This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 6/30/2005.
In his 13 NBA seasons, Bill Russell proved to be one of the greatest leaders that professional sports had ever seen. Easily the best defensive player ever, Russell's uncanny ability to anticipate opponents' moves and shots allow him to dominate the paint like few others have. His rebounding and quick outlet passes keyed the Celtics' offense, and led the Boston dynasty to 11 NBA Championships from 1957 to 1969. Those great Celtic teams included Hall of Famers Bob Cousy, Tom Heinsohn, Frank Ramsey, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones, Sam Jones and John Havlicek, however Russell was the only player present for all eleven NBA titles. The 1968 and 1969 championships saw Russell leading both on and off the court as Player-Coach of the Celtics. Russell was named league MVP five times. His 4,104 rebounds is still an NBA career playoff record. Russell ranks second only to Wilt Chamberlain with 21,620 regular season career rebounds. A 12-time NBA All Star, Russell led the University of San Francisco to back-to-back NCAA titles in 1955 and 1956 and won a Gold Medal at the 1956 Olympics prior to joining the Celtics. Russell was named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history in 1996, and was elected to the Basketball HoF in 1974. On the inside front tail of this dureen jerseys is the "Horace Partridge Athletic Goods" manufacturers tag with the jersey size "44" on it. On the inside back tail of the jersey is "6546" stamped in black ink. Across the front is "Celtics." Below that and on the back of the jersey is the player number "6." All lettering and numbering is done in green tackle twill. The jersey shows good game use and appears to have no alterations of any kind.