Bill Russell was a lot like Charlie Sheen, obsessed with winning and little else, except Russell was far more normal, far less addicted to drugs and infitely more important politically. Russell stood up against racism, backed down from nobody and found time to win 11 NBA championships. And now he will have a statue in his likeness built in Boston’s City Hall Plaza (via Chris Forsberg’s Twitter). 

Three finalist artists (Fern Cunningham, Antonio Mendez, and Anne Hirsch) will submit their ideas to a committee in the fall. The committee will then pick one of the artists to erect the statue, which could be a more difficult task than building most statues of ballplayers. We can immortalize Bobby Orr with his diving Stanley Cup goal, and that picture symbolizes everything he meant to Boston. We can immortalize Teddy Ballgame with a baseball bat over his shoulder, and that makes sense. But how do we choose a single pose for Russell, whose diverse qualifications for a statue span from being team sports’ greatest winner to being a leader unafraid to expose Boston’s racism? The sheer vastness of Russell’s accomplishments will make building a Russell statue both tricky and demanding.

But he will have a statue, which is what matters most. Basketball’s greatest winner will forever reside in City Hall Plaza.

The Celtics have taken preliminary steps toward building a Bill Russell statue, according to the Boston Herald.

According to Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca, the organization has already begun the process of getting the statue created and placed. And it didn’t hurt Tuesday when President Barack Obama, while awarding Russell the Medal of Freedom, mentioned that such a monument should be erected for future generations.

“We’ve had preliminary discussions with most of the constituencies, and the mayor (Thomas Menino) wants it to happen, President Obama wants it to happen, and,” said Pagliuca, “we’re going to really try to help make it happen.

“I think this final push from the president is great for us and great for Bill.

“We started looking at this in the last six months, and we talked to all the right people and so far all the people are very interested and very supportive. It’s been great, and hopefully something will happen very soon.”

As for whether Russell is on board, Pagliuca smiled and said, “We were hoping to surprise Bill, but maybe the president let that cat out of the bag.”

I wrote a piece about Russell deserving a statue in December. Check it out, and let’s hope this works out. If anybody deserves a statute, it’s a man who won more titles than any other human being who ever played professional team sports, a man who also stood up for everything he believed in, no matter how the general public would react.

Should we give Bill Russell a statue? The easy answer is yes.

He won 11 championships in 13 seasons, becoming the greatest winner in team sports history. He delivered the Boston Celtics their first dynasty, the most impressive dynasty in professional sports history. He personified team basketball, preferring to rebound and block shots rather than score. He kept his blocks inbounds, so that his teammates could run the fast break.

He was obsessed with winning, and every movement and decision Russell made on a basketball court was designed to earn a ‘W’. He won five MVP trophies, played in twelve All-Star games, and, while he was doing so, revolutionized the game. When Russell came into the NBA, the average center was a big, white stiff with Zydrunas Ilgauskas’s athleticism. By the time Russell left the game, teams wanted their centers to imitate the grace and mobility Russell displayed, to affect a game on both ends of the floor.

If Bobby Orr, Ted Williams and Red Auerbach all have statues standing in Boston, why not Bill Russell? The answer to that could be simple — private funding is necessary to fund these statues, and I doubt statues come cheap. Or it could be a lot more complicated — one word, race. Read more »

Think what you want about Kobe Bryant. That he’s an adulterer; a gunner; a phony; or whatever other name you may call him. I’d agree, and, at various times throughout his career, have had the same thoughts about him.

But there’s also something else that defines Kobe, and that’s not his desire to win, win, win no matter what, but his desire to understand the process of winning — to realize why people win, rather than just attempting his damnedest to earn championships without a real clue how to achieve his goals.

Adrian Wojnarowski’s recent (and great) column, prepared after a one-on-one dinner with Kobe, shed some light onto Kobe’s continued quest to become the greatest winner he can be.

The first thing Kobe did was model his preparation after Michael Jackson. No, I didn’t mean to type “Michael Jordan.” Kobe actually looked up to the singing and dancing MJ, just like he clearly looked up to the dunking and scoring MJ.

Jackson called Kobe one time when The Black Mamba was only 18, and the two struck up a relationship. Kobe picked his brain. He wanted to know how Jackson prepared for concerts, how he prepared to make music. Before long, Kobe adopted Jackson’s mentality to use in his own craft. Why?

“Because what [Jackson] did – and how he did it – was psychotic.”

That’s why.

Another mentor of Kobe’s has been Bill Russell. Hold on, Bill Russell? Gag me with a championship ring.

“Bill is always a Celtic, but I think he’s appreciated my thirst for knowledge,” Kobe told Wojnarowski.

What types of things did Russell teach Bryant? How to be a leader. How to win. How to make others around you better. What Kobe has learned from his mentors amounts to one of the greatest lessons a team sports player could ever hope to learn.

“How to truly make players better, what that really means,” he said. “It’s not just passing to your guys and getting them shots. It’s not getting this or that many players into double figures. That’s bull[expletive]. That’s not how you win championships. You’ve got to change the culture of your team – that’s how you truly make guys better. In a way, you have to help them to get the same DNA that you have, the same focus you have, maybe even close to the same drive. That’s how you make guys better.

“I’ve never understood this stuff, where a star player sits out and a team goes into the tank. Well, they need him because he makes them better. Well, if he’s making them better, they should be able to survive without him. That’s how you lead your guys. You’ve got to be able to make guys suffice on their own, without you. If you’re there all the time and they take you away, they shouldn’t need a respirator.

“Once I understood all that, I looked at things completely different. I took my hands off. I didn’t try to control them. I let them make decisions, make their own [expletive]-ups and I was there to try and help them through it.”

Am I a fan of Kobe Bryant? Absolutely not. I despise him like the plague. I find him revolting in every sense of the word.

But goddamn do I respect him, and his unending search to evolve as a winner. Kobe will go to any length to learn how to win, and to help his teammates do the same.

I once read a quote, “It’s not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.”

Kobe wants to win just like every other player in the NBA. But unlike many, he’s willing to undergo any task to achieve that goal.

So Kobe, I admire you. Now please excuse me while I regurgitate my lunch.

Rings galore.

A little while ago, I received an email from Aram Goudsouzian, author of King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution. He asked me something like, “Would you mind if I sent you a copy of my Bill Russell biography, for free?”

“Yes, I’d mind!” I replied. “Who wants a wonderfully-written book about the winningest basketball player ever, free of charge?”

I told Aram I’d write a book review when I was done reading, but I lied. His book was so good, so thorough, that I couldn’t possibly do it justice myself. My review would have been one sentence: Buy this piece of art, one of the greatest sports biographies ever written, or die. Instead of threatening death upon my readers, I asked Aram if I could excerpt a small portion of his introduction.

He agreed, so here it is (I promise, this will be the most interesting Celtics-related piece you read today): Read more »

Do yourself a favor: go back to the 16-second mark and watch the ensuing dunk. I know that defense makes Mikki Moore look like Bill Russell, but YOU try completing that dunk. Even with nobody on you. I didn’t think so.

But seriously, where in the world was the defense? I’m pretty sure every player on the court made a pact to allow wide open dunks. Almost like the pact Don Nelson makes his Warriors sign before every season.