Bob Cousy Turns 97
- Jake C
- Aug 9
- 6 min read
Cover photo: Bob Cousy for Sports Illustrated. Photo credit: Hy Peskin.
An NBA original celebrates birthday on August 9 as Bob Cousy turns 97.
Legend. Legendary. Greatest this and greatest that. Words and phrases that are used frequently today without the slightest hesitation when describing someone exceptional in their field.
Yorkville, Manhattan’s Bob Cousy is as legendary as legends can get when talking about NBA history, a man who turned pro in 1950 and has seen literally everything from the NBA’s past to the modern era. A man who originated point guard flair and clever passing.
Cousy, whose parents immigrated to the United States from France and had little, played stickball and box ball growing up. Twice, he was cut from his high school’s junior varsity team.
A 1950 graduate of Holy Cross University, Cousy was inducted into the school’s athletics Hall of Fame in 1956. In Cousy’s freshman year, the Crusaders won the NCAA championship. He led the program to two more NCAA tournament berths in his final three seasons. As a senior, he averaged 19.4 points per game and was a consensus first team All-American. In 117 collegiate games, he averaged 15.2 points per game.
Cousy’s rookie season of 1950-51 coincided with Red Auerbach’s first season in Boston. Chuck Cooper, the first African-American to be drafted into the NBA, was a rookie on the team as well. Cousy and Cooper were roommates on the road in 1953.
“Chuck and I hit it off. We liked the same things,” Cousy told Jackie MacMullan in 2019 before detailing that both had a love for soft jazz and that the pair would sit at Boston’s former Storyville club and listen to jazz and drink beer.
The Celtics won 39 games (out of 69), and “Easy” Ed McCauley - who was the ‘51 All-Star Game MVP and who would go on to win the NBA championship with the ‘58 St. Louis Hawks - and Cousy were the team’s all-stars. Cousy averaged 15.6 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 4.9 assists. In a 2-0 defeat to the New York Knicks in the playoffs, he averaged 14.5 points and 6.0 assists.
From his second season through to 1959-60, Cousy made 1st team All-NBA. After 21.7 points, 6.7 assists, and 6.4 rebounds in his second season, he ran off eight consecutive assist titles. The season that he won his fifth assist title (7.5 in ‘56-‘57, 20.6 points, 4.8 rebounds) coincided with him earning NBA MVP honors and the Celtics, 44-28, winning their first of eleven championships during Russell’s run. For fellow rookie Tom Heinsohn, it was his first of eight titles. For Cousy, it was his first of six.
Russell and Pettit dueled in the ‘57 Finals series - 13.3 points and 22.9 rebounds for Russell and 30.1 points and 18.3 rebounds for Pettit. Cousy averaged 20.7 points, 9.1 assists, and 6.7 rebounds in the seven-game Celtic triumph.
Bob Cousy’s Stats from 1952-53 to First Title Season (1956-57)
1952-53: 19.8 points, 7.7 assists, 6.3 rebounds, 81.6% FT, 41.5 minutes, 71 games, All-NBA 1st team
1953-54: 19.2 points, 7.2 assists, 5.5 rebounds, 78.7% FT, 39.7 minutes, 72 games, All-NBA 1st team
1954-55: 21.2 points, 7.8 assists, 6.0 rebounds, 80.7% FT, 38.7 minutes, 71 games, All-NBA 1st team
1955-56: 18.8 points, 8.9 assists, 6.8 rebounds, 84.4% FT, 38.4 minutes, 72 games, All-NBA 1st team, 3rd in MVP voting
1956-57: 20.6 points, 7.5 assists, 4.8 rebounds, 82.1% FT, 36.9 minutes, 64 games, All-NBA 1st team, MVP
Cousy posted 18.0 points, 7.1 assists, and 5.0 rebounds per game in ‘57-‘58, 20.0 points, 8.6 assists, and 5.5 rebounds in ‘58-‘59, and 19.5 points, a career-high 9.5 assists, and 4.7 rebounds in ‘59-‘60, which was the last season that he led the NBA in assists. From ‘55-‘56 through to his final Celtic season, he finished in the top eight in MVP voting.
Bob Cousy’s Stats in Final Three Celtics’ Seasons
1960-61: 18.1 points, 7.7 assists, 4.4 rebounds, 77.9% FT, 32.5 minutes, 76 games, All-NBA 1st team, 6th in MVP voting
1961-62: 15.7 points, 7.8 assists, 3.5 rebounds, 75.4% FT, 28.2 minutes, 75 games, All-NBA 2nd team, 8th in MVP voting
1962-63: 13.2 points, 6.8 assists, 2.5 rebounds, 73.5 FT%, 26.0 minutes per game, 76 games, All-NBA 2nd team, 8th in MVP voting
In Cousy’s final Celtic season of ‘62-‘63, John Havlicek was a rookie. Heinsohn and Russell were six years in, Sam Jones five years in and K.C. Jones four. Tom “Satch” Sanders was in year two. The core for the next five Celtic titles was in place.
