Link is below. They mention Ming at the very end of the interview. Red, (who from this interview apparently still understands the game and players better then most columnists) feels that Ming can certainly be a strong defensive rebounding and shot-blocking presence, and could possibly develop his game like Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar. But Red was iffy on whether Ming had it in him. He also said that it'd be at least 3 years before Ming had a big impact on the NBA, and there'd be no way he'd dominate immediately. http://mfile.akamai.com/3310/rm/sportnws.download.akamai.com/3310/i/media/audio/2/20020524/8621.ram
Red Auerbach is (not was) a truly great basketball mind. I have a book he wrote about 15 years ago in which he goes into great detail the logic behind drafting Bird and Russell (successive chapters). He then in a subsequent chapter poses the question "If Bird and Russell were both available in the draft, which one would he pick?" Red goes into more detail than I can provide here, but the short answer is that (in his opinion), you win championships with Centers, not Small Forwards so he takes Russell over Bird. Guess who the Celts would take if they had the #1 pick?
so red is saying that robert parish won those rings for bird? i wonder what red thought about the jordan bulls.
Chief was already a Celtic so that wasn't an issue. Had Len Bias and Reggie Lewis not met with tradgedy, perhaps the Bulls may have had a tougher time of it. It took the Celts a long time to recover from these and the hiring of Pittino. (Even Red makes mistakes). MJ? Are you suggesting the Rockets should have drafted MJ instead of Dream? You're probably too young to have heard it but there's an expression - "all things being equal, a good big man beats a good little man". Sorry smoothie, Red carries more weight in my book than you do.
