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

He laughs his famous laugh, and for those few moments his hotel room rattles like an echo chamber. Russell lives full time in Seattle, but he has returned to Boston for this weekend in June to receive an honorary degree from Harvard.

It would be easy to promote his career at the expense of modern NBA players, to point out their deficiencies in order to emphasis his fundamental strengths. But Russell doesn't go there. On the contrary, he is protective of those who are trying to emulate him despite the pressures.

"I talk to all the rookies during their orientation week,'' he says. "I say to them, 'You're the caretakers.' It's up to the players to conduct themselves in a way that there'll always be an NBA. It's like if you watch TV and these talking heads are telling you what LeBron James should be doing. Well, they don't know what he should be doing. Like this year, I was personally offended when he went down the middle and passed the ball off, which was the exact thing he should have done.''

Russell was referring to Game 1 of last season's Eastern Conference finals when James passed up what would have been a contested shot near the basket in order to feed Donyell Marshall for a potential go-ahead three-pointer from the corner with 5.9 seconds left. Marshall missed, the Cavaliers lost to the Pistons 79-76 and James was second-guessed for not taking it all the way to the rim.

"Here's a guy who shoots that shot,'' Russell says of Marshall, a proven three-point shooter. "That's not just a uniform over there that I pass the ball to. And now all you're doing is presenting an opportunity for him to do well in what he does best. To criticize him for that, who gives a [bleep] what you think?

"Michael, I remember, he passed off to [Steve] Kerr [for a game-winning shot in the NBA Finals]. You have to know your team and who can do what. If you know there's not a good chance of this guy making it, then you go do it. But over the years you've got to know your team and which guys can perform under pressure.''

Russell tells a story from his final year as player/coach of the Celtics in 1968-69. He says he took the stats home at the end of the regular season and realized that his team had lost 17 games by three points or fewer, resulting in their No. 4 conference seed going into the playoffs.

"I go to practice the next day,'' Russell recalls, "and I say, 'Listen, guys, I think it's because we've never had a last-second-shot play. Red [Auerbach] never put one in. We've never had one. So I want you to go back to your college days, or even in high school, I don't care. Did any of your coaches ever have a play for a last-second shot?' So three guys came up with plays. And I decided to use the one from Ohio State from [Larry] Siegfried and Havlicek. So we worked the next four hours running that play. And the first time we ran it, it took 27 seconds. When we left the gym, we could run it in seven seconds.

In Game 4 of the NBA Finals against the favored Lakers, who led 2-1, the Celtics were trailing by a point when they intercepted an inbounds pass. "We call timeout, seven seconds left,'' Russell says. "So now we know the play. This is the shooting order: Sam, I think Havlicek, Siegfried, Bailey [Howell] and [Don] Nelson. I took myself out because it's going to be a 15-foot shot, and I shouldn't be out there looking for a 15-foot shot.''

continued at Part III......

source : sportsillustrated.cnn.com