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The game was a springboard for Cousy, who went on to
become a three-time All-American at Holy Cross. Led by
Cousy’s playmaking brilliance, the Crusaders won 26
straight games during his senior season and finished
second in the National Invitation Tournament – then the
premier collegiate tournament and the determiner of the
national championship.
Professional basketball at that time was still in its
infancy. The Basketball Association of America folded,
and the Boston Celtics joined the newly created National
Basketball Association. The Celtics, in an ironic
twist, were coached by Julian during the 1949-50 NBA
season, finishing dead last in the Eastern Division with
a 22-46 record. But things were definitely on the
uptick: The moribund Celtics, by virtue of their
record, possessed the coveted first pick in the draft.
Owner Walter Brown also replaced Julian with hot
coaching prospect Arnold “Red” Auerbach, whose fiery
style seemed the perfect tonic for his struggling
franchise. The stars seemed magically aligned, and it
became almost a foregone conclusion – especially to
those covering the team -- that the lowly Celtics would
nab Cousy in the 1950 NBA Draft.
Auerbach had other ideas. He was hardly enamored with
the flashy point guard, instead placing a premium on
height. His goal was to build the Celtics from the
inside out, which led him to choose Chuck Share, a
6-foot-11 center from Bowling Green. "We need a big
man," Auerbach growled at the time, sounding almost
Napoleonic. "Little men are a dime a dozen. I'm
supposed to win, not go after local yokels."
The remarks did not sit well with the press, many of
whom considered Auerbach an outsider and Cousy one of
their own. They also saw Cousy as a way to fill the
Boston Garden and, more importantly, as a way to help
legitimize a sport that ranked far behind baseball and
hockey in terms of relevance.
Cousy was ultimately selected by the Tri-Cities
Blackhawks, but Bob Kerner, the team’s owner, was unable
to sign the reluctant All-American to a contract. Cousy
was more interested in starting a driving school in
Worcester. Kerner traded his rights to the Chicago
Stags, but that franchise folded before the 1950-51
season started. The names of three Stags -- Cousy and
two much sought-after players were tossed into a hat.
Gathered in the New York Commodore Hotel, the owners of
the Celtics, the New York Knicks and the Philadelphia
Warriors each pulled out a name. All three wanted the
league's leading scorer, Max Zaslofsky. The Celtics,
picking last, ended up with Cousy.
Cousy's arrival in Boston represented a paradigm shift
in the NBA. He revolutionized the pro game with his
ball-handling wizardry, bringing flash and showmanship
to a league that had been, up until then, largely the
domain of bruising post players and methodical
set-shooters. The NBA in 1949 B.C. -- Before Cousy --
had been struggling to survive, its teams owned by
hockey men who desperately needed to fill their arenas
through the winter months. Cousy changed all of that.
He electrified audiences. He made people care about the
game. He legitimized the sport. Simply put, Robert
Joseph Cousy was the equivalent of color television in
a league overstocked with black-and-whites, and the
world ate it up.
Behind the electrifying play of Cousy and the soft
touch of “Easy” Ed Macauley, who had been picked up by
the defunct St. Louis Bombers, Auerbach engineered the
Celtics’ first-ever winning season in 1950-51, at
39-30. The best was yet to come; over the next several
seasons Auerbach complemented Cousy with such Hall of
Fame talent as Bill Sharman (1951), Frank Ramsey (1954)
and Tom Heinsohn (1956). The biggest move of all came
prior to the 1956-57 season, when Auerbach traded
Macauley and the rights to UK star Cliff Hagan for the
right to draft Bill Russell. Together, Russell and
Cousy provided a one-two punch unparalleled in NBA
history.
The Celtics won the NBA championship, and a dynasty was
born.
“Cooz was the absolute offensive master," Heinsohn told
the Boston Herald in 1983. "What Russell was on
defense, that's what Cousy was on offense -- a
magician. Once that ball reached his hands, the rest of
us just took off, never bothering to look back. We
didn't have to. He'd find us. When you got into a
position to score, the ball would be there.”
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