"Did I ever tell you how I ended up with Cousy? I didn't really want him. In fact, I didn't want him at all. He was a megastar in New England because he'd been a star at Holy Cross, and college ball was much bigger than pro ball back then. Everyone in the media was saying I had to take him in the draft. My response was simple: I'm here to build a team. I've got no interest in local yokels."
Red had been hired by Walter Brown to take over a truly bad team. The Celtics had finished 1949-50 season with a record of 22-46 under coach Alvin "Doggie" Julian, meaning they had the first pick in the draft. And so, soon after arriving in Boston, Red found himself under tremendous pressure to use the first pick in the draft to take local hero Bob Cousy.
"I had seen Cousy play," Red said. "He was very flashy. He wasn't the first guy to dribble behind his back, a guy named Bob Davies was, but he was the guy who made it popular. The local press was all over me to take Cousy. I wasn't interested in making the press happy - I had a ball club to build. You don't build a club with guards, you build it with big men. So, when it was my turn to pick, I took Charlie Share out of Bowling Green. He was six-eight, big, strong guy. Later, I traded him for Bob Brannum, Bill Sharman, and Bob Harris. That turned out to be a pretty good deal. But they were all over me for not taking Cousy. Here I was, the new guy in town, and I'm turning my back on the local hero."
Red wasn't exactly intimidated. In fact, shortly after the draft, the Chicago franchise, which had drafted Cousy, folded. Three players were made available in a dispersal draft to the three worst teams in the league. That included the Celtics. The league decided that the only fair way to decide where the players went was to put the three names into a hat and let the teams draw.
"If I had a choice, my third choice would be Cousy," Red promptly announced. "The other two guys [Max Zaslofsky and Andy Phillip] are proven pros. Phillip has long arms and is a great defender. Zaslofsky can really score. Cousy's just a rookie."
Red didn't get his way. The Celtics picked Cousy out of the hat, and REd was stuck with the rookie local yokel who was too flasy, just a guard, and not someone you could build around. All that said, his opinion of Cousy changed soon after he met him.
"I was surprised because, watching him play, I expected him to be loud, a cocky kind of guy," Red said. "He wasn't. He was quiet, modest, a lot different than the way he played. Plus when we started practicing I could see that the flashy plays he mad had a purpose. He didn't throw fancy passes just to throw fancy passes, he threw them because that was the best way to get the ball where it needed to go. Still I called him in early on to talk to him. I wanted him to understand why I'd said I wanted Zaslofsky or Phillip. He understood. Then I said to him, "I've now had a chance to watch you play up close a little. You're ahead of your time with the way you pass the ball. But I want you to understand one thing. You can throw passes to people any way you want too. You can throw them between your legs, behind your back, sidearm, underhanded, or backward. I don't care. But I'm telling you one thing: no matter how you throw a pass, someone better catch it. If it goes off a guy's hands, it's your fault. If it hits a guy in the chest and he drops it, it's your fault. If you turn the ball over, you won't play.
"I wasn't trying to be tough on him, but I've always believed that ninety five percent of turnovers are caused by the passer. I wanted him to understand that. He was amazing, though, the way he adjusted his game when he had to. Once, he had a problem with his shoulder, so he figured out how to throw a long pass sidearm. He said, 'You okay with that, Arnold?' [Cousy is one of a handful of people who has ever called Red anything other than Red.] I said, 'I'm okay with it as long as the ball gets where it's supposed to go.'"