Roots of this Celtics title were planted by Red

[PTI]

Roots of this Celtics title were planted by Red
by Jason Whitlock

"Red Auerbach was just as responsible for No. 17 as he was for No. 1. Strong leadership endures.

Because of Auerbach, the Celtics are one of America's most racially liberated institutions. Because Auerbach's thinking and approach were so ahead of their time, the Celtics are still to this day completely misunderstood.

Some of us still foolishly believe the franchise is anti-black solely because the Larry Bird teams were primarily white during an era when black players dominated the league.

The truth is the Bird teams were primarily white because it was the right thing to do at the time. No different than Boston drafting the first African-American player in 1950. No different than the Celtics starting the NBA's first all-black lineup in 1964. No different than Bill Russell being the NBA's first African-American head coach.

A free mind is such a beautiful thing. You can say and do things others can't imagine. "

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8262606?MSNHPHMA

[Fencer reregistered]

A bunch of valid points in there.

But I'm not sure they follow from each other as smoothly as Whitlock seems to think.

What's more, I question his key pair of claims -- that it wouldn't have made sense to put Russell on a highly white team or Bird on a highly black one.

As a matter of fact, if we list Russell's most important teammates, the majority were white (Cousy, Heinsohn, Sharman, and Havlicek trump KC and Sam Jones, even though he and KC were college roomies and best buds). And I'm only aware of one black player Bird showed more than normal competitive disrespect to (Moses Malone).

[chakdaddy]

Holy crap...the part of the article you quoted sounded good...

But what a fool this guy is - WHAT AN INSULT TO RUSSELL AND BIRD, to imply that they needed teammates of the same race to feel comfortable and succeed, and that it was somehow OKAY to choose race over talent in selecting teammates, in order to appease superstars who, in Whitlock's opinion, are racist themselves.

Jemele Hill is off base with her hatred of the Celtics, but as far as racial issues, Whitlock is the guy who is always saying disgusting things - usually from a run of the mill right wing conservative stance, but this time it is even weirder.

[TheSheriff]

Last time i checked, Parrish, Tiny Archibald, Dennis Johnson, and Cedric Maxwell all won rings with Bird and they were black. Hondo, Cousy, Sharman, and Tommy all won rings with Russell and were white. Both Russell and Bird cared if the guy in locker next to him was a competitor and talented not what race he was.