I planned to begin this post like this: “When Ed Macauley’s son became ill in 1956, it contributed to the Celtics’ acquisition of Bill Russell.”

Then, I read a CelticsBlog post by Roy Hobbs (who is either The Natural or this guy, preferably the former), who adamantly believes we need to remember Macauley for more than his departure from Boston, which — along with Red Auerbach’s creativity — allowed the team to draft Russell. Macauley’s a Hall of Famer, and Hobbs treats him as such.

Macauley was more than a trading chip.  He was the team’s first superstar.  If I told you there was only one player in Celtics history that had finished in the top ten in the NBA at varying times in his career in points per game, rebounds per game, and assists per game, how many of you would have guessed the answer was Larry Bird or John Havlicek?  Not so; it was Macauley.  Think about that for a minute:  a top ten player in points, rebounds, and assists.  He also finished top ten in FT% once, and led the league in FG% twice.  This is a player who was dominant, which explains why he was three times first-team All-NBA, and made the All-Star team all six years he was in Boston.

Ed Macauley could play. RIP.

Without Red Auerbach, the Boston Celtics would not have become the NBA’s winningest franchise. He drafted Bill Russell. Selected Larry Bird a year before Bird finished college. Traded for Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. Coached the Celtics to nine championships, then won seven more as general manager and team president.

On what would have been Auerbach’s 94th birthday, I include an excerpt from Bill Russell’s book Red and Me: My Coach, My Lifelong Friend to remind you: sometimes, the genius is in fine print.

To set the stage: The year is 1956. The Celtics are thirsty for a big man and Auerbach is desperate to draft Russell, but the Celtics only have the 7th pick. Ed Macauley’s son is sick and Macauley has requested a trade closer to his St. Louis home; Red also wants to use the draft to send Macauley to the St. Louis Hawks. The St. Hawks hold the 2nd pick, so Red needs to devise a plan to A) trade Macauley to St. Louis, B) bring the Hawks’ 2nd pick to Boston, and C) persuade the Rochester Royals, owners of the 1st pick, not to select Russell.

“First, he called Hawks owner Ben Kerner, a man he’d once coached for and despised. If he could maneuver Kerner off [Russell], that would suit Red just fine. So he offered up Macauley, his best shooter, and the Celtics’ seventh pick in the draft in return for St. Louis’s rights to pick second. But Ben Kerner knew he had Red over a barrel. So he demanded more. He wanted to throw in Cliff Hagan, a promising young forward to Kentucky. At that juncture, Celtics owner Walter Brown told Red, ‘You can’t trade Ed Macauley! He’s our best player!’ But then Red had Ed Macauley tell Walter personally, ‘I want you to trade me to St. Louis. You’d be doing me a favor, because then I can take care of my son and still play pro ball.’ That was enough for Walter; he wore his empathy on his sleeve anyway.

“St. Louis was satisfied. Now for the coup de grace: the Rochester Royals. They had first pick, so what could Red possibly do to keep them from saying, ‘Rochester selects Bill Russell’? The Royals already had Maurice Stokes, a great young center who was leading the league in rebounds, so Red figured they didn’t need another big center like me. So he persuaded Walter Brown to call Rochester owner Les Harrison with an unusual proposition. Walter said, ‘Listen, Les. I’m the president of the Ice Capades. If you lay off Russell at Number one, just pick the date and I’ll throw the Ice Capades in your building for two weeks.’ This was Red’s almost compulsively innovative genius working overtime. He knew that in the off-season back then, a lot of those big arenas sat empty. Having the Ice Capades in your building for two weeks was like having the Harlem Globetrotters: guaranteed sellouts every night—and you’ve made a profit for the year! Of course, Harrison bit. He was a businessman, and for him, this was good business.”

And with that, the Celtics secured the draft rights to Bill Russell, set the foundation for the team’s first 11 championships, and marked Red Auerbach as one hombre you don’t want to negotiate with. Even when you win against Red — I’m sure the Ice Capades made Les Harrison a bundle of cash — you lose.

Happy birthday, Red. Smoke a stogey for me.

