Red Auerbach: Painting the NBA Playoffs Red, 1979

[In its June 1979 issue, SPORT Magazine featured a long interview with Red Auerbach, the outspoken president and general manager of the Boston Celtics and a true NBA pioneer who’d seen just about everything. Too bad the 1979 NBA playoffs, unlike today, had wrapped up by June 1. Auerbach’s comments on the NBA and its postseason may have been belated then, but it’s never too late today to revisit the thoughts of one of the game’s winningest coaches of all-time. What follows is a condensed version of the Q & A to cut out some topics of relevance to readers in 1979, but not so much today. Get the magazine (baseball’s Dave Parker on the cover) if you want to read the complete interview. If not, here’s the good stuff, which starts with a long intro. So let’s get right to it.] *** Not long after World War II ended and Arnold “Red” Auerbach was mustered out of the U.S. Navy, he heard that the new Basketball Association of America (later renamed the National Basketball Association) was forming…