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Arnold Jacob " Red" Auerbach (September 20, 1917 – October 28, 2006) was an American professional basketball coach and executive. As head coach, he led the Boston Celtics to eight consecutive NBA championships between 1959 to 1966. On retiring in 1966, he held an NBA coaching record of 938 wins. He served as general manager of the Celtics from 1966 to 1984, and later as President and Vice-Chairman of the Board. He won a combined 16 NBA titles in his 29 years with the Celtics, the most of any individual, making him one of the most successful team officials in the history of North American professional sports. He served as president of the Celtics until his death in 2006 at the age of 89.
Auerbach coached many players who were inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He also played a key role in decreasing racial discrimination in the NBA. In 1950, he drafted Chuck Cooper, the NBA's first African-American player. In 1965, he introduced the first African-American starting five. In 1966, he hired Bill Russell as the NBA's first African-American head coach.
Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969. In 1980, the Professional Basketball Writers Association of America voted Auerbach the greatest coach in the NBA history. He was also named NBA Executive of the Year in 1980. Auerbach has been regarded as one of the NBA 10 Greatest Coaches in history, was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and had his number 2 jersey retired at TD Garden, the Celtics' stadium.
During the Great Depression, Auerbach played basketball as a guard at P.S. 122 and Eastern District High School, where he was named "Second Team All-Brooklyn" by the World-Telegram in his senior year.
On February 4, 1943, Auerbach appeared in a game for the Harrisburg Senators of the American Basketball League (ABL) and scored one point.
In the 1946–47 BAA season, Auerbach led a fast break-oriented team built around early BAA star Bones McKinney and various ex-Navy players to a 49–11 win–loss record. Their record included a 17-game winning streak that stood as the single-season league record until 1969. In the playoffs, however, they were defeated by the Chicago Stags in six games.
The following year the Capitols went 28–20 but were eliminated from the playoffs in a one-game Western Division tie-breaker. In the 1948–49 season, the Capitols won their first fifteen games and finished at 38–22. The team reached the BAA Finals but were beaten by the Minneapolis Lakers, led by Hall of Famer George Mikan. In the following season, the BAA and the rival National Basketball League merged to become the NBA, and Auerbach felt he had to rebuild his squad. However, owner Uline declined his proposals, and Auerbach resigned.
In 1950, Auerbach took a position as the athletic director of Kutsher's Hotel in the Catskills, NY. Kutsher's was the center of a summertime basketball league, and players from the New York City area would participate, playing for one of several local country clubs and hotels.
Entering the 1951 season, the Celtics core players were Ed Macauley, Bones McKinney and Bob Cousy. With Auerbach's fast-break tactics, the Celtics achieved a 39–30 record but lost in the 1951 NBA Playoffs to the New York Knicks. However, the relationship between Auerbach and Cousy improved when the coach help craft the young guard—an already outstanding dribbler and passer—into a great playmaker.
In the following 1951–52 NBA season, the Celtics obtained guard Bill Sharman. Sharman, who was drafted in the second round of the 1950 NBA draft, played his rookie season with the Washington Capitols. When the Capitols folded after the 1950 season, Sharman was selected by the Fort Wayne Pistons in the dispersal draft and subsequently traded to the Celtics before the 1951 season. With the high-scoring Macauley, elite passer Cousy, and new prodigy Sharman, Auerbach had his team. Other notable players who joined the Celtics during these early years were forwards Frank Ramsey and Jim Loscutoff. For the next five seasons, the Celtics would make the playoffs every year but never won a title. The Celtics struggled in the playoffs, going 10–17 in the postseason from 1951 through 1956. As Cousy put it: "we would get tired in the end and couldn't get the ball." As a result, Auerbach sought a defensive big man who could get easy rebounds, initiate fast breaks, and close out games.
On the day of the 1956 NBA draft, Auerbach acquired Bill Russell, a defensive rebounding center, via a draft-day trade with the rival St. Louis Hawks. Auerbach also selected forward Tom Heinsohn and guard K.C. Jones, two future Hall of Famers. Emphasizing team play rather than individual performances, and stressing that defense was more important than offense, Auerbach drilled his players to play tough defense and force opposing turnovers for easy fast-break points. Forward Satch Sanders recalled, "defense and conditioning were the best parts of those teams".