As most of you know, Larry Siegfried passed away due to heart failure on Thursday, at the age of 71.

Because I didn’t know much about Siegfried besides the fact that he was “the other Larry,” I didn’t want to offer my thoughts. I never saw him play, couldn’t have told you whether he was righty or lefty, and couldn’t possibly do him or his career justice. So I decided not to write a tribute.

But that didn’t work for me either. How could I not write a tribute of a man who won five championships for my beloved Celtics? Who was “hugely competitive,” according to Satch Sanders, and by all accounts exhibited Celtic Pride at all times? Who sounds just like a player I would have fallen in love with?

“He was one of the best pure basketball minds that I have come across,’” close friend and former Celtic Rick Weitzman told the Boston Globe. “He really understood the game, knew the game. It was great for me to play behind him because he wasn’t gifted with tremendous athleticism but he got the most out of his ability.”

Despite being the Cincinatti Royals’s first pick in the 1961 NBA Draft (and third overall), a long story left Siegried out of the game and teaching high school when John Havlicek convinced Red Auerbach to offer Siegfried a tryout. Likely down to his last chance at making an NBA roster, Siegfried was in real danger of being cut by Auerbach when Tom Heinsohn spoke on Siegfried’s behalf. Heinsohn told Auerbach that Siegfried was the only player on the Celtics’ roster who could beat Heinsohn one-on-one. It would be a mistake to cut such a talent, Heinsohn felt.

Auerbach agreed to secretly watch Heinsohn and Siegfried play a one-on-one game, and was impressed enough to keep Siegfried around. The rest is history. In seven years of being what the New York Times described as “a key element in a relentless and indomitable Celtic machine”, Siegfried won five championships and a spot in Celtics lore.

I couldn’t not write a tribute about a player like that, right? A player who had it all, lost it all, and scraped and clawed his way to earning some of it back? I had to, even if I know little about his game and can’t possibly do him justice.

I never got to see Larry Siegfried play, but after hearing about his career and the traits that make his passing such a big deal, I can tell you one thing: I would have loved to.

“As time goes on, the championship does not mean as much to me,” Siegfried said at Ohio State this spring while celebrating the 50th anniversary of his NCAA championship team. “The thing that matters to me is what coach Taylor taught us and the relationships, those intangible things. The core values that made me who I am today, that’s what’s important to me.”

As much as I love basketball, as much as I value wins and championships, Siegfried’s words couldn’t ring more true. We love basketball because it brings us closer to our father, because we’re still friends with our high school teammates thirty years later. We love basketball for the jokes we can tell to random strangers in a barber shop, and for the way we’ll one day teach our sons how to dribble. We love basketball for the stories we’ll undoubtedly share with our grandchildren, and we love basketball because you can tell a lot about a man just by seeing him box out.

As time goes on, the championships didn’t mean as much to Siegfried. But the Boston Celtics? I imagine they always had a firm place in his heart.

Every once in a while, I link to a few articles from other writers around the internet. You know, I throw some dimes.

1. Today would have been Red Auerbach’s 93rd birthday. In Red’s biography on ESPN, Lisa Hilton wrote, “Red Auerbach’s coaching philosophy was simple: Only one statistic mattered. At the end of the game, he wanted the number next to his team to be greater than that next to his opponent. The individual players weren’t the ones who made the difference. It was the team as a whole. Just being a member of a winning team was part of the Auerbach mystique.” Today’s Celtics are simply carrying on the Auerbach mystique. Smoke a stogie for us, Red.
2. Jack Ramsay says Larry Bird was the best player he ever coached against. That’s what’s up.
3. Paul Flannery discusses the Ray Allen re-signing. Can he put off the aging process for two years?
4. Danny Ainge on Semih Erden’s performance in the FIBA World Championships: “Semih’s a player,” said Ainge. “He plays hard, he plays with energy. He definitely made a handful of nice passes.” I’m getting more excited for the Semih Erden era by the day. Even if he’s still the fourth-string center.
5. Celtics Hub’s Zach Lowe wonders how the Celtics would handle the Heat if Lebron James plays point guard. My take? Get down on their knees and pray.
6. Doc Rivers interviews with Kentucky Wildcat student TV. The interview is mostly bland, but one quote I loved was about Rajon Rondo: “He just keeps getting better.” He does, and for the rest of the league that’s a scary thought. How good will Rondo be next season?
7. Ken Berg previews the Celtics. His player to watch? Kevin Garnett. “ During the Celtics’ surprising run to the NBA Finals, KG finally started to move around better and was able to log substantial minutes without any obvious consequences. Will Garnett ever get back the explosiveness that he possessed before his knees started breaking down? No way. But if he can lose the limp and get some of his lateral mobility back – which he showed glimpses of during the Finals – his impact on the Celtics’ success cannot be overstated.”

