Bill Russell is a legend and his passing this year is a huge loss for American basketball and world sport. At each of his public appearances, the most successful player in history was celebrated and praised. The city of Boston dedicated a statue to him, and any self-respecting fan has heard of the great stile’s dominance over the NBA in the 1950s and 60s: 11 league titles, staggering individual stats and profound cultural impact.
Between 1957 and 1966, the Celtics won 9 titles including 8 in a row with the only anomaly in 1958. A team, now forgotten, brought down the myth that year: the St. Louis Hawks. Since leaving for Atlanta, the Hawks have been the itching hair of a unique dynasty. A team which, more or less, could have carved out the lion’s share of the collective memory.
Today deprived of basketball and forced to settle for the Blues in hockey and the Rams in football, St. Louis was a stronghold of the NBA for … less than 10 years. The time for Bob Pettit90 years old this year, and his band to play in four Finals and win a title against the untouchable Celtics, before the Lakers of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor repeatedly come up against the wall of Massachusetts.
The success of the Hawks is closely linked to that of Pettit, rarely cited spontaneously as one of the best players of all time. And yet…
Proof that Bill Russell is the ultimate winner, more than Jordan or LeBron
“Playing Bob Pettit was at least as hard as playing Wilt Chamberlain,” Bill Russell once said in the Boston Globe.
Position 4 of 2m06, Pettit was an exceptional rebounder (16.2 career average) and a brilliant attacker capable of driving any seasoned defender crazy. First MVP in history in 1956 and All-Star 11 times, the native of Louisiana is a phenomenon in the same way as his rival from Boston. Few can boast of having scored 50 points against Russell in a Finals match. Pettit succeeded in the crucial game 6 of 1958, traumatizing the “Father of Defense”, a little diminished by an ankle injury.
At the time, the local media were also happy to praise the merits of the “white” Pettit against the African-American Russell. They are careful not to remind a public not yet fed with continuous information this startling anecdote: it was the Hawks who drafted Bill Russell two years earlier before giving up his rights to Boston against two players. Without the insistence of the great Red Auerbach, St Louis could have found themselves in the place of the Celtics and crushed the NBA thanks to this terrifying duo…
Racism plagues the Hawks
Living in Missouri in the 50s or 60s when you’re not Caucasian can be tough. Lenny Wilkensthe Hall of Famer, says in his biography:
“When I arrived in St. Louis in 1960, I realized that things were different here. Downtown, I was not served in restaurants. I received despicable letters and my neighbors did everything to avoid me meet or look at me”.
Within the team, executives like Pettit are passive and do not, at first, do much to protect their comrades who are victims of ambient racism. The climate deteriorated a little more in 1962, when coach Paul Seymour was instructed to reduce the role of Cleo Hill, an African-American, whose talent risks eclipsing Pettit, Cliff Hagan and Clyde Lovellette, the three white stars of the team. Seymour refuses and is fired on the spot.
The unfortunate Hill, the victim of a league-wide smear campaign, will never tread a basketball court again. It’s the beginning of the end for the Hawks in St. Louis. As a symbol, it was in 1968, the year of Martin Luther King’s assassination, that they moved to Atlanta, the pastor’s birthplace, to create a new identity.
Bob Pettit is extremely rare in the media today, much more in any case than the other myths of the league still alive. In 2010, in an interview with NBA.com, he explained, however:
“I’m not unhappy that people don’t talk about us more. We’ve had some very good things and some less glorious things. I’m satisfied with my career. Who can say he managed to win a title? against the team of Bill Russell, the greatest player of all time?”