Happy 87th Birthday to a great man and leader and the greatest winner American team sports have ever seen. Salute to you, @RealBillRussell! ImageImageImage
Nobody wins like Bill Russell.

πŸ†πŸ†'55-'56 NCAA champ
πŸ₯‡'56 Olympic gold
#2 overall pick, 1956
πŸ†'57 NBA CHAMP
❌'58 NBA Finals runner-up
πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ† '59-'66 NBA CHAMP
Replaces Red Auerbach as head coach while still playing
❌'67 East finals
πŸ†πŸ† '68-'69 CHAMP

Retires ImageImageImage
To win the way Bill Russell won, you have to LOVE winning and hate losing. The pursuit of victory must never dim. The joy of victory must never fade. Look at these three celebrating their 7th title together. They look like they've only won their first.

What was Bill Russell like as a player? Here is Wilt Chamberlain explaining why Russell is the greatest center ever, including over himself.

Want to understand Russell's greatness and impact? Read his '69 All-Star blurb, his final season:

* "The most valuable player in NBA history"
* "With money on the line perhaps best in game"
* "One of the greatest psychological influences in history of sports" ImageImage
Bill Russell won five NBA MVP awards and did so when players voted for the award. He won in 1962, probably the toughest MVP race in league history. This was the year Wilt scored 100 and averaged 50-26, Oscar averaged a 31-point triple double and Elgin had 38-19 while in the Army. ImageImage
Bill Russell, Most Valuable. Image
In 2013, I had the honor of interviewing @kaj33. Here is an excerpt I've never published. We were talking about NBA history and I said I was showing my @truestardotlife students Dream Team clips. Kareem told me to show them @RealBillRussell clips β€” one in particular: "Block Art." ImageImage
Here is "Bill Russell, Block Art" β€” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's personal favorite youtube clip of the great Bill Russell.

Full:

Here is another unpublished excerpt from my 2013 interview with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in which he talks about how he emulated Bill Russell on the court.

"I wanted to be like Bill Russell, and have people worried about where I was on the court at all time." ImageImageImage
πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†πŸ†
The game is the game. Image

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More from @readjack

13 Feb
Great question/conversation here from Mark! I’m taking Red Grange.
My Grange argument: ImageImage
Red Grange made one of the most clutch plays in Bears history. Down 23-21 in the '33 championship, the Giants could have scored on the final play via lateral. Grange tackled Dale Burnett high, pinning the ball to his chest to prevent the lateral to Mel Hein. Game over. Champs. ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
7 Feb
Fumble return touchdowns! A backup QB! 4th quarter comebacks!

World Series heroics?

Here is the true story of two wild weeks at Soldier Field, and the iconic playmaking of a man Bears fans love.

The magical, the memorable, the magnificent.

The Mike Brown Games.

A thread. ImageImage
In consecutive weeks in 2001, Oct. 28 & Nov. 4, the great Mike Brown delivered two of the most memorable plays in Bears history: a pair of walkoff OT interceptions.

These TDs fueled that great 2001 season, and shared connections to memorable Bears games before and after. ImageImage
While Mike Brown's career was far more than just two plays in two weeks, these plays epitomized what we all loved about #30: leadership, instincts, joy, winning games and the flair for the moment.

Here he is discussing them in 2019 with @JeffJoniak.
Read 111 tweets
14 Jan
I was talking to a Bears fan friend today after the press conference, discussing the basis for Bears fan fury, and it led me to look at some key numbers of the past 25 years comparing us, the Packers, and the Lions. And frankly, we're closer to being the Lions than the Packers.
I summed up my personal Bears frustration with this, but even that wasn’t quite right, because no one is the Patriots. I’d settle for being a millionaire in this scenario, and that’s Green Bay.
I know we all got annoyed when Lions fans tried to equate a six-game winning streak to the entire damn history of our two franchises. That was a ballsy maneuver for one of only two clubs from prior to the Super Bowl era that has never been to a Super Bowl.

But they had a point.
Read 19 tweets
18 Sep 20
It's been a question on my mind for a few years now: Where do the Bears rank among NFL franchises in terms of Black starting quarterbacks?

I've spent about a year crunching the numbers. Here are my findings.

A thread.

readjack.wordpress.com/2020/09/17/the…
Starting in 2017, when the Bears chose Mitch Trubisky, Mike Glennon and Mark Sanchez over either Pat Mahomes or Deshaun Watson plus Colin Kaepernick, I started looking at our franchise's history with Black QBs.

The question of why the Bears seem to consistently make the wrong choice at quarterback has been alive since at least the 1940s, when Papa Bear brought in two brilliant QBs as heirs to Sid Luckman's throne, and managed to lose both of them within 4 years.

Read 44 tweets
17 May 20
The History of the Chicago Bulls Dynasty, by Jack M Silverstein.

A work in progress, in 72 parts.

A thread.

#TheLastDance
As I work on "6 Rings: The Bulls, The City, and the Dynasty that Changed the Game," my work on the dynasty Bulls will continue to deepen and expand.

But as we prepare for the final night of #TheLastDance, I want to look back at what I've done so far.

This thread is most of what I've ever written about the dynasty Bulls. It goes without saying that there is much more to come.

Want to follow my journey from research to book in real time?

Subscribe to my newsletter, "A Shot on Ehlo."

readjack.substack.com/archive ImageImageImageImage
Read 81 tweets
16 May 20
I've been in and out of the room on Sunday nights during #TheLastDance and I've missed pieces here and there that I then catch during the week. Catching up on ep7 β€” definitely surprised they skipped this play.
But I think I'm more surprised (and I discussed this on @LockedOnBulls last night) that the doc isn't doing a great job of tying together the two timelines: the '97-'98 story with the flashbacks. There is a huge reason why this play is so important:

In 1994 and 1995, without MJ, Scottie Pippen was a top-5 player in the NBA.

Not hyperbole:

Read 12 tweets

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