset Jerry West's 36 points, and the Celtics narrowly won, 95-93. Red's victory cigar was knocked from his mouth by the surging crowd. He lit up another in the dressing room and Russell pointed to Auerbach, saying, "There is the man. This is his team. He puts it together. He makes us win." The Celtics had copped nine world championships in the Auerbach era, and he retired with a record 938 wins. After Russell's 11th title and retirement in 1969, word around the league was that Red had won with Russell, but wouldn't without him. Hubie Brown is unimpressed with that view. "He had Russell, and he won. You think about this," Brown said. "Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor never won. That's the answer to that. Go up to when Red retired [when he appointed Russell as player-coach]. Elgin Baylor, Bob Pettit, Oscar Robertson, West and Chamberlain were the best all-time at that point. Los Angeles got three of them and couldn't win." And win again, Red would. With Havlicek, Jo Jo White and Dave Cowens leading the way, the Celtics, with Auerbach as general manager, won two world championships in the 1970s -- the only team besides New York to accomplish that feat. However, after Havlicek departed in 1978, the Celtics went through lean times again. In two years, the Celtics won 61 games and lost 103. So Auerbach went to work on a player from Indiana State named Larry Bird. Five teams had passed on drafting Bird in the first round in his junior year. "They didn't know he'd be that good, and I didn't either," Auerbach said. "I only saw him play once." But Auerbach didn't pass on him. Picking sixth, he thought Bird would be impressed with the Celtics' history and mystique and would eventually sign without re-entering the draft. It is due to this kind of maneuvering that Auerbach is often regarded as the greatest NBA executive of all time, in addition to his coaching achievements. He scouted talent, recognized it, saw how it would aid his team and signed the player. The Celtics won only 29 games in the 1978-1979 season but leapt to 61 wins the following year with Bird, who averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds a game. In Bird's second year, the Celtics took their 14th NBA title, first knocking off Julius Erving's 76ers and then Moses Malone's Rockets. Two more titles in 1984 and 1986 ran Red's total to 16. Auerbach's singular managerial greatness was again evidenced in 1986. He was plotting the future, even while the Celtics had become what Bird called "the best team I ever played with." Red had been following the fortunes of the Seattle SuperSonics. In the previous two years they had won only 31 games, and Red knew he could trade a respectable player for a draft pick or two. He gave up Gerald Henderson to acquire Seattle's first-round pick, which turned out to be the second pick in the draft. He snapped up a most unusual athlete. In Maryland's Len Bias, Auerbach acquired the size of a young Karl Malone and the ball handling and perimeter shooting skills of a guard in one package. When Bias came to Boston for a visit, he said to Celtics executive vice president Jan Volk, "Please draft me." As commissioner David Stern announced the selection of Bias on national television, the young man beamed and wore a Celtics hat to the podium. Hours later he would be dead of a cocaine overdose. "I was shocked," Red recalled, saying no more.
"It's the cruelest thing I ever heard," Bird added. Beginning with Bias' death and then the early retirements of Kevin McHale and Bird and the sudden death of Reggie Lewis in the summer of 1993, Boston endured a most un-Celtic-like string of bad luck. Now no one dared to speak about the lucky leprechauns who slept beneath the floorboards to tilt the game. Forget Irish fable. The Celtics set off on a Greek tragedy, as if paying off a debt for all their hubris and good fortune. Had Bias lived, his presence might well have extended the careers of Bird and McHale and would have given Boston a good shot at another title or two in the late 1980s. Now, it's been almost 20 years since the team won it all. By the early 1990s, Red was not as active in the day-to-day operations as he once was. "I don't have the desire and the say anymore," once Red told me in a Chinese restaurant, surrounded by shrimp and lobster sauce, fried rice and a platter of fish and beef goodies. "In other words, I can't see myself getting on the phone three and four hours a day and calling this owner and wheeling and dealing. I don't want to do that. To make a deal, you gotta be on the phone all the time." Even while recovering from heart surgery, Red explained that he still enjoyed racquetball and his favorite Nicaraguan Hoyo de Monterrey cigars -- two a day. At Legal Sea Foods restaurant in Boston, a note on the menu read: "No cigar or pipe smoking, except for Red Auerbach." Despite retreating from the basketball scene, Red could still fire off in-your-face opinions. In June he told me, in earnest, that a "Dream Team" made up of players from the late 1940s to mid-'70s could beat a new dream team. "If I was starting a team, I would take Russell," he said. Auerbach's loyalty to his own players, who emerged victorious in 16 NBA seasons, is understandable, and it went both ways. He once told the story about his 75th birthday party, when about 45 of his players showed up from all over the country. "When you treat people good, they will want to reciprocate," Red said. "We're the only team with alumni like that. We're a real group." Then he continued picking his team. "If I was picking 12 all-time guys, I would include Russell, [Kareem] Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, Bird, Baylor, Pettit, Dr. J [Erving], Magic [Earvin Johnson], Michael Jordan, Oscar [Robertson], Cousy and Havlicek. You can make a case for about five or six guys being the greatest of all time: Bird, Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar, Jordan, Russell, Oscar."
But since his 30-year team (dividing the 59-year history of the game in half) would include Russell, Pettit, Baylor, Robertson and West -- with Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, Havlicek, Cousy and Erving off the bench -- it's hard to argue that the newer guys would run away with it. But who would guard Jordan, I asked. "We'd wear him down with Havlicek and West," Red insisted, noting the need for two fresh defenders. "Besides, who would outrebound our front line of Chamberlain and Russell and Pettit? We would get a load of offensive rebounds and control our defensive boards." There he was, full throttle into this contest of his own conjuring. He was envisioning the competition in his mind, perhaps seeing it played out on some distant court. You could see him coaching his dream team, see him imploring Russell to get a defensive stop, encouraging Chamberlain to take care of the defensive boards, shouting at Mendy Rudolph to let the contact go on Jordan. Who would be better for the task? Who could get more out of his team? Who better to work for an edge, to milk every advantage right to the end? None better than Red.

