Bill Russell taken to hospital

Updated: July 17, 2014, 6:06 PM ET

ESPN.com news services

Hall of Famer Bill Russell was hospitalized as a precaution Thursday after feeling faint.
Basketball legend Bill Russell was hospitalized Thursday after feeling faint while giving a speech in Nevada, the Boston Celtics said.

Russell, 80, left the event at the Hyatt Regency resort in Incline Village on a stretcher and was taken to a hospital as a precaution, according to the Celtics.

The Hall of Fame center is "feeling better," the Celtics said, and is expected to fly back to his Seattle-area home as early as Thursday night.

Witness Michael Rooney told The Associated Press that Russell was telling a story about Wilt Chamberlain to a roomful of Konica Minolta employees when he started to sway at the podium and then fell backward. Rooney says Russell seemed to be conscious as hotel personnel and first responders came to his aid. The meeting was cut short and attendees left.

Russell won 11 championships with the Celtics and is considered one of the best players in NBA history. He was recently at the NBA Finals, awarding the trophy in his name [given to the Finals MVP] to the Spurs' Kawhi Leonard following Game 5 in San Antonio.

ESPNBoston.com's Chris Forsberg contributed to this report.

112288

Sending positive thoughts your way, Russ.  you're very much needed on this earth.

Sam

What do they mean; one of the best players on NBA history? Russell was the best. No one can convince me otherwise. Hope you recover soon, Russ.

Berlin, I concur. They broke the mold after making William Felton Russell. Hope you're mending well and quickly, Russ.

This is what happens when people watch too much World Cup action. It's a well documented side effect - people start flopping with no contact. Hopefully Russ will start watching basketball and football again soon and have a full recovery.

Bill Russell has reportedly recovered from a fainting incident earlier today, and is in transit to his home near Seattle.

According to a team spokesman, the Celtics legend fainted while attending a function in Lake Tahoe, Nev., but recovered well enough to board his scheduled flight home.

Russell, 80, has been a regular at NBA functions in recent years, often appearing on behalf of the league at events like the NBA Finals and All-Star Game. Though he was greatly saddened by the death of his wife Marilyn in 2009, Russell continued to travel across the country on behalf of the league. The NBA Finals MVP award was named after him that same year.

Russell flew to Boston last Nov. 1 for the unveiling of a statue in his honor in City Hall Plaza — an honor, the vast majority of Bostonians and Celtics agreed, that was well overdue.



bob



.

The statue is a very good likeness.  But I'll always feel (and I bet he would concur) that it should have been a group statue including his most steadfast teammates.  But certainly recognition of Russ is better than no public deference to the Celtics trailblazers of that era.

Sam

Sam

I agree that it should have been a TEAM statue. Eleven titles with the hand print of as many as eight HALL OF FAME PLAYERS AND ONE HALL OF FAME COACH, on each and every one of those trophies. During those championship years no other team could match the talent pool that Red could put on the court. Other than Russell, remove a couple of those great players from the roster of any of those championship years and the number of rings might have been considerably fewer.

swish

Russ could arguably be considered the greatest of all sports figures. He would certainly be in the conversation..

Year after year he still sits at the top.

dboss

Absolutely. Russell ranks right up there with guys like Babe Ruth or Muhammed Ali as the greatest figures in American sports.

Swish, Russ has said that, without Sam Jones, Russ' Celtics might have won maybe three championships.  That was obviously a very subjective statement, and it came on the emotional wave of a tribute to sam from Russ.  But, at the very least, the comment is indicative of the immensely high esteem in which Russ held his teammates.

Sam