Banner Years: 1986, The Greatest Team

“When I came here, I knew the basketball would be good. I did not know how good it would be.”

The conductor raises his baton, the orchestra readies their instruments, and in an instant, with a downward sweep of the arm, a collection of individuals, each with their own talents and skills, merges into a single thing, a whole greater than the sum of its parts, and for a while the audience is witness to our ability to transcend ourselves and become a part of something more than what we are capable of on our own.

Basketball is music, and the music once ascribed by Johannes Kepler to the heavenly spheres belonged to Boston this year; it was music that you did not so much hear with your ears as feel within your soul.

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Again and again, for 48 minutes at a go during the 1985/86 season, the Boston Celtics took the court and put on a display of such transcendence that it left an indelible mark on everyone who saw them at their best.

The story of this season begins with the acquisition of Bill Walton.

Walton was languishing out in L.A., “I had just spent six brutally long, painful, lonely, disastrous years on the Clippers,” he would later recall. Walton was relatively healthy, but the Clippers were going nowhere on a rocket sled. He wanted out. “I just desperately wanted to have it be fun again.”

His first call? Jerry West. West turned Walton down flat. “I’ve seen your feet,” said West, according to Walton, “I don’t want any part of them.”

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So Walton turned to his second choice, Boston. When Walton got ahold of Red, he was in a meeting with Larry Bird. He told Bird that Walton wanted to join the team and Larry said, “Go get him.”

Red then set about the odious task of negotiating with Donald Sterling.

Walton’s request was well-timed. Cedric Maxwell was on his way out. Red had wanted Max to come back to Boston to have his injured knee checked and Cedric’s agent told him that it was a no-go because Max was busy building a house. “Who’s paying for the house?” was Red’s curt response.

At the other end of the deal, Donald Sterling wanted concessions, not from Red, but from Walton. In a scenario that reflected the…

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Publish date : 2026-08-24 09:47:00

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