Bill Russell quotes

Bill Russell was an American basketball player widely regarded as one of the greatest in NBA history. Known for his unmatched defensive skills and leadership, he played a pivotal role in the Boston Celtics' dominance during the 1950s and 1960s. He broke barriers as both a player and coach, winning eleven NBA championships in his career. Here are 12 of his quotes:

Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.

Bill Russell

The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.

Bill Russell

Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them.

Bill Russell

We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us-anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.

Bill Russell

Durability is part of what makes a great athlete.

Bill Russell

To love someone is nothing, to be loved by someone is something, but to be loved by the one you love is everything.

Bill Russell

What's more important than who's going to be the first black manager is who's going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.

Bill Russell

How much does that guy make a year? It would be to our advantage if we paid him off for five years to get away from us in the rest of this series.

Bill Russell

To me, one of the most beautiful things to see is a group of men coordinating their efforts toward a common goal, alternately subordinating and asserting themselves to achieve real teamwork in action. I tried to do that, we all tried to do that, on the Celtics. I think we succeeded.

Bill Russell

People didn't give us credit for being as good as we were last season. Personally, I think we won because we had the best team in the league. Some guys talked about all the stars on the other teams, and they quote statistics to show other teams were better. Let's talk about statistics. The important statistics in basketball are supposed to be points scored, rebounds and assists. But nobody keeps statistics on other important things - the good fake you make that helps your teammate score; the bad pass you force the other team to make; the good long pass you make that sets up another pass that sets up another pass that leads to a score; the way you recognize when one of your teammates has a hot hand that night and you give up your own shot so he can take it. All of those things. Those were some of the things we excelled in that you won't find in the statistics. There was only one statistic that was important to us - won and lost.

Bill Russell