Bill Russell

Bill stood for something much bigger than sports," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.

In 2009, the MVP trophy of the NBA Finals was named in his honor. In 2013, a statue was unveiled on Boston’s City Hall Plaza of Russell surrounded by blocks of granite with quotes on leadership and character. Bill was the ultimate winner and consummate teammate, and his influence on the NBA will be felt forever. Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach so coveted Russell that he worked out a trade with the St. Louis Hawks for the second pick in the draft. From my first moment of being alive was the notion that my mother and father loved me.” It was Russell’s mother who would tell him to disregard comments from those who might see him playing in the yard. The Celtics also picked up Tommy Heinsohn and K.C. Jones, Russell’s college teammate, in the same draft. At the height of his athletic career, Bill advocated vigorously for civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed down to generations of NBA players who followed in his footsteps,” Silver said. He endured insults and vandalism, but he kept on focusing on making the teammates who he loved better players and made possible the success of so many who would follow.” But it was Jackie Robinson who gave Russell a road map for dealing with racism in his sport: “Jackie was a hero to us. He was at the March on Washington in 1963, when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, and he backed Muhammad Ali when the boxer was pilloried for refusing induction into the military draft. Often, that meant Wilt Chamberlain, the only player of the era who was a worthy rival for Russell. A Hall of Famer, five-time Most Valuable Player and 12-time All-Star, Russell in 1980 was voted the greatest player in the NBA history by basketball writers.

NBA legend Bill Russell, an 11-time NBA champion with the Boston Celtics and the first Black head coach in the league, passed away "peacefully" Sunday, ...

At the height of his athletic career, Bill advocated vigorously for civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed down to generations of NBA players who followed in his footsteps. "The countless accolades that he earned for his storied career with the Boston Celtics -- including a record 11 championships and five MVP awards -- only begin to tell the story of Bill's immense impact on our league and broader society. As tall as Bill Russell stood, his legacy rises far higher -- both as a player and as a person. Our thoughts are with his family as we mourn his passing and celebrate his enormous legacy in basketball, Boston, and beyond." "Along the way, Bill earned a string of individual awards that stands unprecedented as it went unmentioned by him. "It is with a very heavy heart we would like to pass along to all of Bill's friends, fans, & followers," the statement reads.

A Hall of Famer who led the Celtics to 11 championships, he was “the single most devastating force in the history of the game,” his coach Red Auerbach said.

The event was also a fund-raiser for the National Mentoring Partnership, whose programs he had helped develop as a board member. Russell married for the fourth time, to Jeannine Fiorito, in 2016. The Celtics won N.B.A. titles in Russell’s last two seasons, when he was their player-coach. Fritz Pollard, a star running back, had coached in the National Football League, but that was in the 1920s, when it was a fledgling operation. The Celtics’ streak of eight consecutive titles was snapped in Russell’s first year as coach, but it took one of the N.B.A.’s greatest teams to do it. He found the prospect of yearlong worldwide travel unappealing and wrote how “their specialty is clowning and I had no intention of being billed as a funny guy in a basketball uniform.” He was bruised by the humiliations his family had faced when he was young in segregated Louisiana and by widespread racism in Boston. When he joined the Celtics in 1956, he was their only Black player. At McClymonds High School in Oakland, Russell became a starter on the basketball team as a senior, already emphasizing defense and rebounding. “It was a way for my body to get rid of all excesses.” He went to Mississippi after the civil rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered and worked with Evers’s brother, Charles, to open an integrated basketball camp in Jackson. He was among a group of prominent Black athletes who supported Muhammad Ali when Ali refused induction into the armed forces during the Vietnam War. He finished his career as the No. 2 rebounder in N.B.A. history, behind his longtime rival Wilt Chamberlain, who had three inches on him. Russell’s quickness and his uncanny ability to block shots transformed the center position, once a spot for slow and hulking types.

Bill Russell, the who has been called the greatest team player in sports, leading the Celtics to 11 NBA championships in 13 seasons, died. He was 88.

