Red Auerbach

In 1941, Auerbach began coaching basketball at the St. Albans School and Roosevelt High School in Washington, DC. Two years later, he joined the US Navy for three years, coaching the Navy basketball team in Norfolk. There, he caught the eye of Washington millionaire Mike Uline, who hired him to coach the Washington Capitols in the newly-founded Basketball Association of America (BAA), a predecessor of the NBA.

In the 1946-47 BAA season, Auerbach led a fast break-oriented team built around early BAA star Bones McKinney and various ex-Navy players to a 49-11 win-loss record, including a standard-setting 17-game winning streak that stood as the single-season league record until 1969. In the playoffs, however, they were defeated by the Chicago Stags in six games.

The next year the Capitols went 28-20 but were eliminated from the playoffs in a one-game Western Division tie-breaker. In the 1948-49 BAA season, the Caps won their first 15 games (still a league-record start) and finished the season at 38-22. The team reached the BAA Finals, but were beaten by the Minneapolis Lakers, who were led by Hall-of-Fame center George Mikan. In the next season, the BAA and the rival league National Basketball League merged to become the NBA, and Auerbach felt he had to rebuild his squad. However, owner Uline declined his proposals, and Auerbach resigned.

Auerbach was then approached by Ben Kerner, owner of the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. After getting a green light to rebuild the team from scratch, Auerbach traded more than two dozen players in just six weeks, and the revamped Blackhawks improved, but ended the 1949-50 NBA season with a losing record of 28-29. When Kerner traded Auerbach's favorite player John Mahnken, an angry Auerbach resigned again.

Prior to the 1950-51 NBA season, Auerbach was approached by Walter Brown, owner of the Boston Celtics. Brown was desperate to turn around his struggling and financially strapped franchise, which was reeling from a terrible 22-46 record. So, the still young but already seasoned Auerbach was made coach. In the 1950 NBA Draft, Auerbach made some notable moves. First, he famously snubbed Hall-of-Fame New England point guard Bob Cousy in the 1950 NBA Draft, infuriating the Boston crowd. He argued that the flashy Cousy was too air-headed to make his team, taunting him as a.....(read more)