Red Auerbach: The Esquire Interview (entire interview)

Auerbach would select Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain to be on his all-star NBA team. He would not choose Dennis Rodman or Bill Walton. Auerbach evaluates several of the top basketball players in history.

The old man has done it all. Seen it all. All you have to do is ask him.

"Ask me anything that happened in this league," Red Auerbach growls. "Fifty years ago, forty years ago, thirty--I remember it all. Just don't ask me what I had for breakfast."



The old man and I are here to discuss the history of the National Basketball Association in this, its fiftieth-anniversary season. He was there when the NBA opened up for business, and all this time later he is still here. He is still on the masthead of the Boston Celtics, at the age of seventy-nine; he still knows more about coaching a team or running one than any of the current slicked-back NBA wonder boys; he still hats records in the books that no one will ever touch He was the Jordan of coaches. Or maybe Michael Jordan is the Auerbach of basketball players. The only other management figure in the history of American professional sports who compares to Auerbach is the late George Halas. As great as Halas was, as much of a pro-foot-ball pioneer as he was, e did not win the way Auerbach did in Boston, first as a coach, then as the president and general manager of the team.

After breakfast, the old man sits in the office he, keeps in downtown Washington, D. C. Three times a week, he goes from there to a racquetball game, two-on-one, he and his partner against Sam Jones's son, the recreational-sports director at George Washington University, Auerbach's alma mater. The old man with the cigar in his mouth doesn't look the part, but back in the thirties he was the the best rebounder on the GW team.

Following the racquetball game, he goes to his club for lunch and plays cards with the boys the rest of the afternoon. He is basketball's Sunshine Boy, funny and cantankerous--as if Neil Simon, a big basketball fan himself, had invented him.

And he is being Wilt: How can you asked on this day to help leave him off? me make up my all-time NBA team--before the rest of the free world does later this year. A real Dream Team, for the ages. Twelve players and a coach. And as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to coaches, there is the list with his name on it, then all the others. There was going to be no polling here. Just Auerbach. He is my coach and my general manager.

Who else am I going to ask to help pick the team, Dennis Rodman?

Right out of the box, in fact, I ask Auerbach if Rodman, the most prolific rebounder in the NBA since Bill Russell, would make the team. Auerbach snorts.

"I wouldn't take that guy even if he was good enough," he says. "Come on. I can't take that shit. Besides, why would I want to travel with a team beautician?"

Before we really get started, I ask if he would like to pick any assistant coaches.

"Why?" he says. "I didn't have any in the old days--why do I need them now? I watch these guys huddle up with their assistant coaches before they start talking to the team during a time-out, and I'm thinking, What the hell are they talking about in there? Don't they know why they called the damn time-out in the first place?"

So Auerbach won't require four assistant coaches and one of those magnetized boards that have movable pieces to draw up plays and perhaps offer everything during an NBA time-out except a slide show.

"I used something else," the old man says, ready to give away one of his coaching secrets. "It's called memory."

The first two names I offer him are Bill Russell and Michael Jordan.

If you were starting a team, I ask him, and could pick only one of them, which one would you take?

There is a long pause, and finally the old man says, "Jordan."

"You'd take Jordan over the guy who won the Celtics thirteen titles?

Another pause.

"You gotta be realistic," Red Auerbach says. "Listen, everybody knows what I think of Russell. what Rusell did for me. I love Russell. He was the premier shot blocker in the history of the game, and it was more than that with the guy--he was also the premier intimidator. He wasn't just the best rebounder I ever saw; he was the best anticipator. And when he got that ball, he wasn't screwing around with it; he was starting the fast break. He was more interested in winning than anybody I ever saw, he was not a self-promoter, and--you go back and look it up--he was a better scorer than people think. This isn't anything against Russell. Out of all the centers who've ever played, I'd pick him first.

"But Jordan does things nobody could ever do, including selling tickets. He's electrifying on offense, and he is A pretty damn good on defense, too. The thing I love about Jordan, the thing I've always loved, is that he works. He works, and he makes every single player on the floor with him better, every time he's on the floor. And he's a leader."

