Posted on 04/19/2025 12:52:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
NBA legend Dominique Wilkins discusses his surprising Boston Celtics stint and how he felt respected in Boston, contrasting the experiences of past Black athletes.
Dominique Wilkins breathed Atlanta Hawks almost all his career and it was almost too much to imagine him anywhere else — much less in Celtics green and white. The same team who had ruled the Eastern Conference for decades, leaving teams like Wilkins' Hawks constantly chasing shadows.
For a player who had become the heart of Georgia basketball, Boston felt like foreign territory. Georgia had given him something North Carolina never did — love. Real, open-armed love.
Boston love He didn't receive any hostility when he left Atlanta for Boston — even after his playing days. Unlike the tension and animosity he experienced in his youth, his time in Boston was marked by something entirely different.
"I lived in Boston five years after I retired," Wilkins said. "I really liked it a lot ... I was treated very well. And so for me, I didn't see any of that personally."
In high school, when Wilkins committed to the University of Georgia, his hometown turned on him. A wave of racist threats and backlash forced him to leave his home state. Georgia became his refuge. Atlanta eventually got him after a trade with the Utah Jazz.
The love ran so deep that leaving felt like a betrayal. But by the summer of 1994, his chapter with the Hawks had closed and Wilkins did something he once thought impossible — he joined the Celtics.
Boston's relationship with race and Black athletes has long been complicated. No one understood that better than Bill Russell. The Celtics legend brought 11 NBA titles to the city but spent much of his tenure surrounded by hostility. His home was vandalized, and fans often turned on him. He once called Boston a "flea market of racism," and that sentiment stayed with him long after his playing days ended.
So for Wilkins, to experience Boston differently — especially as a proud and outspoken Black star, says something. It's not that Boston changed overnight. But maybe Wilkins, after years of holding Atlanta on his shoulders, arrived in Boston with something different. A sense of calm. A reputation that preceded him. Or maybe it was just timing. The mid-90s were not the civil rights battlegrounds of Russell's era, but Boston's demons hadn't vanished.
Wilkins move
Wilkins credits Red Auerbach for the move to Boston and briefly lit up the parquet. By the end of the 1993–94 season, he was a free agent, a little older, but still a bucket. He wasn't the same player who once danced at the rim and dropped 30 with flair, but the game still lived in his hands.
"I thought in a million years I would never be in a Celtics uniform," Wilkins said. "But it was because of Red, and how'd you turn Red down? So that was the reason I went to the Celtics."
Auerbach was a Celtics legend. The man who had coached Russell drafted Larry Bird and built an empire on vision and guts. Wilkins admired him deeply. When he called, Wilkins listened.
Wilkins helped lead Dream Team II to gold at the 1994 FIBA World Championship in Toronto that summer. No longer in his physical prime, he was still a force among a new generation of stars, including Shaquille O'Neal and Reggie Miller. And when the NBA season tipped off, he brought that same fire to Boston.
His lone year in green wasn't a fairy tale, but it wasn't a disaster either. He averaged 17.8 points per game over 77 appearances. The Celtics made the playoffs but were bounced in the first round by the rising Orlando Magic. That squad featured a young Penny Hardaway and a dominant O'Neal.
Wilkins didn't stay around for long. The following year, he went to play overseas. But Boston left its mark—and in his telling, he left his.
New York City is not considered part of New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont) but leftists in New York City would surpass them all in racism.
Then again, the leftists in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle may top the list.
Totally false, they were proven to be un-Biased. :)
Last time I checked Bill Russell played every single game in his career for the Celtics, and he has as much right to be called GOAT as Jordan and LeBron. Why was he called a racial slur?
Why?
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