Rusell Talks The Legacy, LeBron And -- Of Course -- The C's (Part I)

BOSTON -- His golf cap does not quite hide his full head of hair, the typical paunch is absent from his flat belly, and a worn championship ring weighs down each hand as 73-year-old Bill Russell devours the plate of steak and scrambled eggs from the edge of the coffee table between his perched knees. He laughs as always with the decibelic force of a ghost brought back to life.

He still is who he was. He was the best and he always will be just that, no more or no less.

He realizes that people don't know what to make of him anymore.

"It's like Wilt's 50 points a game,'' Russell says of his friend Chamberlain's unimaginable 50.4 scoring average over 80 games in 1961-62. "My eight [NBA championships] in a row -- or 11 [in 13 seasons overall] -- is so far removed for most people, it's like it never happened. I get the feeling that people think that these guys from Mars came down, won eight NBA championships and went back.'' His amused smile makes clear that he isn't taking it personally.

They put on a night to honor Russell's career a few years ago in the big downtown Boston arena that has replaced the old Garden. Wilt was there, not long before his death, as was commissioner David Stern. Michael Jordan sent a video in which he tried to joke that it was harder for him to win his six championships against the 26 more teams of his era than it had been for Russell, who was competing against 13 teams when he retired in 1969. Stern, to his credit, argued the other side: When it was his turn to speak, he pointed out that Russell's achievements were more striking because the NBA's talent was far more concentrated in the 1960s -- an admission that expansion has diluted the league.

"When I was a rookie," Russell says, "there were eight teams in the NBA, and 10 men to a squad. There were 80 jobs in professional basketball. My [third] year I had four guards, four forwards and two centers. All four of my guards are in the Hall of Fame now: K.C. [Jones], Sam [Jones], [Bill] Sharman and [Bob] Cousy. So when we went to the bench we didn't get hurt -- at all.''

Russell is hoping to create a similar environment with his first fantasy camp this fall. It will be held Oct. 17-20 at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, and his camp "staff'' will include some of the greatest players of all time: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, Julius Erving, John Havlicek, Magic Johnson, Sam Jones, Ann Meyers Drysdale, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West. Adults can play in their company for four days at a price of $15,000, which is in the ballpark of what some NBA players were making in Russell's era.

"Basically it's a fantasy camp for me,'' Russell says. "I want to go to this fantasy camp and have all of these guys here.''

Why is it that the best performers in sports so often wind up becoming the best of friends?

"We have the same experiences with the same -- if you want to call them -- pressures,'' he says. "And most of that pressure is internal. You're going to go play, and you can't tell anybody else in the room about it, but you know if you're not going to play well, we're going to get our ass kicked.''

continued at part II......

source : sportsillustrated.cnn.com