Winding Down

6 or 7
With the Celtics' loss to the Lakers in Game 5 last night, the NBA Finals will go 6 or 7 games. I really wanted to the Celts to finish this off, and they had the chance. It's been ...

57
Days since the first round of the NBA playoffs started. Between the Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics, life has been very good to me as a sports fan this past year, so I don't want to whine, but I will anyway. We're closing in on two months of "must-see" games that begin at 8 or 9 p.m. EST. Every single Finals game has started at 9, even the ones on Sunday. It's left me exhausted half the time, and I'm looking forward to moving on with my life. Maybe spending some time with family and friends, taking up a new hobby, or reading an interesting book ...

... such as Bill Russell's autobiography, Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man. This is one of several books I've read this year, none of which I've reviewed yet. So on the eve of what I hope will be the Celtics' 17th NBA championship, let's pay tribute to the man who played on 11 of those championship teams.

5
Reasons why 'Second Wind' might actually be interesting to a non-basketball fan:

• Segregation-era Louisiana -- The first chapter is about his family in segregation-era Monroe, Louisiana in the late 1930s and early 40s. It's revolting to read about the way his parents were treated, especially his mother, who was told by the local sheriff that she couldn't wear a dress because it was "white woman's clothing." After this, Russell's father decided that the family was going to move to Oakland, California. Of course, later in life, Russell was no fan of Boston, either. He called it a "flea market of racism" among other things. In recent years, though, Russell seems to have changed his opinion -- he's been to a bunch of Celtics games this year, and went to the Red Sox ring ceremonies for the 2004 and 2007 chamipnships.
  
• Co-author Taylor Branch -- As one Amazon reviewer says, this book is a model for anybody who is interested in ghostwriting. Taylor Branch, who wrote the three-part series on America in the Martin Luther King years, pulls off a perfect balancing act. "Second Wind" is Bill Russell's voice all the way. Branch's craft, though, is evident in the flow of this book. It's not completely chronological, and it's far from a laundry list of Russell's championships and athletic feats. The chapters are more conceptually-based.
  
• Motivation -- Bill Russell is an extraordinarily driven man, and it's inspiring to read what made him tick when he played. He won two NCAA championships, an Olympic gold medal, and 11 NBA championships. I sought this book out because of Bill Simmons' praise for the Championship chapter -- he said he'd never read anything better about what keeps a multi-time champion motivated to keep winning. What I loved even more was Russell's description on being "in the zone." To play at his highest level, he felt that he needed not only his teammates, but also his opponents to play at their peak level. Russell has high praise for his "rival" Wilt Chamberlain, and takes issue with the prevailing image of Wilt as a choker.
  
• Hoops Perspective -- Before this season, it had been 10 years since I'd really followed the NBA. "Second Wind" gave me a new appreciation for the sport at the same time that Kevin Garnett made the Celtics, at long last, watchable again. I love Russell's descriptions of philosophizing with K.C. Jones, his University of San Francisco roommate and later his Celtics teammate. They'd talk about all endless possible patterns that 10 men on the floor can make, or try to concoct innovative defensive strategies at a time when they barely existed. Blocked shots and their aftermath remind me of this book -- I think it could give somebody an appreciation for basketball even if they had none before.
  
• Opinionated -- The subtitle is no lie. Russell was pretty controversial in his day, but that makes him infinitely more interesting than many of today's top-tier athletes who speak like human press releases.