Legendary Sports Illustrated sportswriter Jack McCallum is feeling the celebratory vibes of the NBA’s 75th anniversary, and he put together a list of his 10 greatest “what-if” moments in league history, entertaining the possibility of what it would mean had critical events in NBA history not played out as they did.
Some of them are so critical they affected the entire league’s history (imagine what might have happened if the sport — on life support in its early years of the NBA — had not adopted the shot clock, for example), but others focus on some critical events more germane to specific teams, two of which directly touch on the Boston Celtics.
Let’s look at McCallum’s questioning the potential for counterfactual histories, and how things might have been different had they come to pass.
2. What if Ben Kerner had had more vision — or at least a bigger set of... ?
“The St. Louis Hawks owner always insisted he knew exactly what he was giving up when he traded Bill Russell, his pick in the 1956 draft, to the Boston Celtics for Cliff Hagen and “Easy” Ed Macauley,” writes McCallum of the infamous deal that sent one of the greatest players of all time to Boston.
“But he said he had to do it because he needed Macauley, a Missouri native and St. Louis University star, to fill seats,” he added. “And look, “Easy” Ed, the MVP of the first NBA All-Star Game, was pretty damn good.”
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The esteemed SI writer adds a wrinkle that seems pretty obvious in retrospect, even considering Boston’s deserved and less-than-sterling reputation in the same regard.
“But more to the point,” noted McCallum, “there was also that matter of St. Louis’s being a racist town, where Russell would not have been, to say the least, a fan favorite.”
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It wasn’t entirely a disaster for the Hawks, still years away from moving to Atlanta — but one has to wonder if they’d leap (no pun intended) at the chance for a mulligan on this league-altering trade.
“Kerner’s Hawks did get one championship, in 1957. But Russell not only created a dynasty in Boston, but he also changed the game, enabling the Celtics to become a transition team off his ability to block shots, rebound, throw the outlet pass and even finish on the other end.”
The world will never know.
5. What if the phrase "He's going back to school" hadn't been so scary to so many?
“The notion of Larry Bird considering sitting in, say, geography class instead of busting chops (and earning a million bucks) in the NBA seems farfetched, not to mention quaint,” observed McCallum.
“But that was Bird’s decision in 1978 when he became eligible for the NBA draft because his original college class had graduated. (Bird had originally enrolled at Indiana to play for the Hoosiers in ’74 before leaving Bloomington and spending a year at a junior college.)”
It created a loophole that breathed new life into a somewhat moribund Celtics organization when iconic team president Red Auerbach realized something that seems stultifyingly obvious in retrospect.
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The SI analyst laid out the scene, and how Bird’s decision — and Auerbach’s vision — set the stage for his Hall of Fame career in green and white.
“Bird’s decision to return to Indiana State accomplished two things: First, it set up his still-remembered Clash of the Titans battle against Michigan State sophomore Magic Johnson in the 1979 NCAA final. Second, it scared off five teams that didn’t want to wait a year to get a top player. They were his home state Pacers, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Kansas City Kings, the New York Knicks and the Golden State Warriors.”
But not the Boston Celtics and specifically Auerbach, who had this novel thought: ‘Wait a minute, there will still be a league in 1979. And the year after that. And the year …’.” jested McCallum, who made his bones as a sportswriter covering this era.
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“So he selected Bird, watched the Celtics struggle to a 29–53 record in ’78–79 without him … then win 61 games with Rookie of the Year Bird the following season,” closes the SI writer.
“And eventually three championships and two additional trips to the Finals,” adds McCallum, rubbing a little salt in the wound.
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