He always had an icy relationship with the city of Boston, calling it a "flea market of racism" after vandals broke into his house in the late 1960s, and he refused to show up for a ceremony when his jersey was retired in 1972. He won two college championships at the University of San Francisco (1955 and '56) and the gold medal in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956. Russell and the Celtics beat Chamberlain's Philadelphia Warriors in the playoffs in 1960 and 1962, the San Francisco Warriors in the Finals in 1964, the Philadelphia 76ers in the playoffs in 1965, 1966 and 1968 and the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals in 1969. "There are two types of superstars," Don Nelson, Russell's teammate on the Celtics once said. Russell was one of the few athletes who spoke out against racism during the 1950s and 60s. He and his teammates didn't play in an exhibition game in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1961 when they were refused service at a local diner. He was so good that his Celtics teammates became more aggressive on the outside because they knew they had him in the middle. "To me, one of the most beautiful things to see is a group of men coordinating their efforts toward a common goal, alternately subordinating and asserting themselves to achieve real teamwork in action," Russell wrote when he retired. “Bill Russell was the greatest champion in all of team sports," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. He coached three seasons, had a record of 162-83 and won two championships. He could leave his man and pick up a driving offensive player, or he could come across the lane to block shots. “I played a team game and the only important statistic was who won the game,” Russell said in 2014 at the unveiling of his statue at Boston’s City Hall. “So, I would always thank my teammates for letting me help them be champions.

The former president cited the basketball great as a leader on and off the court. President Barack Obama presents Basketball Hall of Fame member and human ...

“More than any athlete of his era, Bill Russell came to define the word ‘winner,’” Obama said at the time. But, as Obama noted, he was also an activist, part of a coterie of 1960s greats — including boxer Muhammad Ali and football’s Jim Brown — that was known for its deep devotion to civil rights and social justice. “Today we lost a giant,” Obama tweeted shortly after Russell’s family announced that he had died on Sunday at 88.

The Celtics icon and 11-time NBA champion leaves a profound impact, on and off the court.

In 2012 the NBA released a documentary about the night in 1962 when Wilt scored 100 points in a single game, and Russell did the narration. He remained wary and held the media at arm’s length, but he was approachable and often brightened a room with his distinctive high-pitched cackle that seemed to come out of nowhere. Game 7 of the Finals at the Forum in Los Angeles, Russell in his final season with the Celtics, Wilt in his first season with the Lakers. And remembering the slights of a league in which a de facto segregation existed, he refused to attend his 1975 Hall of Fame induction ceremony. But encouraged by NBA commissioner David Stern, he gradually returned to the fold and became more and more of a fixture during All-Star Weekends, the Finals and other NBA events. He was 34, beaten down by so many trips up and down the floor and also the mental burden of serving as the team’s player-coach, an honor that Auerbach had bestowed on him in 1966. Though Russell often felt that his talents weren’t recognized by the media and the fans, he was voted MVP of the league five times, one more, he was sure to have noted, than Wilt earned. Russell had spent the summer of 1968 living with Jim Brown in Hollywood as news from the chaotic Democratic convention washed over them like a tidal wave. They hung in netting on the Forum ceiling, a silent, inflated taunt that Russell and the Celtics noticed when they took the court. But Russell also frequently got the rebound and joined the break, finishing it with a dunk at the other end. That was William Felton Russell, who learned his basketball chops on the Oakland playgrounds, refined them at the University of San Francisco and perfected them with the Boston Celtics. Russell wasn’t the first great defensive center, but he was the first around whom an offense could be constructed from his defensive talents.

Russell marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke out against segregation in Boston public schools and backed Muhammad Ali in his opposition ...

Russell’s influence in leading the 1961 strike could be felt in 2020, when the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play a playoff game as a protest of police brutality. Haywood said in an interview on Sunday that he and Russell would often dine at a Seattle restaurant called 13 Coins after road trips, and Russell would regale him with stories about the civil rights movement. “He always used to tell me about not getting too carried away because we were in the ’70s,” Haywood recalled. He didn’t always have the support of his teammates. Haywood said his teammates would jokingly refer to Russell as Haywood’s “daddy” because of how close they were. (In 1966, Russell became the first Black coach in the N.B.A.) That same year, Russell offered his public support for demonstrations against segregation in Boston public schools, and addressed Black students taking part in a sit-in. When the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated, also in 1963, Russell contacted Evers’s older brother, Charles, in Jackson, Miss., and offered his assistance. What I’m worried about is the rest of us.” It’s easy to remember the shots that Bill Russell blocked or the N.B.A. championships he won. But after his nearly nine decades of life, his most consequential legacy has less to do with the sport he dominated than his work off the court. He set the trend.”

