It's hard to find anyone else with a better track record as a coach and executive than Red Auerbach . He won nine championships as a coach for the Boston Celtics before bagging seven more while serving in the franchise's front office. As a result, Red probably knew best how to construct a winning team and draw up plays against the league's elite.
Auerbach once even came up with a way to limit Michael Jordan in a hypothetical battle of NBA legends divided into those who played in the first 30 years of the league and beyond it.
"We'd wear him down with [John] Havlicek and [Jerry] West," Red answered when asked who would guard Jordan.
Auerbach's team
The thought experiment started with the late tactician naming Bill Russell as the guy he would start his dream team with. That makes sense since no other partnership between two NBA personalities has yielded more championships. As a player-coach and later playing coach-general manager duo, they brought home 11 titles to Boston.
Auerbach rounded out his starting five with Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, and West. Meanwhile, the bench was comprised of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Havlicek, Bob Cousy, and Julius Erving.
Coming up with another 10-man squad, even with "His Airness," to stop that group would definitely be a tall task. As the 16-time NBA champion said, outrebounding his lineup would prove impossible.
Also, Red had already devised a plan to take care of Jordan: Unleashing Havlicek and West , who have 13 All-Defensive selections between them, on the Chicago Bulls icon.
Related: "You gotta come through me" - Red Auerbach on how Bill Russell prevented a fight between him and Wilt Chamberlain
Jordan's team
Auerbach had always shown massive respect to MJ, even crediting the five-time MVP for helping make the NBA bigger while he was still a rookie. So, having two fresh defenders at any given time to stop him would have been a nifty strategy.
However, Jordan would have been just one of Red's problems because there were also other all-time greats who suited up in the NBA in the 1980s until Auerbach's passing in 2006. The legendary coach already mentioned Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, who are both no-brainers, of course.
Auerbach didn't share who the other seven would have been, although the choices would have likely been narrowed down to Isiah Thomas, John Stockton, Clyde Drexler, Scottie Pippen, Dominique Wilkins, Kevin McHale, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Tim Duncan, Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Shaquille O'Neal.
Any of those Hall of Famers would have made life difficult for Auerbach's 30-year team.
Related: “The day's work is done. Worry about the next game” - Red Auerbach once explained why he started smoking victory cigars
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