I was watching NBATV and they were showing some old instructional videos with Red Auerbach. One of them featured larry bird, robert parish, dennis johnson, and our own ralph sampson. But before that they were showing a video from the mid seventies with bullets wes unseld, elvin hayes and a few others. red was railing on flopping. he had the head of officials at the time and they were talking about how officials have to ignore the flop. how it was becoming a bad part of basketball. they demonstrated a charging flop on a drive and one on a pick being set. it was a true foreshadowing.
The only other coach I may consider being more influtential or important in any sport would be John Wooden. That being said, Red was more important because of taking black players on his team & hiring a black coach (both were Bill Russel by the way) in a town that had some racial issues (this is admitted by many authors and historians in several books I have read about the social impact of sports). He managed players better than anyone I have ever heard or have seen; it was almost as if he was a politician in the sports world. Way ahead of his time, even if the game did pass him up a few years ago. Red may have been the most influential person in basketball history.
Red was a person I Loved to Hate [in a sports sense] not the guy . .. just I hated Boston and he was just that Good I was listening to D Patrick and he was talking about Boston's Unfortante Draft Picks Lynn Bias and . .. the other guy Had they worked out . .. Boston might still be a powerhouse So I would not be so quick to say the game passed him by Rocket River R I P Red Much Respect for Red
The Len Bias draft story where Red and his minions met to plot draft strategy ended in a nanosecond when red announced Bias was their guy. Reggie Lewis' passing was another tragedy. But Red got old and ceded power and authority to lesser mortals and Boston has been in a malaise for a long while, with no blue sky impending. Ainge essentially taking Telfair in last spring's 'draft' was daft as he could have had Foye and flipped him to Philly as part of an Iverson deal. With Pierce, that pair would have made C's relevant again, and formidable. Interesting, at the very least. But Danny boy is not the man Red was. By a long shot. A 4-pointer, maybe even 5...
i think i watched those like 15 years ago while first learning basketball. Larry was my hero. Was it the video where says that "Whenever Larry goes to the line, I look up at the scoreboard and add 2 points.