Bill Russell, the NBA great who anchored a Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 championships in 13 years died on Sunday. He was 88.

In 2009, the MVP trophy of the NBA Finals was named in his honor. In 2013, a statue was unveiled on Boston's City Hall Plaza of Russell surrounded by blocks of granite with quotes on leadership and character. Bill was the ultimate winner and consummate teammate, and his influence on the NBA will be felt forever. Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach so coveted Russell that he worked out a trade with the St. Louis Hawks for the second pick in the draft. But it was Jackie Robinson who gave Russell a road map for dealing with racism in his sport: "Jackie was a hero to us. "She hung the phone up and I asked myself, 'How do you get to be a hero to Jackie Robinson?'" Russell said. The Celtics won it all again in 1959, starting an unprecedented string of eight consecutive NBA crowns. He endured insults and vandalism, but he kept on focusing on making the teammates who he loved better players and made possible the success of so many who would follow." The native of Louisiana also left a lasting mark as a Black athlete in a city — and country — where race is often a flash point. It was Russell's mother who would tell him to disregard comments from those who might see him playing in the yard. Often, that meant Wilt Chamberlain, the only player of the era who was a worthy rival for Russell. At the height of his athletic career, Bill advocated vigorously for civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed down to generations of NBA players who followed in his footsteps," Silver said.

Celtics legend and 11-time NBA Champion Bill Russell died 'peacefully' at the age of 88, his family confirmed Sunday.

“To me, one of the most beautiful things to see is a group of men coordinating their efforts toward a common goal, alternately subordinating and asserting themselves to achieve real teamwork in action,” Russell once wrote. The Celtics exacted revenge on the 76ers the following season, winning the division finals 4-3 before defeating the Lakers 4-2 for Russell’s first championship as a player-coach. Those qualities would serve Russell in 1966 when Auerbach retired to focus on responsibilities as a general manager. I got to succeed or fail on this job not as a Black man or a white man or a green man, but as a coach. But there’s another type who makes the players around him look better than they are, and that’s the type Russell was.” He averaged at least 23 rebounds per game for seven straight seasons with a team-first acumen, all while helping to revolutionize the game on the defensive end. Boston took full advantage, often funneling opponents toward Russell. That, in turn, allowed the Celtics to play more aggressively on the perimeter. A dominant shot blocker, Russell was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player five times, in addition to earning All-Star recognition on 12 occasions in his 13-year career. Russell attended McClymonds High School in Oakland, where he was awkward and struggled to find playing time until his senior year. There, he paired up with future Celtics teammate K.C. Jones to lead San Francisco to 56 consecutive wins and NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956. Russell racked up 21,620 career rebounds (22.5 per game), which ranks second only to Chamberlain’s career mark, and was a four-time season rebounding leader. “And we hope each of us can find a new way to act or speak up with Bill’s uncompromising, dignified and always constructive commitment to principle.

Known as the winningest NBA player of all time, Bill Russell also blazed trails as a civil rights advocate.

Regarded as a recluse for much of his post-retirement years, Russell did occasionally take to social media in the final stages of his life, posting about basketball and his travels. In 2009, the NBA renamed the Finals Most Valuable Player award the “Bill Russell Award,” a fitting honor for a man who went 21-0 in winner-take-all games between his collegiate, Olympic and professional careers. Russell boycotted an exhibition game in 1961 in Lexington, Kentucky after two of his teammates were denied service in a coffee shop and was a highly visible member of the Black Power movement. Even as the Vietnam War and other off-court issues compromised his attention during his last season, Russell went out on top in his final campaign, combining with John Havlicek to lead the Celtics to a seven-game NBA Finals victory over the Lakers. Russell had 26 rebounds in his last professional game, a 108-106 road victory that cemented Boston as the first team to win the NBA Finals after losing the first two games. Bitter feelings over his treatment in Boston led Russell to forgo attending his own jersey retirement in 1972 and Hall of Fame induction in 1975. The 1966 series, also against the Lakers, required seven games, and he willed the Celtics to a 95-93 victory with 25 points and a game-high 32 rebounds.

The promise of America is that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. We've never fully lived up to that.

That was Bill Russell. From a childhood in segregated Louisiana to a career playing on the biggest stages in sports at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Bill faced the hostility and hate of racism embedded in every part of American life. And on this day, there are generations of Americans who are reflecting on what he meant to them as someone who played for the essential truth that every person is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. The promise of America is that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.

