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BILL RUSSELL

I think it is safe to say that Bill Russell and I had a love-hate relationship. Most players had a hate-hate relationship with Russ, but I had a certain affinity for him - mostly because when I got to Seattle I thought he was like a God.

"I think it is safe to say that Bill Russell and I had a love-hate relationship."

Although he would probably never admit it, I think Russ has a special place in his heart for me - if Russ has a heart. It may be a very small place, but I think it is there. Mostly, I think it's there because Russ discovered me.

He was brought in for two reasons: He was supposed to get a handle on these big egos - specifically Spencer, John Brisker, and Jim McDaniels. As I said before, this was the beginning of the big contracts - the million-dollar contracts - and guys had million-dollar egos. If anybody could control those egos, it was a man who had won 11 championships in 13 seasons. In fact, when Russell first got to town, the media had named him "The Dictator."

I think [then-Sonics owner] Sam [Schulman] had good intentions when he brought Russell in. Sam wanted a winner. He was a community guy. Russell was supposed to be a father figure at first and have a stronger command over those guys. I don't think Sam really wanted to get rid of them at first. I think he wanted to keep them all. With Russell being "The Man," he figured winning breeds winning. It didn't really matter the way these kids changed because of the money. He wanted Russell to put his finger on those big three and make it work.

Even Russell, in his first training camp, told the Seattle Times, "We've got a lot of talent on this team. We're going to surprise a lot of people. If I didn't mean it, I wouldn't say it. Look, I'm not a great coach. But there are certain things I can get this team to do that will make it a winner."

But then Sam found out that even with Russell - or maybe because of Russell, though that wouldn't be discovered until much later - the money wasn't getting it done. He signed these three guys, and he thought it meant victory. Then he found out it wasn't working. It didn't happen. Then, since Russell couldn't make these three win, Sam wanted Russell to trim the payroll and get rid of them.

That was the second reason Russell was brought in - he had enough power to get rid of these guys without the fans booing, because if Bill Russell doesn't like them, then maybe they are not winners. So, he got rid of them. Russell was supposed to determine who would go and who would stay. As it turned out, they all went, but that was more about personality conflicts than money. Actually, before it was all over, everybody had a personality conflict with the Big Fella. Russ is something else. He is a piece of work. Yet, when he first arrived, everybody was completely in awe of him.

Russell had it in his head that he wanted the Boston concept, where he had many equal parts playing cohesive basketball as opposed to a few stars intermixed with role players. He wanted to be Boston West. What Russ never figured out was that there is only one Boston - and it is located in the East.

By the end, Russell had alienated virtually every one of his players. Worse, he had alienated the entire city. During home games at the Seattle Coliseum, he was booed regularly. Things are different now. He goes to home games at KeyArena and gets cheered again. Enough time has passed. People have forgiven and forgotten.

Or perhaps just forgotten. Again, he is a Hall of Fame icon. Back then, though, when he was coaching, he was nobody's favorite.

In a way, I think the city felt betrayed. When he became the coach, everybody expected the Great Bill Russell to lead the Sonics to a championship. After all, he had won his entire career with Boston, why wouldn't he keep winning? It was only a matter of time. The city fell in love with his reputation. If Bill Russell says a player can't play, then a player can't play. If Bill Russell says something must be a certain way, then it must be a certain way. Yet it became increasingly clear that after Russ had ended the careers of talented players like John Brisker and Jim McDaniels, and had shipped away skilled players like Leonard Gray because they could not get along, that Bill Russell was more about Bill Russell than he was about winning. It took the city a few years to figure Big Bill out, but, once it did, they agreed with few of his methods.

To this day, I hear that when Russ has a speaking engagement, he talks about me for 15 minutes. So, I don't really feel badly telling some stories about him.

WALKING TALL

When I first got to town, the television stations were everywhere, thrilled because the Great Bill Russell had come to town, carrying his baseball bat over his shoulder, a big man with a stick, like Walking Tall.

He was cackling on TV all over the place. The bat was a front thing. He was letting people know that he was coming for business - that he was coming to turn things around. It was an image. That was the way he portrayed it - Bill Russell with a baseball bat.

SEATTLE CELTICS

Red Auerbach, who coached Russ in Boston, had a philosophy that we all had a position. The shooters shoot, the passers pass, the rebounders rebound - everybody had a role. Russell coached that way, too.

Some nights, he would get on me about shooting. 'That is not your role, boy, you are KC Jones."

Fred Brown was supposed to be Sam Jones. Leonard Gray and Hal Fox were supposed to stand by the goal and get offensive rebounds like Tom Heinsohn and Bailey Howell. Tal Skinner was supposed to play like Satch Sanders used to play. Each of us was to represent a piece of Boston's pie (of course, he never got to the point where he said which player was supposed to be Bill Russell. He wanted Tommy Burleson and the guys to be shot blockers. But he didn't think anybody could do the things he did as a player).

In fact, we used to run the same plays the Celtics did. We used to run the same play where John Havlicek came off a double pick, and the center would hand him the ball for a shot from the top of the key-except Russell substituted Fred Brown for Havlicek.

I remember when I was growing up watching those plays in the '60s. Then I came up here in the '70s, I had to learn those same plays that I saw in high school on TV.

Unfortunately, they didn't work - we didn't win 13 championships. But he was the first coach to get the Sonics to the playoffs, and that was his concept - do what Boston did.

MIND GAMES

Team concepts and plays weren't the only thing that Russell brought from Boston. He also used to steal Red Auerbach's motivational tactics. One thing Red used to do when he wanted to motivate players was tell them they weren't going to play. When you got in Red's doghouse, Red would turn around and wouldn't speak to you for a week. Then all of a sudden you would be the first man in the starting lineup. And it would really catch you off guard.

Sometimes players would shoot the lights out when he did that, and Red would say, 'see, that works." Russell used to use many of those same tricks on us.

One day, Talvin Skinner didn't practice very well. Russ told Tal he wasn't rebounding. He called him gutless. Oh, Russ really got on him. Tal had his head down, and he really thought he would be cut. The next night, he told Tal, "You'll never play for me again." Tal had water in his eyes.

Then that night, the public address announcer comes on and says, "Starting at small forward, Talvin Skinner." Tal turned around and looked at me.

Russell said, "That's your name, boy, get out there." Tal must have had 18 points and 12 rebounds that night. Russ could motivate by making you were in the doghouse, although you weren't in the doghouse.

He'd pull that, and then he'd wink and say, "I got him, didn't I?"

HOME SOUR HOME

The funny thing about Russell feeling good about returning to Boston and beating the Celtics is that he used to hate when one of his players returned home.

This was something Russ was good at: if you went to your home to play a game, and all your fans and family and friends were at the game, and you had the most tickets, you might not play at all. Whew, he was good at that. I don't know why he did that. He just loved to do it. If you had all your family come 500 miles, you'd just sit.

So one night we were in Kansas City, where Leonard Gray was from, and he didn't play Leonard. Man, I thought we were going to have to move the dressing room. Leonard was seething. Oh man, he was mad. Water was running down his cheeks he was so mad. When a big man has water in his eyes, you know he is mad. Boy was he pissed - and Russell knew he was pissed.

Big Fella just looked at him and popped his knuckles.