Excerpt From The Selling of the Green:

"...this racial arrangement was a convenient get-rich scheme for the Celtics and the NBA, one that both organizations always understood completely. Both knew their audiences. The Celtics knew white Bostonians. The NBA knew white Americans. There was dual complicity in the marketing of a white team in a predominantly black sport. The Celtics were a team with tentacles reaching deep into the league's burgeoning corporate structure. They were a team with major white stars, a statistically astounding racial balance, and an administrative army of safe, white faces speaking directly to fashionable Boston neighborhoods and its affluent distant suburbs.

Only the Celtics could tie all the green ribbons around this lucrative package. They had Auerbach, embodiment of the powerful and unchallenged system. They had Bird, the ultimate tactical weapon. They had a powerful media machine to disseminate Celtic propaganda in the name of Celtic Pride.