Auerbach, the longtime Boston Celtics coach, had confided in Russell that he planned to retire from coaching. Russell and Auerbach had created a dynasty ...

“With a lot of truly great players, it was tough for him to understand why regular players did not have the same drive, focus and commitment to winning that he did,” Jerry Reynolds, an assistant for Russell on the Kings, said in an interview Sunday. “There’s just not very many people wired like that. He was a longtime civil rights activist who coached the Celtics during the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. “It rubbed a lot of Bostonians the wrong way,” Russell wrote in his 2009 book. Russell did not talk often about being the first Black coach in a major sports league. Bernie Bickerstaff, who is Black, watched Russell take over as head coach of the Celtics just as he was about to enter into a life of coaching. “I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let’s say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager.” Russell left the Celtics in 1969 but took over the SuperSonics from 1973 until 1977. “At that time, you didn’t think about anything like that,” said Bickerstaff, who became the coach of the SuperSonics in 1985. “At the time, Boston was a totally segregated city — and I vehemently opposed segregation.” Art Shell became the N.F.L.’s first Black head coach in the modern era for the Oakland Raiders in 1989. “For example, when I was finally named publicly, I didn’t know that I had just become the first African American coach in the history of major league sports.” Russell, who died Sunday at 88, would go on to win two championships as the head coach of the Celtics, his 10th and 11th championship rings. Auerbach, the longtime Boston Celtics coach, had confided in Russell that he planned to retire from coaching.

Bill Russell, the NBA great who anchored a Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 championships in 13 years — the last two as the first Black head coach in any ...

Thank you for all you did for us and this game. This is a teary-eyed Sunday knowing that we lost a legendary human being@RealBillRussellHis dedication to civil-rights, human-rights and the sport of basketball puts him beyond legendary status. Thank you for everything you have given to the game and all of us. My condolences and prayers to his family.pic.twitter.com/v2aHm5x4yt Was an absolute honor to spend time with#BillRussell. He was a walking encyclopedia. The ultimate leader and just happened to be one of the best hoopers ever! Thank you, Bill, for leading the way and giving us such a high bar to shoot at. My friend. My hero. RIP to an all-time winner, teammate and person. May he Rest in Power. Bill Russell was an inspiration to me in so many ways.

Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell was a civil rights trailblazer, before, during and after his basketball career. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of ...

You may click on “Your Choices” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. If you click “Agree and Continue” below, you acknowledge that your cookie choices in those tools will be respected and that you otherwise agree to the use of cookies on NPR’s sites. NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites (together, “cookies”) to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic.

Russell showed as much love and respect to younger players as they showed to him. Some, like Charles Barkley, referred to him simply as “Mr. Russell.”

And you finally got in the right uniform.” He also shared a special bond with Kevin Garnett, who in 2008 took the Celtics to their first N.B.A. finals since 1987. Russell led the Boston Celtics to 11 championships, seven of them with N.B.A. finals wins over the Lakers — and all of them colored in Celtics green. He looked at the group intently and pointed at each of them. “I think that you’re going to win at least two or three championships here,” Russell said. The statement mentioned Russell’s championships — two in high school, two in college, one in the Olympics and 11 in the N.B.A. — nodded to his personal accolades and highlighted his lifelong fight against racial discrimination. On Jan. 26, 2020, Bryant died in a helicopter crash with his daughter Gianna and seven other people. They marveled at his talent on the court, how he became the most feared defender of his era — a dominant force before blocks became an official statistic. It was a bit of a role reversal for Russell, who in his later years was usually the one delivering zingers. West played on six of those Lakers teams that lost to Russell’s Celtics, and the two became friends later in life. “Where did they find all these tall people?” Russell asked, onstage at an N.B.A. awards show in 2017. It was a day to celebrate Elgin Baylor, whom the Los Angeles Lakers had just honored with a statue outside their home arena.

The Celtics enshrined Russell's No. 6 among those that will never be worn again. The NBA should do the same.

