Then, four of Cooke’s five finals losses (1965, 1966, 1968 and 1969) had come to Bill Russell. It’s important to understand the level of pain that Russell had inflicted on Cooke personally at that time.

For example, in 1969, Russell’s last year, it was assumed the Celtics were done. The Lakers were a massive championship favorite, adding Wilt alongside West and Baylor, putting three of the five best players from that decade together on one roster.

The Celtics were old, Russell’s knees were falling apart, and they barely snuck into the playoffs. The Celtics then beat two teams with better records in Wilt’s former Sixers and the Knicks, who won their first championship the year later.

The Celtics had surprised, taking it to a game seven in LA, but that didn’t dampen Cooke’s confidence.

“In anticipation of a Lakers win, Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke had ordered thousands of balloons with “World Champion Lakers” printed on them suspended from the rafters of the Forum.

Flyers were placed in every seat stating, “When, not if, the Lakers win the title, balloons will be released from the raftors, the USC marching band will play “Happy Days Are Here Again” and broadcaster Chick Hearn will interview Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain in that order.” Before the game, the Celtics circulated in their locker room a memo about the Lakers’ celebration plans.

When Jerry West went to the court for a pre game shoot around and saw the balloons, he became furious with Cooke. Russell noted the giant net hanging from the ceiling during pregame warmups and said to West, “Those fucking balloons are staying up there.”

Sure enough, the Celtics got off to a 15 point lead, and barely held on in the fourth. In the final seconds, Russell made a decisive block on Lakers’ center Mel Counts, then gaining possession to help the Celtics win, 108-106. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tHA7w3eG0wM&pp=0gcJCWQCo7VqN5tD&ra=m&t=41m

Counts was in rather than Chamberlain, who left with five minutes remaining due to a knee injury, but then tried to return with a minute left. His coach, famously, did not allow him to, arguing that the team had a better chance to win without him. The coach was then fired. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-21-sp-4674-story.html

Fast forward a year, the Lakers failed to get over the hump again, losing to the Knicks in game seven despite star Knicks center Willis Reed actively playing with a torn quad.

To Cooke, the Lakers must have seemed cursed. At this point, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor had been to seven finals and lost all of them, six of them to Russell. So that’s who Cooke tried to bring in.

After retirement, Russell moved to L.A. and became a Lakers ticket holder. This was objectively a weird dynamic - Russell had harshly criticized Chamberlain in the press following Wilt’s exit in game 7 in 1969, leading to a 20 year stretch where neither were on speaking terms. But during home games, Russell would just be there courtside. https://np.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1ayo8cy/secret_base_wilt_chamberlain_and_bill_russells/

Anyways, shortly after Russell was in attendance at a night honoring Jerry West during the 1970-1971 NBA season, Cooke made Russell a formal offer - come back to the league, play in Los Angeles, and win your 12th championship.

“They had a ceremony for Jerry West and they said would you come,” Russell said, found in Russell’s 2013 oral history for the Library of Congress’ Civil Rights History progress. “I said of course, I like Jerry a lot. So while I was there they put me in a box next to Jack Kent Cooke, who owned the team. That was an experience. Anyway, a couple days later, I get a call from Jack. He says, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I made a decision. I’m going to get you to come out of retirement and play for the Lakers.” I said, “You’re paying a guy named Wilt Chamberlain to play for the Lakers. Now, how would he feel playing backup center?” Jack Kent Cooke didn’t think that was funny.”

In 2013, Russell said he only would have considered playing for the Celtics, despite his strongly documented tension with Boston fans, his decision not to be there for his own jersey retirement a year later, and his own sudden retirement without warning in the summer of 1969. Fans had broken into his house and defecated in his bed, and there were many who expressed distaste about him coaching, even as he led them to back-to-back championships. He sold the story of his retirement to a magazine in August of that year, not telling anyone else beforehand.

It seems likely that when he left, he knew he would never play for Boston again. Whether he really wouldn’t have considered playing anywhere else, or if it came down to a personal feud with Chamberlain is something the basketball world will never truly know.

As it was, the Lakers suffered an early exit in that year’s playoffs. But the next year, after an aging and injured Elgin Baylor determined he had nothing left to give to the game, the Lakers rattled off a league-record 33 straight wins, beating the Knicks (again with an injured Willis Reed) in the Finals. It ended up being the one and only ring of Cooke’s tenure in ownership.