What better day to delve into the life of a legend like Bill Russell. This morning LeBron James dethroned Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the top of the ranking of the best scorers in NBA history? This afternoon we therefore devoured more than three hours of images tracing the career, the life of the icon Bill Russell, and we advise you to do the same.
Bill Russell left us on July 31 at the age of 88, but his ringed fingers, his laughter, his legacy and his daily struggle still resonate and will resonate for a long time in the NBA sphere. In order to make this duty of memory more concrete, Netflix has therefore released the documentary “Bill Russell: NBA legend” on its platform today, a two-part documentary that looks back on Billou’s work.
We said the work well, because before being an accomplished basketball player and an invested human being, the Celtics legend was indeed a ball artist, constantly imagining new strategies during reflections that he liked to call his “laboratory secret”.
Oscar Robertson, Chris Paul, Stephen Curry, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, Steve Smith, Larry Birdmany are those who intervene here to help us realize the greatness of the man and the basketball player, testimonies backed by archive images offering us interviews with Red Auerbach, Wilt Chamberlain, KC Jones or even Bob Cousy .
“It’s stronger than God, it’s the big bang” – Jalen Rose
“Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain? Two mythological monsters, two titans fighting over the ring” – Robert Horry
“I missed my first four shots. He countered the first two and I missed the other two because I was scared”. – Bob Pettit
“He embodied the word champion, on and off the field” – Barack Obama
Joy, a lot, logical when you have more titles than fingers on your hands, but a struggle, too, an incessant struggle for a better life, for a “normal” life.
“Dirty nigger, go back to Africa macaque.”
Because Bill Russell is also that. A man who lived through painful times for an African-American, the word is weak, and who fought until his last breath to defend civil rights. Throughout this documentary we therefore juggle between sporting exploits and a flouted human condition, without ever pushing Bill to give up, let’s even say that it gave him strength to fight again and again.
In the field ? “The inventor of modern defensive basketball”, titles in the NCAA in San Francisco, titles in the NBA, in Boston of course, titles as a player, as a coach, as… a coach-player, bah let’s see. And then this heritage, this respect that we feel from here, literally, this respect for the generations that have followed, eager to take over as much as they can, as they can.
Stories of dancing on ice (?!?), his fights with Wilt Chamberlain and/or the Lakers, his fights against the passage of time, his fights against an unfair condition. The life of Bill Russell deserves to be posed for hours, days, but this 3-hour documentary finally does the job, by succeeding in the performance of keeping us focused without any pause while making us want to consume Russell still and always.
Allez, Netflix and Bill.