Before Russell arrived in 1956, Boston had never won an NBA title. In his rookie year—the one in which he blocked Jack Coleman’s layup in Game 7 of the Finals—that changed. Then, twelve years later, after winning championship number eleven, Russell retired from basketball and left his team to cope on its own. The Celtics promptly collapsed, posting their first losing record in twenty years. The timing of these events was so uncanny that I started to entertain a radical idea. I wondered if Russell, himself, had been the catalyst.