He did in 1972, when the Celtics raised his number to the rafters, going along with it only after the team agreed to do it in an empty Boston Garden. In 1975, Russell refused to attend his Hall of Fame induction because he believed other Black athletes, including Cooper, deserved to be enshrined first. Late in life, Russell told a story about the day Robinson died. He said he took a call from Robinson’s wife, Rachel, who asked Russell to be a pallbearer at Robinson’s funeral. He racked up an 11–1 Finals record in a city where, according to Russell, he was referred to as “baboon,” “coon” and “ni-----. Russell would never ask for his number to be retired. Bill Russell and Jackie Robinson were in that same class.” And he went to buy another house. And he was so taken by it, he started to cry. And what his remarks were like, "I want to live in Reading for the rest of my life." In 1997, at a ceremony during a game between the Dodgers and Mets, then MLB commissioner Bud Selig announced that, once the group of players currently wearing the number gave it up, no one would wear No. 42 again. The NBA has done much to honor Russell’s legacy. William Felton Russell died Sunday. He was 88.

Basketball fans, athletes and elected leaders are mourning the death of Celtics great Bill Russell. The NBA legend and civil rights advocate died Sunday at ...

"He was the best." "My dad used to talk about him as just, the guy, how he was just this incredible player, and there was nobody like him," he said. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said she was devastated by the news. Gov. Charlie Baker called Russell the greatest of all time, as someone who broke barriers in both "the game of basketball and the game of life for Black athletes and Americans." "He put up with a lot in Boston, and he just kept on winning, kept on working at it, dedicated to the sport, just a good person," he said. "To be the greatest champion in your sport, to revolutionize the way the game is played, and to be a societal leader all at once seems unthinkable, but that is who Bill Russell was."

Properly measuring the greatness of Bill Russell, the legendary Boston Celtics center who died Sunday at the age of 88, has always been a challenge in our ...

Sportswriters jeeringly referred to him as “ Felton X” for his role in the Black Power movement, and the abuse he received from Boston fans was epitomized in 1971 when a group of burglars broke into his Massachusetts house, spray-painted racist slurs, vandalized his trophy case and defecated in his bed. He endured untold abuse from fans, journalists and basketball organizations dating back to his years at San Francisco, and he developed a reputation as a cold, aloof person — rather than a happy warrior — because of his refusal to bow to racist forces both within the NBA and broader American society. And though the NBA’s record on racial diversity in coaching lags behind its reputation, Russell’s coaching success forced white front offices to realize that Black coaches could win, opening the door for a number of legends. After teammates Satch Sanders and Sam Jones were refused service at a coffee shop in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1961, Russell joined them in a boycott of a game against the Hawks. At the University of San Francisco, Russell led a program that had been below .500 before his arrival to national championships in 1955 and 1956, earning NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors in the first of those efforts and UPI Player of the Year honors in the second. Three years later, Russell was again at the center of a historic act of protest. And in Russell’s case, the championships say even more than the individual attributes. For one, Russell’s pioneering impact as a defender is still felt today, in an NBA that puts a premium on versatile and “switchable” big men. We once calculated that each of the five players who’d played for the best defenses in NBA history (relative to league average) were part of the Celtics’ dynasty, with Russell’s average team suppressing offense by a staggering 6.1 points per 100 possessions relative to league average. But as ring-counting has fallen out of style in favor of ever-more-sophisticated individual statistics, it can be hard to contextualize the legacy of a player who averaged 15.1 points per game, had no official numbers for his famous shot-blocking ability and did most of his winning in an NBA with fewer than 10 teams. Which was delayed by several months because Russell was 1 leading the U.S. to gold in the 1956 Summer Olympics (held in November and December because the host country, Australia, is in the Southern Hemisphere). easily its best, and they produced the league’s best record. And yet, in many ways, Russell created the NBA as we know it today.

Rare was the working person around N.B.A. arenas these past few decades who never had an encounter with the majestic Bill Russell. On occasion, mostly a ...

I remember him telling me that by going to law school, I could be part of a generation that could build off what his generation had started, and effect change in a very different way.” In the book, Russell wrote that he and Auerbach had seldom socialized or delved into personal or social issues. While the contemporary best-ever debate is laser focused on Air Jordan versus King James, Russell’s contextualization of the argument only required flashing the ring he wore that 2007 day at the rookie transition program — a gift from the N.B.A. commissioner at the time, David Stern, commemorating all 11 of Russell’s titles. And of course, off the court, too, with his activism during the civil rights era.” “I tell all the kids — rich, poor, Black, white — that you must be your own counsel,” he told me. “He obviously had a big impact on me, as a center, always talking about blocking the shot but keeping it inbounds, things like that. I was a terrified young reporter for The New York Post in the late 1970s when my editor ordered me to “get Russell” for an assigned story. Russell nodded and said, “Wait outside for me.” So I parked myself in the first row of seats behind the broadcast table. “Quite true,” Russell responded in his gravelly voiced, meditative manner. I listened with fascination as Joakim Noah, a player of French, Swedish and Cameroonian descent, asked Russell if he felt underappreciated in racially polarized Boston despite winning 11 titles in 13 seasons, from 1957 through 1969. As I hopelessly stammered through my introduction, Russell looked up from a plate of food and said nothing. “He’s from Vecsey’s paper,” Cunningham told Russell, referring to Peter Vecsey, the widely known N.B.A. columnist.