Anchored by Russell, the Celtics forced their opponents to take low-percentage shots from farther distances (there was no three-point arc at the time). This strategy allowed Auerbach's Celtics to take advantage on the fast break. Auerbach also emphasized the need for role players like Frank Ramsey and John Havlicek, who became two of the first legitimate sixth man in NBA history, a role later played by Don Nelson. Auerbach's recipe demoralized the opposition. From 1957 to 1966, the Celtics won nine of ten NBA championships. This included eight consecutive championships—the longest championship streak in North American sports—and six finals victories over the Los Angeles Lakers Hall of Famers Elgin Baylor and Jerry West. The Celtics' dominance during this time denied perennial scoring and rebounding champion Wilt Chamberlain a title during Auerbach's coaching reign.
In 1964, Auerbach sent out the first African-American starting five in NBA history. The players were Bill Russell, Willie Naulls, Tom Sanders, Sam Jones, and K.C. Jones. For the 1966–67 NBA season, Auerbach appointed Bill Russell as the first African-American coach in NBA history. Auerbach also popularized smoking a victory cigar whenever he thought a game was already decided, a habit that became a popular tradition in the Boston area. Auerbach had a reputation as a fierce competitor. He often got into verbal altercations with officials and was frequently fined and ejected.
Thirteen players who played for Auerbach have been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame—Macauley, Ramsey, Cousy, Sharman, Heinsohn, Clyde Lovellette, Arnie Risen, Andy Phillip, John R. Thompson (as a coach), Russell, K.C. Jones, Havlicek, and Sam Jones. Sharman, Heinsohn, and Russell would become three of only five people to be inducted into the Hall of Fame as both players and coaches.
Before the 1965–66 NBA season, Auerbach announced the coming year would be his last as coach, stating to the rest of the league, "This is your chance to take your last shot at me." After losing Game 1 of the 1966 Finals to the Lakers in overtime, he publicly named his successor, center Bill Russell. The Celtics won the series in seven games.
However, Auerbach could not prevent the Celtics from going south at the end of the 1970s. He traded away both Silas and Westphal because they wanted salary increases that would have made them higher earners than what he believed to be the best player on the Celtics (Cowens), which was not acceptable to Auerbach. While the Westphal trade to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Charlie Scott was considered a success due to the Celtics' 13th title in 1976, Auerbach later admitted he erred in letting Silas go, even after Cowens personally begged him to give Silas a new deal. When Havlicek retired in 1978, the Celtics went 61–103 in two seasons. In the summer of 1978, after the worst in a string of contentious clashes with several different owners after Walter Brown's passing in 1964, Auerbach hopped into a taxi to take him to Logan Airport, where he was to board a flight to New York to consider a lucrative contract offer from Knicks owner Sonny Werblin. However, the cab driver pleaded with him to stay, emphasizing how much Bostonians loved him and considered him their family. Soon after, heading a team press conference, and with his typical bravado, Auerbach puffed on his trademark cigar and stated: "I'm not going anywhere. We're going to sign Larry Bird and we're going to be on top again." Despite knowing that Bird, a talented young player from unheralded Indiana State, had a year of college eligibility remaining, he had drafted Bird as a junior eligible in the 1978 NBA draft. He waited for a year until the future Hall of Fame forward Bird arrived, finally setting aside his team salary rules when it became clear that his choices were paying Bird a record-setting rookie salary or watching him re-enter the 1979 draft. Bird then became the highest-paid Celtic as a rookie, with a $650,000-per-year deal. Auerbach knew the brilliant, hard-working Bird would be the cornerstone of a new Celtics generation.
In 1980, Auerbach pulled off what became known as "The Steal of The Century". He convinced the Golden State Warriors to trade him a #3 overall pick and future Hall-of-Fame center Robert Parish in exchange for two picks in the 1980 NBA draft: #1 overall Joe Barry Carroll and the #13 pick Rickey Brown. With the #3 pick, Auerbach selected the player he most wanted in the draft, Kevin McHale, who would also be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The Parish-McHale-Bird frontcourt became one of the greatest in NBA history. Auerbach also hired head coach Bill Fitch, who led the revamped Celtics to the 1981 title.
In 1983, Auerbach named former Celtics player K.C. Jones as the coach. Starting in 1984, Jones coached the Celtics to four straight appearances in the NBA Finals, winning championships in 1984 and 1986. Auerbach also made a pair of shrewd trades that led to those titles, acquiring Dennis Johnson before the 1984 season to strengthen their backcourt defense, and Bill Walton before the 1986 season to provide much-needed bench scoring.
