SCP Auctions is honored to represent the estate of basketball legend Arnold "Red" Auerbach in the sale of his personal basketball memorabilia collection. The substantive collection, representing Red's extraordinary professional life, will be sold in Three Parts over successive auctions, with Part One highlighting SCP Auctions April 30th, 2011 Auction. Among the vast array of items to be offered are significant Celtics Championship rings, important awards, game used items, autographed pieces, personal effects and ephemera. We look forward to presenting this remarkable opportunity to collectors and fans worldwide.
For more than half a century Arnold "red" Auerbach was the personification of pro basketball's greatest dynasty, the Boston Celtics. In two decades of National Basketball Association coaching, the combative, competitive, and inspiring Auerbach won 938 games, a record when he retired in 1966, as well as a then record nine NBA championship titles. In those 20 years, 16 with the Celtics, Auerbach had only one losing season while winning almost two-thirds of his games. Auerbach was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969 and, 11 years later, was recognized as the greatest coach in NBA history by the Professional basketball Writers Association of America. That same year, 1980, he was inducted a second time into the Hall of Fame in recognition of his total contributions to the game. His coaching achievement is recognized annually with the awarding of the Red Auerbach Trophy to the league's Coach of the Year. The award was named in his honor in 1967. After he retired from coaching after the 1965-66 season, having won his either consecutive NBA title and ninth overall, Auerbach served as the Celtics team president and GM for another 14 years and as the president solely from 1984 until 1997, and again from 2001 until his death. He also was the team's vice chairman of the board and still a sought-after adviser well into the 21st century. In his long tenure in Boston, Auerbach built three distinct championship teams: the dominating group that won all but one title in the 1960s, a second team that won two titles in the 1970s, and the last, great Celtics team, which won three championships in the 1980s. Long after handing over the coaching duties, the iconic Auerbach attended every home game and protected the Celtics' legacy with a proprietary pride. As Frank Deford wrote in Sports Illustrated in 1982, "Auerbach alone was the Celtics -- substance and continuity, heart and soul."
