Dynasty: The Rise of the Boston Celtics - Tapa dura

In the spring of 1957, the Boston Celtics, led by coach Red Auerbach, won a National Basketball Association championship for the first time. Auerbach had been building the team throughout the 1950s, but was still missing what he considered an essential piece, a single player in the middle who could hoist the team on his shoulders by doing the dirty work of rebounding and playing defense. That player was Bill Russell.By blending unselfish, yet talented players into a roster led by Russell's unconquerable will, Auerbach and the Celtics put together an unprecedented run of championships rarely challenged before or since in team sports. Between 1957 and 1969, Boston won eleven titles in thirteen seasons. Only when Russell retired did the era of dominance end.Lew Freedman grew up attending Celtics games, from his first game as a boy in 1960 until he befriended the players and team management as an adult. Based on dozens of interviews and courtside observation, Freedman reveals how he was swept up in dramatic moments both on and off the floor. A great book about a sports town, the greatest players in basketball, and a team that won eleven titles in thirteen seasons.

The behind-the-scenes story of the glory years of one of professional basketball’s best and most beloved teams I so admired Cousy and Russell as a kid, and I rooted from the depths of my heart for Tommy Heinsohn, Frank Ramsey, Tom Sanders, Jim Loscutoff, Bill Sharman, Sam Jones, K. C. Jones, John Havlicek, and all the others in green. I knew I was watching something special, but it wasn’t until I was much older, when time provided perspective, that some of their feats seemed so incredible. . . .
Year after year, the Celtics won, with essentially the same cast—a circumstance now impossible given the free
agency of the modern era—men molded by a singularly wise master of the game, Red Auerbach. The Dynasty is a great sports story, but it is a story rooted in a transcending and tumultuous period in American history. . . .
The Celtics players were a diverse group of men from all corners of the country, but they had more in common than they, or anyone else, would have thought. Dramatic changes swirled about them . . . but none of those developments distracted the players enough to disturb their artistry on the court. All the Celtics did between 1957 and 1969—while their nation changed forever—was win.
—from the Prologue