The man is the greatest champion in all of sports. He is the best player in Celtics history. He and Red Auerbach are THE reasons why the Celtics are "The Celtics" (and why Chuck and I ignore our families to dedicate a site to this team).
And now, the NBA Finals MVP award will be named after Bill Russell.
"This is one of my proudest moments in basketball, because I determined early in my career, the only important statistic in basketball is the final score," Russell said. "
Russell's wife, Marilyn, recently died of cancer, and he was visibly moved as he accepted the honor.
"This is a bittersweet award," Russell said. "I just lost my special person. But I wanted to thank my teammates because we played a team game quite well. I accept this for my team, and my team included our coach, Red Auerbach, and all my teammates over the years. This is quite flattering."
I love that guy. Seriously. This is one of the baddest men on the planet. And to this day, he is still a team guy. Sports would be damn near perfect if every professional athlete strived to be like Bill Russell. Congratulations to him for a very well deserved distinction.
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