Auerbach and decide to go with three centers on my all-time team: In addition to Russell, we take Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In other words, not one of the centers playing the game now is coming off my bench. No David Robinson, no Patrick Ewing, no Shaquille O'Neal, not even the great Hakeem Olajuwon. This is supposed to be the greatest collection of talent at the position ever. and none of them makes my team.

"I remember something Russell said once--I got a big kick out of it," he says. "It was right after Jabbar came into the league. Now, don't take this the wrong way, 'cause I was a Jabbar fan. But somebody said to Russell, `How do you think you'd do against Jabbar?' And Russell looks at the guy and says, `You've got the question wrong. The question is, How would Jabbar have done against me?' That was a good one."

When asked about Wilt, never one of Auerbach's favorites, he simply says, "You can't leave him off."

I briefly consider tapping the young, raggedy-haired, headband-wearing Bill Walton the Walton who showed such brilliant all-around skills in Portland before he started to get hurt, but Red convinces me to leave him off.

"He didn't do it long enough," Auerbach says. "Longevity counts."

The old man knows that better than anyone.

Three centers and Jordan. Four guys out of the twelve.

We go to guards, and I tell him that Bob Cousy is going to be one of my guards. Just because when I was a kid, Cousy was Michael Jordan. Cousy was the one who did things on a basketball court you had to see to believe.

Michael Jordan dunked? Cousy went behind his back. Jump ball.

No problem there, of course. I am preaching to the choir.

"If you're gonna run with this team," Auerbach says, "Cousy has to be on it. Cousy ran the fast break better than any player I've ever seen, and that includes Magic Johnson. Magic could do more things, and you know he's a no-brainer on this team. But if I had to pick between Cousy and Magic to run a three-on-two fast break, I go with Cousy." Fine, coach, but I'm taking both for my team.

Auerbach reflects for a moment and says, "I'm not the Magic fan I used to be, by the way. The guy became so self-serving at the end, it was ridiculous."

"What about Cousy versus Isiah Thomas?"

"Cousy," Red Auerbach says. "Isiah had better all-around skills; Cousy was better at making the other guys better. And people forget, he was bigger than Isiah."

The other two guards we settle on are Jerry West and Oscar the Robertson.

"Because if I don't pick them," he says, "I'm nuts. They could have played at any time, for anybody.

"This game wasn't invented five minutes ago," Auerbach says, "despite what the kids think."

"Charles Barkley?" I ask when we get to the forwards.

"No," Red Auerbach says.

"Why not?"

"There were too many times when he didn't have his head in the game."

"He put up some amazing numbers.

"I don't care, I hate that shit."

I point out to Auerbach that after Larry Bird makes the team at forward, there are only three spots left.

"Lemme think about this," he says, and finally he comes up with five names: Bob Pettit, Kevin McHale, Julius Erving, Elgin Baylor, and Karl Malone.

"You can't have a team like this and not include Pettit," he says of the old St. Louis Hawk. "He was as tough an opponent as we ever had, as tough a player as I ever saw. He could beat you inside, he could beat you outside. And he played two positions: forward on offense, center when he got down to the other end and had to rebound. Just because people nowadays didn't see him doesn't mean he wasn't one of the all-time greats Because let me tell you something: I saw him, don't worry about that."

Auerbach looks over his list again. Two forwards to go.

"I can't pick three out of these five," he says "I'm picking all five."

"That makes fourteen players."

"What are you going to do, fine me?" he says. "I'm not gonna choose between Baylor and Dr. J. I loved 'em both. Especially Erving. Before there was ever a Jordan, he brought the spectacular to this league. He made the spectacular seem routine."

As for the Mailman, he has become the power forward against whom all the others are measured today, even if he has never been able to win a title with John Stockton in Utah.

"You know why I like Malone?" Auerbach says. "Because he never stops. He never stops playing; he never stops working. He came at you the first day he was in this league, and he's still coming at you. How the hell aren't you going to respect that?"

I say, "People will say you're picking McHale because he was a Celtic."

