Tag: Dave Cowens

Which Boston Celtics centers populate HoopsHype’s estimate of the best to play the game at the 5?

The Celtics check in with seven alumni among HoopsHype’s recent list of the 20 greatest centers in NBA history.

The center position may have lost some of its luster in the NBA of today, with it often being seen as perhaps the most replaceable position after decades of the five being among or even the most important position in the sport.

And with a team as storied as the Boston Celtics are, you have to think that any list of the sport’s top centers in league history has to be peppered with quite a few Celtics alumni. Such an assessment would be a solid one, given a recent such list published by our sister site HoopsHype to highlight the 20 greatest centers of all time was populated by seven former Boston big men.

Let’s take a look at the players so honored.

Boston Celtics all-time roster: See which legends made the cut

In honor of the NBA’s 75th anniversary, we present the best rosters in Celtics history drawn from every era.

In honor of the 75 years the Boston Celtics have been a foundational part of the league they helped shepherd from its days as the Basketball Association of America, the predecessor league it was formed from, we at the Celtics Wire decided to try our own hand at the many lists of players being commemorated as part of the Association hitting the three-quarters century mark.

To that end, we have put together not just one but four all-time Celtics teams, featuring our Honorable Mention team along with First, Second, and Third team honors. It is a veritable ‘who’s who’ of iconic Boston players — and each team has a head coach drawn from the greatest the Celtics have to offer in that regard.

The criteria for ranking is a subjective mixture of what each player did as a Celtic and how good of a player they were in their era. With this in mind, if you disagree with our rankings, that’s likely why. So without further ado — here are our teams.

HoopsHype lists 16 Boston Celtics on their projected 75 greatest players list

16 Celtics alumni make the cut for HoopsHype’s projected 75 greatest players list for the NBA’s 3/4 century celebratory accounting.

Not to be left out of the NBA’s 75th anniversary list creation extravaganza gripping the league’s wider media sphere, our sister site HoopsHype assembled a list of their own 75 greatest players of all time building off of (and cutting a few of) the NBA 50 greatest players list released for the Association’s 50th anniversary.

Given that the initial official list was, shall we say, a little generous to some and not as much as others perhaps warranted, we expected some players — including Boston Celtics alumni — to not make the cut of a list that was heavily dominated by the team in green and white.

They include Bill Walton, Sam Jones, Dave Bing, and Bill Sharman.

Every player in Boston Celtics history who wore No. 18

This is every player in Boston’s history who wore the Celtics’ No. 18 jersey for at least one game.

The Boston Celtics have more retired jerseys than any other team in the NBA, but that doesn’t mean the rest of their jerseys have little history of interest tied to them.

In fact, with 17 titles to their name and decades of competitive basketball played in them, their unretired jersey numbers pack in some of the most history not hanging from the rafters of any team in the league. To that end, we have launched our accounting of that history, with every player in every jersey worn by more than one Celtics player in the storied franchise’s history accounted for.

Today’s installment focuses on the seven players who wore No. 18 over the years.

How many of the NBA’s official 50 greatest in 1996 were Boston Celtics?

In 1996, the NBA released a list of its 50 greatest players up to that year to celebrate as many years of play as a league. Can you guess them all?

In 1996, the NBA decided to assemble a panel of 50 players, media members, and team representatives in total to select the 50 greatest players of the league’s first 50 years on the anniversary of the NBA’s first season of 1946-47.

The league again plans to assemble a similar list to honor the 75th anniversary of its foundation in 2021, but before we begin to speculate which alumni of the Boston Celtics will be added to the list, let’s take a look at the old one. Dominated by names once populating the championship eras of the team from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, a total of 14 of the NBA’s 50 greatest players once donned the green and white.

Let’s review who made the cut, and when they were Celtics.

WATCH: Celtics legend Dave Cowens showing off his shooting touch at 67

The iconic Boston big man could still sink shots like it was nothing decades after retiring.

It had been decades since Hall of Fame Boston Celtics big man and Florida State legend Dave Cowens picked up a basketball as a player, but the then-67-year-old Celtics icon put on a shooting clinic in 2016 at his alma mater in Tallahassee, Florida.

The two-time Boston champion sank shot after shot without breaking a sweat in this clip embedded below, only missing the first underhanded free throw he attempted, and making up for it with another made shot backward over his head. No word on whether the former NBA Most Valuable Player of 1973 is planning a comeback with that kind of shooting still at his fingertips, but it might be worth looking into.

We kid, but check out this clip of Cowens showing off his shooting prowess for yourself – it’s worth the watch.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!

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Celtics legendary center Dave Cowens’ surprising take on modern big men

Boston Celtics big man luminary shared some surprising opinions about big men in the modern era on a rare and recent podcast appearance.

Boston Celtics big man luminary Dave Cowens made a rare appearance on CLNS Media’s “Bob Ryan and Jeff Goodman Podcast” in 2020, and shared some observations on the evolution of the big man in the NBA since his era in ways which might surprise modern readers.

The tendency in any sport is to see it as if it was always the way it was when you first encountered it. Basketball (like most sports) has continuously evolved however, and the role of the big man has in due course evolved with it. The tendency of bigs in the relatively recent past has been as bruising post operators who tend to use their sheer size to bully their way to a high-percentage shot.

As analytics pushed the game away from that template towards dynamic bigs able to use skill and athleticism to overcome size and muscle, in many ways the game has shifted back towards the type of basketball that made Cowens — just 6-foot-9 — a lethal center despite his size.

On this day: Fitch hired; Westphal/Scott trade; ‘Beat L.A.’ chant born

On this day, the Boston Celtics hired Bill Fitch as their head coach, Paul Westphal was dealt for Charlie Scott, and the ‘Beat L.A.’ chants were born in a loss.

On this date in 1979, former Boston Celtics head coach Bill Fitch was hired shortly after his resignation from the same role with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Fitch, who had coached at a number of collegiate posts before joining the NBA as coach of the Cavs, was a former Marine drill instructor whose rigorous approach to training made him popular with incoming rookie Larry Bird, who credits the Iowan with helping instill his high-energy work ethic.

The Davenport native would win an NBA championship with the Celtics at the end of the 1980-81 season and would win his second league Coach of the Year honors for the season prior with the team.

Fitch would resign at the end of the 1982-83 season after being swept in the East Semis by the Milwaukee Bucks in four games after amassing a 242-86 regular season record and a 26-19 postseason record, good for .738 and .578 winning records, respectively.

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But Havlicek dislocated his right …

But Havlicek dislocated his right shoulder in the Eastern Conference Finals after running into a Dave DeBusschere pick, tried to come back playing left-handed against a Knicks defense that gladly forced him right, and New York went on to its second NBA title in four years. Nothing about that wet blanket ending diminishes Cowens’ affection. “1973 was the epitome of my whole career, even more-so than winning a championship,” he said. “That was the greatest time I ever had, playing basketball that year. It was a great team, we got along and we kicked a lot of ass.”