Got a tip? An article you think should be included? Send an email to jayking@celticstown.com or hit me up on Twitter @CelticsTown.

Hugs all around. The Big Three era ain't over yet.

The final buzzer blew and tears flowed. Not only did the Boston Celtics lose a heartbreaking Game 7, but they didn’t know what lay in store.

Futures were in limbo, and it was unclear whether the Big Three era would live to play another day. In the locker room Doc Rivers told his team, the grown men bawling in front of him, “You’ve still yet to have a true chance to defend your title because Perk wasn’t there.” And the saddest part was, we thought they might never get that chance.

Luckily, we underestimated the loyalty these men hold in their hearts for the Boston Celtics. Paul Pierce opted out of his contract, and we briefly believed he might head elsewhere. But he never even spoke to other teams. There was plenty of talk about Doc Rivers’ potential retirement. But Doc came back, saying, “We want to go after this one more time, and we have Kevin [Garnett] and Paul [Pierce] and Ray [Allen] hopefully all coming back, so why not? Let’s see if we can do it one more time.” Ray Allen, too, was rumored in talks of leaving. He was recruited by Lebron James to be the King’s right-hand man. But Ray couldn’t leave, either. “I’m happy to be returning as a Celtic,” he told WEEI.com via text message. “There’s no other place I wanted to be.”

Since the original Big Three era fell apart toward the end, breaking into 22 years of mediocrity, the Celtics have sometimes been criticized for keeping the crew together. Red Auerbach should have traded those guys away, some fans say. They should have rebuilt. But shouldn’t teams show the same loyalty to their players as they would expect from their fans? Didn’t Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish deserve to be Boston Celtics as long as they wanted to? With their devotion to the Celtics and the city of Boston, didn’t those players earn the right to stay put?

To this day, Bird remembers Auerbach’s loyalty to that Celtics core. “Sometimes you’ve got to show loyalty in this business, and Red (Auerbach) did that,” Bird told the Boston Herald. He did it for a number of years.” In some way, isn’t that loyalty more important than winning dozens of championships?

Many bad aspects of sports have been exposed during this NBA free agency. Egotism. Selfishness. Greed. A stunning lack of humility and grace. Everywhere you look, it’s Lebron this, Lebron that or Big Three this, Big Three that. Due to marketing, the media and whatever else, individuals have become more highly regarded than teams, even though teamwork is the backbone of sport.

But while free agency kicks off, the Boston Celtics — the same team that knocked both Lebron James and Dwyane Wade out of the playoffs — quietly re-formed to take another run at a championship. And they did it because of one thing: Loyalty. 

Paul Pierce and Ray Allen could have chased money. Ray could have chased a title as Lebron’s sidekick. Doc Rivers could have went home to his family and relaxed for the first time in years. Danny Ainge could have blown the whole thing up and started the rebuilding process.

But they’re all back. And I have a funny feeling it’s mostly because they share a deep, deep love.

Jesus Christ, this play almost gave me a heart attack. Why in the world did KG throw that damn pass? These are the types of plays when you know Red Auerbach is in the rafters at the Boston Garden, acting like the Angels in the Outfield.

After the play, Paul Pierce said, “I was just showing off my Randy Moss and my Tom Brady in one play.” Then who was Garnett? JaMarcus Russell?