Auerbach says, "I'm picking McHale because even though he played forward, I always looked at him as one of the greatest pivotmen to ever play this game."

Given the fact that there is a slight bias toward some of Auerbach's former players--hey, like the old man says, fine me--I cannot resist asking him which of his old Celtics teams he would pick to play for the championship of all time.

"Would it be one of the ones with McHale, Bird, and Robert Parish?"

"How the hell are you going to play for the title without Russell?" he answers.

He thinks about it.

Finally, he says, "I'll take Russell, Tom Heinsohn and Satch Sanders at forward, Cousy and Sam Jones at guard, K. C. Jones and Havlicek coming off the bench."

He does not say which of the best NBA teams he is matching up against, but clearly, in his mind, he is thinking about Jordan's Bulls.

"I'll tell you why," he says. "I think Havlicek, out of everybody, could have done the best job on Jordan. He's just as big, and he's faster. That would have been something to see, don't you think?

"I'd like to see that game," Auerbach says.

So we go over the Roster one more time, my all-time team, our all-time team.

At center are Russell, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar.

Guards: Jordan, Magic, Cousy, West, and Robertson.

Forwards: Bird, McHale, Erving, Baylor, Pettit, and Malone.

"Okay," I say, "what's your starting five?"

"I didn't care about starting fives when I coached, and I'm not going to worry about it now."

"Forget starters. Which five guys do you want on the court at the end of the game?"

"Tell me who the other guys are, and then I'll decide how to match up. against them."

Isn't that just like the old man? Cagey to the finish. Waiting to see the other team make the first move. Waiting to light up his victory cigar.

ONE JUMP SHOP TO SAVE YOUR LIFE Jerry West

ONE HOOK SHOT TO SAVE YOUR LIFE Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

ONE SET SHOT TO SAVE YOUR LIFE Bill Sharman

ONE BANK SHOT TO SAVE YOUR LIFE Sam Jones

ONE BASKET OF ANY KIND TO SAVE YOUR LIFE Michael Jordan

BEST BALL HANDLER OF ALL TIME Pete Maravich

IF YOU COULD SEE ONE LAST DUNK The Young David Thompson

BEST SIXTH MAN OF ALL TIME John Havlicek

WORST FIRST-ROUND DRAFT CHOICE OF ALL TIME Sam Bowie (over Michael Jordan!)

BEST AGENT OF ALL TIME

BEST ALL-TIME AFROS Artis Gilmore Phil Jackson

BEST ALL-TIME NAME CHANGE Lloyd Free to World B. Free

WORST ALL-TIME NAME CHANGE Wally Jones to Wali Jones

CURRENT (JORDAN-FREE) NBA PICKUP SQUAD I'D SEND UP AGAINST ANYONE Charles Barkley Hakeem Olajuwon Shawn Kemp John Stockton Penny Hardaway Scottie Pippen (coming off the bench)

THE ALL-TIME HEAD-CASE TEAM Derrick Coleman Isaiah Rider Dennis Rodman Vernon Maxwell Spencer Haywood Fly Williams Marvin Barnes (and anyone else who ever played on the St. Louis Spirits) Coach: Bill Musselman

MOST UNDERRATED TEAM OF ALL TIME 1982-83 76ers

MOST OVERRATED TEAM OF ALL TIME The Bad-Boy Pistons

THE BEST TEAM TO WATCH, EVER The 1969-73 Knicks

SADDEST WASTE OF TALENT David Thompson

MOST ELECTRIFYING PLAYER IN THE NBA (PRE-JORDAN) Earl Monroe

THE ALL-TIME OVERRATED TEAM Shaquille O'Neal Elvin Hayes Dominique Wilkins Sidney Wicks Derrick Coleman Kenny Anderson (I should know--I overrated him). George McGinnis Dennis Rodman (Chicago Bulls version)

THE ALL-TIME UNDDERATED TEAM My friend Paul Westphal Walt Frazier Dave Cowens Nate Thurmond Sidney Moncrief Bob Lanier Adrian Dantley Marques Johnson Dennis Rodman (Detroit Pistons version)