Bill Russell goes up for a block against the Los Angeles Lakers. Russell playing for the Boston Celtics against the L.A. Lakers in 1963.Photograph ...

That he lived to be an uncontroversially beloved culture-hero—given the fires of those years, and given the pressures he so elegantly accepted—is one of history’s miracles, a dark but brightening irony that might have made him cough up one of his surprisingly high-pitched, cackling laughs. When he talked about his involvement with the civil-rights movement, he didn’t sound like a happy warrior or an eager activist—just a man who, by dint of his color and his status, had a job that he knew he couldn’t shirk. He loaned his presence, loaned that face and his voice, to help solve a problem he hadn’t caused. The cost and the substance of his greatness was total awareness, an impossible density of movement and thought. Say the guy in the middle has the ball and I want the guy on the left to take the shot. The fifties and sixties were excruciating years in America, and they became a social gantlet for Russell. He was big, smart, self-accepting, sometimes remote, rightly pissed—the kind of Black man who flips switches in the wrong kinds of minds. Part of it was the intelligence and rectitude of his playing style. The details of his devastating genius sound fake: his teams won eleven N.B.A. championships in thirteen seasons, and he won five M.V.P. awards, in a time when that award was decided by a vote among the players themselves—his helpless rivals, undoubtedly bitter at his stinginess with victory, found his greatness impossible to ignore. Over six-nine with long limbs and air-cutting speed, he offered his physical and mental gifts at the altar of defense. Russell’s gait was straighter, his hair darker, and his mien, at least in public, more consistently grave when, during the fifties and sixties, as a slim, graceful, brilliant center for the Boston Celtics, he unspooled a record of excellence unmatched in American organized sports. Many of his most far-fetched deeds were un-videotaped and therefore subject to the twin whims of memory and time. Or he grinned from the crowd at games or award shows, sometimes—well, surprisingly often—flipping a quick middle finger at his friends.

There are no superlatives, no metrics, no numbers, no generational or era comparisons that can account for a life lived, especially one as furiously ...

It was not Bill Russell who was trapped, but his former surroundings, his city and his country that were forced to reckon with their behavior and attitudes, to answer the question as to why their greatest champion often wanted nothing to do with them. For decades, the prevailing narrative of Russell was that he was trapped in the bitterness of his time, but that wasn't exactly true. The coming days will be filled with Russell tributes and reductive debates because, in the end, he was irreducible. When he didn't want to be seen, he wasn't. There is now, since 2013, a Bill Russell statue, just as there is an Auerbach and a Bird (at least his shoes), a Williams and an Orr. When he wanted to be seen, he was -- and during the last 15 years of his life he stood as a powerful specter, equal parts signature laugh and distant. He was distant from the city of his fame -- and yet was constantly present. This was his bargain, and it was immutable -- you could not celebrate the Celtics beating the 76ers without acknowledging the unequal treatment of him and his people. He was the living link to the birth of the game -- and the conscience of activism, from Jackie Robinson to Colin Kaepernick, for more than half a century. He was defined for years, not by what was done to him by his homeland, but why he didn't accept it better. He was part of a heritage of incredible athletes in Oakland, California, only after racism pressured his parents into leaving his birthplace of Monroe, Louisiana, away from their familiarity and opportunity. Even Russell's greatest on-court feat of winning 11 NBA titles over his 13-year career is constantly threatened by the criticism there were only eight NBA teams when Russell was winning all those championships, and thus they were somehow less legitimate than the real championships of today because the postseason wasn't interminably long, as it is today. With Russell's death will come a cease-fire, rhetoric replaced by a temporary reverence, a quiet admiration for his dignity and towering accomplishments and the bittersweet passing of time.