Ranking every No. 3 pick who played for the Boston Celtics

The Athletic ranked every third pick in league history, and we re-ranked the 13 Boston Celtics on that list.

Reordering for impact with the Celtics

While this list was created to measure the overall achievements of No. 3 overall picks in the history of the NBA, the order would be slightly different for those same players if we just judged them by how they performed while with Boston.

When considering these 12 players’ Celtics tenure only, the order would shift a bit:

  1. Kevin McHale
  2. Bob Cousy
  3. Larry Siegfried
  4. Jim Loscutoff
  5. Al Horford
  6. Jayson Tatum
  7. Jaylen Brown
  8. Rick Robey
  9. Raef LaFrentz
  10. Enes Kanter
  11. Dominique Wilkins
  12. Chauncey Billups
  13. Pete Maravich

With this rubric, we see a big boost to Siegfried and Loscy while the top and middle remain mostly unchanged. Robey’s lone title matters more here, and while Kanter has had the better overall career despite what the Athletic thinks, LaFrentz has at least played in the postseason for the Celtics so far.

And while much more accomplished players than most of those on this list, Billups, Maravich and especially Wilkins did little in Boston besides attract press attention for a short while.

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