The Larry Siegfried Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, May 16th,
2006
Red chose the great Bill Russell as his head coaching successor. How was he
able to manage the dual roles of player and coach?
Very
simple: A good team will run itself and coach itself. The only thing you
have to do is worry about the substitution patterns and things like that.
Russ had no assistants – he was the player/coach. Today, teams have ten
assistant coaches and all of this other stuff. For what? Today you’ve got
to have a manager and an assistant coach for every position. We made our
own adjustments on the floor and in practice. I tell everyone the same
thing – if you’ve got a good team, all you have to do is manage it. I don’t
want some coach running down my ear trying to call the plays. I know what’s
going on. And that’s the way we handled it as a team. We made our own
adjustments. Red always felt that Russell could control himself, and that
Russell was the only person really suited to coach Russell. And that was
part of Red’s genius. Red was smart enough to know that he didn’t want
someone coming in there and disrupting the team. A lot of times, coaches
will over-coach. Why? Because they don’t know what they’re doing, or they
don’t have a good team that will coach itself. So they’re on the sidelines,
standing up, calling every play…for what? Russell didn’t do that. He knew
himself, and he knew his players. He knew that we were going to take care
of our responsibilities, and that we were going to go out there and do our
jobs. So all Russell had to do was worry about guys getting tired,
rotations, fouls, things like that. He didn’t have to tell Havlicek to be
in a certain spot at a certain time. He didn’t have to tell Sam Jones where
to be on the fast break. He didn’t have to tell Satch Sanders how to play
defense. These things were going to take care of themselves. Why? Because
we were a good team. We were mature and we were responsible. We looked out
for each other, and we did our jobs.
The Celtics championship streak was snapped in 1967, and many thought the
aging Celtic Dynasty had come to an end. How satisfying was it for you to
prove the experts wrong and win two more rings?
We
didn’t have to prove nothing. All we had to do was regroup and do what we
needed to do. Winning was so simple and so easy because we played defense,
we moved the ball, and we had a good team. Think about it. What you’re
doing is beating the team that doesn’t play good defense and doesn’t move
the ball. They may have better talent, but they’re not the better team. So
all we had to do was regroup. It wasn’t that complex. The thing that
amazes me today is that everyone talks about talent . Well, you can
assemble a ton of talent, and sometimes it backfires. Sometimes talent
alone doesn’t get it done because that talent isn’t playing together with
the same goal in mind. You have a high-priced collection of talent, and
they’re playing with five different agendas on the same court. They’re not
a team. The team, the family, the community – it’s all a part of the
culture that makes a winner, and to a large degree we’ve lost that.
Just look at what happened recently in Los Angeles. You had the pieces in place for a dynasty, but the feud between Shaq and Kobe broke that apart. That would never have happened in Boston. You would have never seen Russell and Sam Jones ending up like that. No way. That would have never happened. On a good team, you may have differences, but things would never reach the point that they did in Los Angeles. Never. Basically, what happened there was the result of two self-centered people who claimed that they had a team. No, there was no team. There were talented individuals playing in the same uniforms, but both of them had their own agenda. And it tore the team apart. It couldn’t win. Stop and think about this – the team, whether it be the community, or the family, or a sports team…the team is a vanishing thing. We say we have a team. It’s like saying, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a marriage. We’re married.’ And then you look at how most marriages end up. You ain’t got nothing. Today there are almost as many divorced couples are there are married couples.
So when you ask that question, how satisfying was it to win two more titles, I have to say that the most important thing to me today is the thing that we’re talking about right now. The rings don’t mean a thing. The memories that I have of playing with my teammates – those are the things that mean something. And everywhere I go, I sing my song about this.
Muhammad Ali told me this one time, years ago in Boston – and I don’t know why, other than I think he followed me in college – but it was almost prophetic; he said to me, ‘Larry, years from now you’re going to have something to tell people.’ And you know, he was right. Because how many people today know, and have experienced, what we’re talking about right now? How many people really know what the true meaning of team is all about?
The Celtics defeated the Lakers in that 1969 NBA Finals, winning that
memorable Game 7 in L.A. Please take me back to that classic series, and to
Don Nelson’s jumper that rattled home to win Game 7.
That
was the last championship for Russell, and for that team. That’s what made
it so special. Russ told me that the reason he got out was because he could
no longer get up for the games. Mentally and physically, he could no longer
get up to the level needed to win championships. So he knew that it was
time to get out. Think about it: Every single night, everybody wanted to
beat Boston. Why? Because we were the world champions.
The Celtics finished fourth place in the Eastern Division in ’69 and barely made the playoffs, and then faced the Lakers in the Finals. Los Angeles had home-court advantage. We played two games out there, and we were beaten pretty handily. We came back to Boston and won two at home to even the series. Then we went back to LA and lost, and then came back to Boston and won. That put the series at 3-3 with the deciding game in Los Angeles.
I remember after Game 2 in LA, Russell had a locker room meeting. He admitted that he hadn’t played up to his standards, and that he wasn’t ready to compete in that game. He asked us to forgive him, and he told us that we were going to prevail in this series. That we’d somehow find a way to get it done. This was when we were down 0-2. I remember sitting in the locker room prior to Game 7, and he looked at everyone and said, ‘Well, what did I tell you? We’re back, and they’re not going to beat us. We’re going to win this game.’ And the game itself was a nail biter. I think Sam Jones had fouled out, and I had hit two free throws to close the gap to one point, and then Nelson hit that shot on the next possession and we ended up winning the championship.
Russell played all forty-eight minutes in that game. Afterwards, he was spent. Mentally and physically he knew that he couldn’t do it anymore. But he had one more game left in him that day, and he played great. He was a special, special man. He ran guys completely out of the league. I remember reading an article recently about Chris Webber. Webber’s father introduced him to Bill Russell, and he just looked at his son and said, ‘Son, this is Bill Russell. This man would have held you scoreless in a game.’ And you know what? Inside, he would have. I’m telling you, you couldn’t get a shot off inside against Bill Russell. That’s hard to believe, that that’s the truth. And it was fun for us, because offensively it was an easy place to play. All you had to do was dig in defensively – the stats were not important.
One year Sam Jones led the team in scoring with 19 points-per-game, and then there were another five guys bunched together beneath him. Red believed in ball movement. The ball moves, you move, and if you get the ball in an open spot, you take the shot. If not, then you move it to someone else. And it worked. The focus was right, and everything else followed.
Final
Question: You’ve achieved great success in your life. You are universally
respected and admired by many people, both inside and outside of the NBA.
If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that
be?
It’s
not about winning championships, it’s not about winning, it’s about getting
there. And without a faith in God, everything else is empty.