Long before he was running the NBA, Adam Silver was an eager young staffer whose duties included opening mail, writing memos and carrying around large stacks of glossy Bill Russell photos—all of it important, none of it as gratifying as the last bit.
Russell, of course, was famously reluctant to sign autographs, preferring a conversation or a handshake to a scribbled signature as a means to connect with people. But for the fan who required something tangible, there were the glossy photos. And Silver, in his role as special assistant to the commissioner in the early 1990s, had the job of navigating those moments.
“I would cringe each time,” Silver recalls with a slight chuckle, “because there were a few generations of fans who didn’t know that Bill Russell did not sign autographs and seemingly would naively say, ‘Mr. Russell, can I get your autograph?’ And I would almost be holding him back, and I’d be jumping in, ‘Uh, no.’”