4) Chris Sheriden of ESPN.com:

Remembering Red

Got word of the passing of Red Auerbach tonight, almost one year to the date from the night when I last saw him. It was opening night in Boston a year ago, and Red was feeling good enough after three separate hospital stays to make the ride up from his home in Washington, D.C., to see his beloved Celtics -- although I'm not sure how beloved they were to him over the past couple of years.
Red was sitting in a chair in the hallway past the visitors' locker room, and the media were invited to come speak to him. We lined up in sort of a semicircle around him, and I found it a bit weird how no one wanted to get too close to him. It was Red in his chair, then 10 feet of space, then the ink-stained wretches and TV types. I asked Red if he had heard from Phil Jackson (whose nine NBA coaching titles equal Red's nine) during his hospital stay. I had always been told there was practically no relationship whatsoever between the two, and I was curious as to whether Phil had reached out to Red when he saw how sick Red had been. But Red's answer was, "No." I'm not old enough to remember Red as a coach. My first exposure to him was during halftime of the old CBS telecasts when "Red on Roundball" would be a weekly segment. I didn't get to see it every week, though, because my dad was a Bucks fan and hated all things about the Celtics, topped only by his distaste for the Bulls (he's still no big fan of Jerry Sloan), and he would often use Red's segment as an opportunity to temporarily turn the channel dial (no remote controls in those days) to an auto race or a golf tournament. I didn't see whether Red had a cigar with him that night a year ago when I last encountered him. Lighting a victory cigar was his trademark during the Celtics' incredible run of titles in the 1960s, and he would have had an opportunity to light one up later that evening after the Celtics defeated the Knicks in overtime. But there undoubtedly would have been a security guard asking Red to extinguish that stogie if he had lighted it up before leaving the building. All smoking is banned up in the new Boston Garden, and they stopped bending the rules for anyone a couple seasons ago after broadcaster and former coach Tommy Heinsohn gave it up. So intolerant are they toward smokers these days in Beantown, I reckon even Red would have been scolded into extinguishing it. But Red is probably free to light one up now, wherever he is, just as Phil Jackson is free to send a stogie -- or at least some flowers -- to the funeral home before Red is buried. I hope he does. Red died still holding a share of the record for the most championships won by a coach, and he passed away just a couple days before the Celtics become the 30th and final NBA franchise to employ a dance team ... a type of entertainment Red abhorred. When the NBA used to have the Celtics fill out a form listing their in-arena entertainment, the front office would always fill in: "Ballboy rolled ball rack to center court." Still holding at least a share of the lead in titles with Phil, along with never having had to witness dancers on his parquet, seems to me like a double victory for Red. I hope he's enjoying both with a nice big cigar.