NBA Legend, 11-Time Champion Bill Russell Dies At 88
1st August 2022
The Celtics hero is widely considered the most prolific winner in American sports history and today’s NBA Finals MVP award is named for him
- The entire global basketball community was saddened by the news that NBA legend Bill Russell passed away on Sunday at the age of 88
- NBA great Russell, the cornerstone of a Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 titles and a powerful voice for social justice, died peacefully with his wife by his side
- NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called Russell “the greatest champion in all of team sports, but added that his accolades “only begin to tell the story of Bill’s immense impact on our league and broader society
The entire global basketball community was saddened by the news that NBA legend Bill Russell passed away on Sunday at the age of 88.
NBA great Russell, the cornerstone of a Boston Celtics dynasty that won 11 titles and a powerful voice for social justice, died peacefully with his wife by his side.
The Celtics hero is widely considered the most prolific winner in American sports history and today’s NBA Finals MVP award is named for him.
Russell’s 11 titles with the Celtics included eight in a row from 1959-1966 and he averaged 15.1 points and 22.5 rebounds per game for his career, building a famed rivalry with Wilt Chamberlain in the 1960s.
He would become the first Black coach in the NBA and the first Black player inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975.
Off the court Russell was a giant in the fight for civil rights, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama in 2011.
"But for all the winning, Bill’s understanding of the struggle is what illuminated his life," Sunday’s statement on his Twitter page said.
"From boycotting a 1961 exhibition game to unmask too-long-tolerated discrimination, to leading Mississippi’s first integrated basketball camp in the combustible wake of Medgar Evans’ assassination, to decades of activism ultimately recognized by his receipt of the Presidential Medal of Freedom…
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called Russell “the greatest champion in all of team sports, but added that his accolades “only begin to tell the story of Bill’s immense impact on our league and broader society.
"Bill stood for something much bigger than sports: the values of equality, respect and inclusion that he stamped into the DNA of our league," Silver said in a statement on Sunday.
"At the height of his athletic career, Bill advocated vigorously for civil rights and social justice, a legacy he passed down to generations of NBA players who followed in his footsteps.