NBA to retire Bill Russell's No. 6 jersey league-wide

Harold Maass, The Week US's avatar
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Bill Russell stands next to an old jersey
(Image credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

The NBA announced Thursday that it was retiring Bill Russell's No. 6 jersey by all 30 of the professional basketball league's teams, the first time a player has been honored this way league-wide. Players currently wearing No. 6, including Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, can continue wearing it.

Russell, who died last month at age 88, was named NBA MVP five times in his 13-year playing career. He became the first Black head coach in U.S. professional sports when he was named player-coach in 1966, and led the team to titles in 1968 and 1969. "Bill Russell's unparalleled success on the court and pioneering civil rights activism deserve to be honored in a unique and historic way," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.

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Harold Maass, The Week US
Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.