30 for 30 Celtics/Lakers

Interesting how Auerbach's reputation went full circle on the issue of race.

First half of his career: he's the leading champion of African Americans in the NBA--first to draft a black player, first to start an entire black starting lineup, first to have a black superstar, first to hire a black coach, etc.

Second half of his career: he becomes notorious for how many white guys he signs and always having the whitest roster in the NBA.

Seems he just had to do the opposite of what everyone else was doing. Maybe it's simply because he saw that's where the undervalued bargains were. When everyone else wanted whiteys, he realized there were undervalued steals to be had by going after the black talents being ignored by other teams. In later decades, after the "white guys can't play" ethos had taken over the League, he realized they were the players now being undervalued by the other GMs.

 

drafting Bird as a junior eligible and swinging the deal for McHale were just terrific GM moves. I guess with those two and Ainge the prevailing notion was they were overly white, but Ainge wasn't exactly undervalued either. Just how the chips fell.

 

Bird, McHale and Ainge were not the acquisitions that raised eyebrows--who's gonna question the pursuit of players who turn out as good as those three? Instead, it was more the endless string of others also on those rosters (see Scott Wedman, Jerry Sichting, Greg Kite, Rick Robey, Rick Carlisle, Chris Ford, Fred Roberts, Conner Henry, Mark Acres, Brad Lohaus, Joe Kleine, Jim Paxson, etc.). It wasn't just the starters, the 80s Celts also had whiter role players and benchwarmers than the other teams.

The pattern started to seem absurdly obvious by the end of the decade. Each time the Celts would lose one of those white guys Auerbach would replace him with another. Meanwhile the rest of the League was filling those same roster spots with black players. You see that happen long enough, and the same team continue to have the whitest roster year after year--even after personnel changes--and eventually it's hard not to think "This can't possibly just be coincidence."

But then you remember it's Auerbach, the same guy known for precisely the opposite thing in the 50s and 60s. And then you noticed how much they're winning ...and, well, whatever the motivation, it sure seems to be working ..so who knows.

 

From the Sixties, when he picked up guys like Don Nelson, Lovellette, Loscutoff, Willie Naulls and Wayne Embry, Auerbach had made a practice of picking up fading stars for a final season or two to fill part time roles.

As the full talent effect of the ABA merger/absorption/assimilation into the NBA worked itself out in the early 80s, more and more of those aging fading former stars seemed to be relatively unathletic white guys. Although most of them (Wedman, Sichting) had been decent players for a stretch.

I would guess there were also some marketing aspects to it too.

 

You forgot drafting Michael Smith ahead of Tim Hardaway.

 

Bill Walton with the long hair and head band looked a little like Rocky Dennis.

 

That's pretty much what Gumbel said.

 

AC Green looks like an alien. Is he still a virgin?