Easy Ed Macauley dies at 83

RIP Ed Macauley, (March 22, 1928 – November 8, 2011) died yesterday.

Ed Macauley, one of the NBA’s first big stars who won a championship with the St. Louis Hawks and was traded by the Boston Celtics for Bill Russell, has died. He was 83.

Saint Louis University announced Macauley’s death on Tuesday. The school had no other details. “Easy Ed” was a standout player with the Billikens, leading them to the 1948 NIT title.

Macauley was elected to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in 1960. A native of St. Louis, he was a territorial pick of that city’s Basketball Association of America franchise, the Bombers. He played there for one season and then was selected by the Celtics in a 1950 dispersal draft.

When he got his star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 2003, he told the story about how he got his nickname when he was a sophomore at Saint Louis.

“It was the first time I was appointed captain,” Macauley said. “We dressed in the basement of West Pine Gym and it was my role to lead the team from the basement locker room through the door.

“But nobody followed me when I ran down the court and made a layup. Then I heard people shout, ‘Take it easy, Ed.’ I didn’t realize it, but they were playing the national anthem. That ‘Easy Ed’ nickname helped me get a lot of attention.”

Here's more:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AnhoTScGfsO0Q2tqHtOWHZe8vLYF?slug=ap-obit-macauley

https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tinyman#!/bostonceltics

little before my time. But 22 hangs in the rafters because of him!

beat

Ed Macauley was also before my time, but I've gained an appreciation for him while reading about the early days of the league.

He was undersized for a big man (6-8, 185) but was an exceptional player. Here are some stats from his 10-year NBA career:

All star 7 times
MVP of the first all-star game in 1951
All NBA first team 3 times, second team 1 time
Top 10 in scoring 8 times
Top 10 in field goal percentage 8 times (led the league twice)
Top 10 in free throw attempts 8 times
Top 10 in free throws made 7 times
Top 10 in assists 4 times
Top 10 in rebounds 1 time

And before that, as a college player:

First team All American at St. Louis University 2 times
NIT championship in 1948 (back in the days when the NIT was a bigger deal than the NCAA tournament)
AP Player of the Year in 1949

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/macaued01.html

He was also 89-48 as coach of the St. Louis Hawks for two seasons, losing in six games to George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers in the Western finals one season and in seven games to the Celtics in the NBA finals the next season.

If you'll indulge me, I'll summarize some information I gleaned about Macauley while preparing my posts a couple of months ago on Wilt Chamberlain.

Macauley was an excellent offensive player, and with Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman, implemented Red Auerbach's vision of fast-break basketball, and the three of them were perennial all-stars and the team became very successful. But as gifted as Macauley was, his weaknesses -- size, rebounding, and defense -- were the missing elements the Celtics needed to win a championship. So Auerbach took a chance and traded a proven all-star (Macauley) and a future one (Cliff Hagan) to St. Louis for the second pick in the 1956 draft, which he used to get Bill Russell.

In hindsight, it was a brilliant move, but it was risky at the time. Russell's skills were the opposite of Macauley's -- great as a rebounder and defender, but absolutely awful offensively. When Auerbach drafted Russell, Auerbach had seen him play only once. After the draft, Auerbach went to see Russell play in an Olympic team exhibition, as described in The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball, by John Taylor:

Russell played one of the worst games of his life. Auerbach thought he was awful, horrible in fact. He thought, God, I've traded away Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan for this guy.

It obviously worked out well for the Celtics, but that doesn't diminish the fact that Auerbach took a huge gamble by trading two great players for the potential he saw in Russell. Think of trading, say, Paul Pierce and John Wall for a draft pick. That's what it was like trading away Macauley and Hagan. Both of them went on to have stellar years with St. Louis, and with Bob Pettit, the Hawks were a formidable opponent during the early Russell dynasty. The Celtics and Hawks played each other in the NBA finals the next two years after the Macauley-Hagan trade, with the Celtics winning once and the Hawks winning once. Macauley was a big part of the Celtics' success before Russell, and he was a big part of the Hawks' success after the trade.

Outside

What a great player, and what a great guy! Ed was the very essence of humility and extremely smart. (How many players have written books about homilies after their careers ended?)

Ed was a major reason why the Celtics led the league in offense for the five or six seasons leading up to the advent of Russell. At the center position, he was fast down the floor, slick around the basket, and possessed the best turnaround jumper from the top of the key that I've ever seen in pro ball. He was a very good passer too.

I could make a pretty good case for a claim that Ed was a major reason why the Celtics won the Championship in their first season without him. Ed, along with Cousy and Sharman, had the fast break so perfected that Russ (who wasn't all that much of an offensive innovator) could just slide right into a successful offensive system and could concentrate on adapting his rebounding and defensive skills to the NBA in time to win the Championship.

Ed was no rebounding slouch either, averaging 8+ RPG in all except his last season with the Celtics. I claim it was Russell's defensive skills, even more than his prodigious rebounding ability, that was Bill's greatest incremental contribution to the Celtics. (Russ' first Celtics team averaged only 5 RPG more than the team had averaged the previous season.)

I hated seeing the Celtics lose to St. Louis when Russ had an ankle injury in 1957-58. But knowing that Ed MacAuley finally had his championship took a lot of the sting out of it. He was an all-star as a person as well as a player.

Rest in peace, Ed. And thanks for being an integral part of the Celtics era that solidified my Celtics fandom forever.

Sam

Sam:

Was Ed MacAuley the father of Don MacAuley the halfback of the Baltimore Colts in the 1970's?

MD!

MD,

No, I don't believe that was the case. Just to confirm my suspicions, I looked up both guys and can't find any mention of a connection. Except the I believe they're both in their respective Halls of Fame.

Sam