Auerbach, as a part-time side gig, was the color analyst on NBA and college basketball games for TBS Sports from 1982 to 1987. Turner's 'Dream Game' Was a Rude Awakening – The Washington Post
In 1984, after he relinquished his general managing duties to Jan Volk, Auerbach focused on continuing as president and later vice-chairman of the Boston Celtics. In a surprising move after winning their 15th title, he traded popular guard Gerald Henderson, the Game 2 hero in the Finals against the Lakers, for Seattle's first-round draft pick in 1986. Two years later, after the Celtics defeated Houston in the finals for their 16th championship, he used the second overall pick in the 1986 draft, the pick acquired from Seattle, to take college prodigy Len Bias from Maryland, arguably the most brilliant coup in Auerbach's stellar career. With the team's star players still in their prime, the defending champions appeared set to compete at the top for years. However, tragedy struck just two days later, when Bias died of a cocaine overdose. Several years later, Celtics star player Reggie Lewis died suddenly in 1993. Without any league compensation for either loss, the team fell into decline, not seeing another Finals appearance in Auerbach's lifetime.
In an interview, Auerbach confessed that he lost interest in big-time managing in the early 1990s, preferring to stay in the background and concentrating on his pastimes, racquetball and his cigar-smoking. He would, however, stay on with the Celtics as president until 1997, as vice chairman until 2001, and then became president again, a position he held until his death, although in his final years, he was weakened by heart problems and often used a wheelchair.
Auerbach married Dorothy Lewis in the spring of 1941. The couple had two daughters, Nancy and Randy. They also helped raise Nancy's daughter Julie.
Auerbach enjoyed smoking cigars. In the 1960s, some Boston restaurants displayed signs stating, "No cigar or pipe smoking, except for Red Auerbach". In addition, Auerbach was well known for his love of Chinese cuisine. In an interview shortly before his death, he explained that since the 1950s, Chinese takeout was the most convenient nutrition: NBA teams used to travel on regular flights and had a tight schedule, so filling up the stomach with heavier non-Chinese food meant wasting time and risking travel-sickness. Over the years, Auerbach became so fond of this food that he even became a part-owner of a Chinese restaurant in Boston. Despite a heart operation, he remained active in his 80s, playing racquetball and making frequent public appearances.
Despite his fierce nature, Auerbach was popular among his players. He recalled that at his 75th birthday party, 45 of his former players showed up; and when he turned 80, his perennial 1960s-era foe Wilt Chamberlain showed up, a gesture Auerbach dearly appreciated.
In an interview with ESPN, Auerbach stated that his all-star fantasy team would consist of Bill Russell—who in the former's opinion was the ultimate player to start a franchise with—as well as Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, with John Havlicek as the sixth man. As for the greatest basketball players of all time, Auerbach's candidates were Russell, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Michael Jordan. Auerbach made multiple such "all-time" rankings over the years, with his last one being in June 2006, months before his death. Auerbach talked about his fictional team with journalist Ken Shouler which featured the following: Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, and Russell at center; Bird, Julius Erving, Pettit, and Baylor at forward; and Robertson, Jordan, Havlicek, Johnson, and Cousy at guard.
Auerbach was elected to the American Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1991. In 1993, Auerbach received an honorary Doctor of Public Service from George Washington University.
During the 2006–07 NBA season, NBA TV and NBA.com aired of Auerbach's four-minute instructional videos known as "Red on Roundball" previously aired during NBA on CBS halftime shows in the 1970s and 1980s, and as a testament to his importance in the Boston sports world, the Boston Red Sox honored Auerbach at their April 20, 2007 game against the New York Yankees by wearing green uniforms and by hanging replicated Celtics championship banners on the "Green Monster" at Fenway Park. Boston won 7–6.
Before Boston's season opener against the Wizards, his signature was officially placed on the parquet floor near center court, thereby naming the court as "Red Auerbach Parquet Floor". The ceremony was attended by his daughter Randy and Celtics legends. The signature replaced the Red Auerbach memorial logo used during the 2007 season.
In 1985, the Celtics retired a number 2 jersey with Auerbach's name, to recognize his significant contributions to the franchise.
In 1985, a statue of Auerbach was unveiled outside of Quincy Market in Downtown Boston
Auerbach was included in the 2008 documentary The First Basket, which chronicles the history of Jews in Basketball.
In 2018, the Celtics opened the Auerbach Center as the team's new practice facility and headquarters.
Auerbach is remembered for his unique tactics, which have been described as "psychological warfare." He attempted to provoke opposing players and officials with unabashed trash talk. He was ejected more often and received more fines than any other coach in NBA history. One notable incident came during a preseason game in 1983, when Auerbach stormed the court and screamed nose-to-nose with the 6'10" 260-pound Moses Malone. Auerbach was softer with his own players. Earl Lloyd, the first black player to play in the NBA, said: "Red Auerbach convinced his players that he loved them... so all they wanted to do was please him."
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