Tag: ron mercer

On this day: Billups, Mercer, Thomas, Carlisle, Palazzi, Guarilia debut; Edwards born

On this day, former Celtics Chauncey Billups, Ron Mercer, John Thomas, and Rick Carlisle made their debut for Boston, and Blue Edwards was born.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, point guard Chauncey Billups played his first game for the team. The Colorado product would later be traded in his rookie season after being selected by the Celtics with the third overall pick in the 1997 NBA draft, but it wasn’t because of how he performed the first time he took the floor as a pro.

Billups put up a very healthy 15 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and two steals in his inaugural performance, shooting a sizzling 6-of-12 from the field, a much less sizzling 1-of-4 from beyond the arc, and a perfect 2-of-2 from the charity stripe.

That he did that in just under 17 minutes of game time off the bench makes it even more of a head-scratcher team president Rick Pitino would later trade the rookie scorer.

Every player in Boston Celtics history who wore No. 5

Today’s installment focuses on the 21 players who wore No. 5 over the years as of September 2023.

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 21 players who wore No. 5 over the years as of September 2023.

On this day: NBA founded; Mercer, Moïso dealt; Overton born; Hemric RIP

On this day, the Celtics became part of the NBA after the Basketball Association of America/National Basketball League merger in 1949.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, the National Basketball Association as we know it today was born in 1949, with the Boston Celtics being a foundational franchise in it.

It was formed from the merger of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL – not to be confused with the Australian league of today with the same name, or any of several less-prominent leagues of the same name) which predated the BAA by a dozen years. The Celtics had been part of the BAA since its inception three years earlier, a league formed mainly by arena owners trying to find novel ways to fill their venues.

Boston benefited greatly from the merger of the two leagues via players they drafted from the dispersal drafts of teams that did not join the newly formed NBA, like Ed Macauley.

On this day: Rozier, Billups, Mercer, Kreklow, Hunter, Mickey drafted

On this day, the Boston Celtics drafted several players in multiple drafts, including Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, Ron Mercer, and Wayne Kreklow.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, the storied franchise took just one player of note in the 1979 NBA draft, held in New York City at the Plaza Hotel, after having traded away their first-round draft pick. The sole player selected by the Celtics that year was 6-foot-4 shooting guard Wayne Kreklow, taken with the 53rd overall pick in the draft’s third round (drafts went on much longer then than they do today).

A native of Neenah, Wisconsin, Kreklow had been playing college ball at Drake before being drafted by Boston. He did not initially make the team, not unusual for a prospect drafted so late. But, instead of being waived, he would play a season with the Maine Lumberjacks of the Continental Basketball Association (the equivalent of the G League in that era), where he averaged 9.6 points per game.

Kreklow would join the team for the 1980-81 season, helping to win a championship in a reserve role that saw him average 1.2 points over 25 games with the Celtics in his sole season with the franchise.

Nine Boston Celtics alumni changing places in re-draft of NBA’s 1997 class

Let’s take a look at which Celtics alumni landed where.

As Hoops Hype’s Frank Urbina and Raul Barrigon keep themselves busy reassessing the draft orders of the last few decades over the years, there are always a fair number of Boston Celtics alumni making moves in their re-drafts as a result.

In the H/H reassessment of the 1997 NBA draft class, a total of nine Boston alumni ended up seeing their draft stock shift with the benefit of hindsight lifting their fortunes. And while they won’t see any pay raises or anything else of that sort given the fictitious nature of such an exercise, it’s also nice to see this duo get their flowers, too.

Let’s take a look at which Celtics alumni landed where.

On this day: Cs whiff ’97 lottery, miss Duncan; send LBJ home in ’08 with 41 from Pierce

On this day in 1997, the Boston Celtics missed the top pick of that year’s draft and with it Tim Duncan; 11 years later, they sent LBJ home in the ’08 East semis.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, the team would flop in that year’s draft lottery, ending up losing the top overall pick to the San Antonio Spurs despite having the highest odds — 36.3% — of landing the first overall pick of the 1997 NBA draft.

The whiff was one of the more impactful bits of bad draft luck experienced by the team in its worst era in terms of success in club history. The unlucky turn would end up sending generational big man talent Tim Duncan to the Spurs, with Boston drafting Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer with the third and sixth picks of that draft, respectively.

“I can tell you this,” said then-general manager M.L. Carr via the Boston Globe’s Michael Holley. “Coach (Rick) Pitino will do the right thing with the picks. He knows what he’s doing, he knows college basketball.”

The problem was that the Celtics played in the NBA.

On this day: Billups, Mercer, Thomas, Carlisle, Palazzi, Guarilia debut; Edwards born

On this day, former Celtics Chauncey Billups, Ron Mercer, John Thomas, and Rick Carlisle made their debut for Boston, and Blue Edwards was born.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, point guard Chauncey Billups played his first game for the team. The Colorado product would later be traded in his rookie season after being selected by the Celtics with the third overall in the 1997 NBA draft, but it wasn’t because of how he performed the first time he took the floor as a pro.

Billups put up a very healthy 15 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and two steals in his inaugural performance, shooting a sizzling 6-of-12 from the field, a much less sizzling 1-of-4 from beyond the arc, and a perfect 2-of-2 from the charity stripe.

That he did that in just under 17 minutes of game time off the bench makes it even more of a head-scratcher team president Rick Pitino would later trade the rookie scorer.

Every player in Boston Celtics history who wore No. 5

This is every player in Boston’s history who wore the Celtics’ No. 5 jersey for at least one game as of September 2022.

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 21 players who wore No. 5 over the years as of September 2022.

On this day: Billups, Mercer, Thomas, Carlisle, Palazzi, Guarilia debut; Edwards born

On this day, former Celtics Chauncey Billups, Ron Mercer, John Thomas, and Rick Carlisle made their debut for Boston, and Blue Edwards was born.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, point guard Chauncey Billups played his first game for the team. The Colorado product would later be traded in his rookie season after being selected by the Celtics with the third overall in the 1997 NBA draft, but it wasn’t because of how he performed the first time he took the floor as a pro.

Billups put up a very healthy 15 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and two steals in his inaugural performance, shooting a sizzling 6-of-12 from the field, a much less sizzling 1-of-4 from beyond the arc, and a perfect 2-of-2 from the charity stripe.

That he did that in just under 17 minutes of game time off the bench makes it even more of a head-scratcher team president Rick Pitino would later trade the rookie scorer.

Every player in Boston Celtics history who wore No. 5

This is every player in Boston’s history who wore the Celtics’ No. 5 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 21 players who wore No. 5 over the years.