Cousy came back to the NBA in ‘69-‘79 at the age of 41 with the Cincinnati Royals as player-coach. The Royals won 36 games. Jerry Lucas only played in four games due to injury. Oscar Robertson’s 25.3 points led the team. Tom Van Arsdale averaged 22.8 points, he and Robertson the lone all-stars on the club. Cousy played in seven games at 4.9 minutes per game.
Clearly not the same player that he once was. But clearly, he had a love for the game. Cousy continued to coach the team until ‘73-‘74, the last two seasons of ‘72-‘73 and ‘73-‘74 being in Kansas City-Omaha, where he coached a young star guard by the name of Nate Archibald.
In his thirteen seasons as a Celtic, Cousy averaged 18.5 points, 7.6 assists, and 5.2 rebounds per contest in 35.5 minutes per game in 917 games. He was a career 80.3% free-throw shooter. He played a lot of minutes, too, averaging 40.6 in year one, 41.5 in year two, and 39.7 in year three and 38.7 in year four. Bill Sharman, a seven-time league leader in free-throw percentage, completed the other half of a superstar backcourt from 1951 through to 1959 with Cousy.
Six times in his playoff career, Cousy scored more than 30 points in a game. His best playoff performance came in 1953 against the Syracuse Nationals in a four overtime Game 2 of the Eastern Division Semifinals. Cousy erupted for 50 points in 66 minutes, making 10 of his 22 field-goal attempts while connecting on 30-of-32 from the line. McCauley assisted with 18 points and 15 rebounds.
Thirty-eight times in his playoff career, Cousy tallied 10 or more assists in a game. His career playoff-high in that category was 19, which he recorded twice - first on April 9, 1957 in Game 5 of the Finals against the Hawks, and second on April 7, 1959 in Game 3 of the Finals against the Minneapolis Lakers.
In 1963, Cousy’s No. 14 was retired by the Celtics. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1971. The Hall of Fame has an annual award, The Bob Cousy Award, given to the top point guard in college basketball. In 2019, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Cousy has a cameo in the 1994 movie Blue Chips, a film where Nick Nolte as head coach Pete Bell of the fictitious Western University illegally recruits stars played by Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway to play for him. In one scene, Cousy is shooting free-throws in an empty gym with Nolte’s character as his rebounder.
Cousy, 65 years old, makes all of his shots in the 90 second unscripted clip. “Don’t you ever miss?” asks Nolte.
“That’s the idea of the game,” replies Cousy. “Put the ball in the hole.”
Not bad for a guy who fans of the modern game dismiss. A guy whom people see a highlight of dribbling the clock out with his right hand and think that was the extent of his abilities. But Cousy was throwing wrap-around passes before there was such a thing. Hook shots as a 6 foot, 1 inch point guard.
When he got to the NBA in 1950, the game of basketball was fifty-nine years old. Not the NBA, but the sport itself. The league was founded in 1946.
No reference points. No former pros to look at and say “let me copy that. Let me try that. Let me put my own spin on that.”
Bob Cousy didn’t have that. Basketball was founded in 1891. Cousy first started playing the sport at age 13. The sport was fifty years old.
He was an innovator, a forerunner to the flashy point guards to come. Guard-center duos have always been en vogue in the NBA. Cousy and Russell were the first.
Bob Cousy was and is a pillar of the NBA. A pioneer. The first great point guard. The first with flash and style.
“Your guard, in my estimation, becomes the extension of the coach on the court,” said Satch Sanders in a documentary on Cousy titled “Son of the City”. “Cousy was the extension of Auerbach on the court.”
Before Russell, Sam Jones, Havlicek, Jo Jo White, Dave Cowens, Larry Bird, McHale, Parish, Paul Pierce, and Jayson Tatum became all-time Celtics, there was Bob Cousy.
There is no Pete Maravich, no Magic Johnson, no Steve Nash or Jason Kidd or Kyrie Irving without Bob Cousy. “The Houdini of the Hardwood” wasn’t just a nickname. It was earned.
New York City has its share of great point guards. Bob Cousy was the first.
Greatest this and greatest that. Legend and legendary. Bob Cousy fits any and all descriptions that include such words. In a way, legend doesn’t seem strong enough.
Happy 97th birthday, Bob Cousy.
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