Tag: Tommy Heinsohn

Game 1 of the Finals was a 125-123 …

The Celtics have retired 23 jersey numbers (and one name) – these are the players so honored

It’s no coincidence this team has the most retired jersey numbers with 17 banners hanging alongside them.

There are no teams in the history of the NBA to have more titles than the Boston Celtics — at least not yet — so it makes sense there are no other franchises with more retired numbers to honor the players over the decades who earned and hung those banners.

In fact, there are no teams in any sport with more retired jersey numbers at 22 overall, a reflection of the excellence behind the Celtics mystique built by franchise architect Red Auerbach. From his signing with the team as coach and general manager onward, Boston became one of the premier teams of the greatest basketball league on the planet.

But who were the players for which those jerseys were retired after the latest addition of Hall of Fame big man Kevin Garnett? Let’s take a look at them all.

NBA releases top 15 head coaches in league history with several Boston Celtics alumni, omissions

These are the Celtics alumni named to the list – along with several noteworthy admissions.

WIth this being the season that the NBA celebrates its 75th anniversary, the league has been putting out a number of commemorative all-time lists from players to coaches, with the latter having been released by the Association this past Tuesday.

The NBA released its list of the 15 greatest head coaches in the league’s three-quarters century mark, and given the integral role and high level of play of the Boston Celtics, there are a number of alumni from the storied franchise’s coaching ranks represented. As with any such list, there are also a few notable omissions worthy of our consideration as well.

Let’s take a look at the former Boston head coaches, players who became head coaches, or player-coaches who made the cut — or didn’t.

Celtics announce all 15 members of All-Celtics roster for NBA’s 75th anniversary celebration

The Celtics released all 15 players for their all-time great Celtics list in honor of the league’s 75th-birthday celebrations.

The Boston Celtics are a founding member of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), the league that would one day call itself the NBA of today, and have thus been a prominent franchise in the league’s 75th-anniversary celebrations throughout the 2021-22 NBA season so far.

One of several such ways the Celtics have helped commemorate the league reaching its’ three-quarter century mark has been their slow reveal of their 15-man all-time team of the greatest players to don the green and white for Boston, done in three installments of five players each over the course of the last two weeks.

Selected by a panel of experts and historians, the Celtics released the final, full 15-player roster on Thursday afternoon along with a press release detailing all aspects of the team.

Celtics announce second five names of All-Celtics roster for NBA’s 75th anniversary celebration

Boston has now revealed 10 of their 15 greatest Celtics of all time.

The Boston Celtics have announced their second wave of three groups of five players in their reveal of their all-time Celtics squad in celebration of the NBA’s 75-anniversary festivities being conducted this season.

The players, voted on by a panel of media experts and historians of the Celtics and the league, follow up the first group of five players released on January 23 that included Larry Bird, Kevin Garnett, Kevin McHale, Sam Jones, and KC Johnson. In no particular order of relative greatness to the others, these 15 Celtics are the result of that panel’s deliberation on who belongs on an all-time greats team for such a storied franchise.

With that in mind, let’s dive into the players who have been designated as part of the 15 greatest Celtics by this panel, now up to 10 of the 15 who will be selected, and the last wave to come sometime in the month of February.

WATCH: What Tommy Heinsohn thought about Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird before he joined the NBA

Believe it or not, many people questioned whether Bird was worth his historically large rookie deal.

The same loophole that allowed Boston Celtics legend Red Auerbach to draft Celtics legend Larry Bird out of college before he had graduated (he had transferred from Indiana to Indiana State after his freshman year) allowed Bird to turn the tables on Auerbach and demand what was then the biggest salary ever given to a rookie in NBA history.

Now the deal, a five-year, $3.25 million contract, seems like a bargain of bargains — particularly considering he basically walked into the league playing at an All-Star level. But at the time, there was considerable doubt whether Auerbach had committed a critical mistake by letting the future Hall of Famer force his hand.

At the time, Celtics Hall of Fame player and coach Tommy Heinsohn was writing a column on the team he rose to fame with, and spoke on a television show about what he believed about Bird’s future in the league and the value of the signing.

Watch the video embedded above to hear what Heinsohn said about one of the greatest to play the game before he ever graced an NBA hardwood (you may want to turn on the closed captioning and crank the volume — father time has not been kind to the audio).

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

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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.

On this day: former Boston player, coach, GM Carr waived; Heinsohn, Sharman jerseys retired

On this day in Celtics history, ML Carr was waived, and Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Sharman had their jerseys retired.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, Celtics small forward and later head coach and general manager Michael Leon Carr (more often known as “M.L.”) was waived by the team he would one day head — but not on that day in 1974.

Carr, a native of Wallace, North Carolina, would play his college ball with the Guilford College Quakers, a Division III program in Greensboro, North Carolina. Despite the Division III status of his school, Carr managed to get selected 76th overall (there were several more rounds to the NBA draft in that era) by the then-Kansas City/Omaha Kings (now, Sacramento) in the 1973 NBA draft.

But, Carr fared better in the rival American Basketball Association (ABA) draft of that same year.

Can you name all six Hall of Fame coaches of the Boston Celtics?

Better yet, can you do it in order?

The Boston Celtics have plenty of former players in Springfield, Massachusetts Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, and plenty more who may yet one day help people its ranks. But the storied franchise has had plenty of stellar leadership on the other side of the clipboard as well, with six former coaches having earned immortalization in basketball’s Mount Olympus.

Celtics fans may not be very crazy about at least one of the five among the franchise’s least popular alumni, but he still counts, and puts Boston among the league’s most decorated teams when it comes to historically recognized coaches on its payroll.

Let’s take a look at those Hall of Fame Celtics coaches, from the evil emperor himself to the greatest head coach in the history of the NBA.

On this day: Celtics player, coach, commentator Tommy Heinsohn born, ’20 NBA strike

On this day in 1934, Boston legend Tommy Heinsohn was born, and the NBA went on strike for a day over police violence.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, legendary big man Tommy Heinsohn was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1934. Heinsohn was an All-American who played his college ball at the College of the Holy Cross and was taken with a territorial pick (these no longer exist, but were created to keep local talents in the region they went to college) in the 1957 NBA draft by the Celtics.

Heinsohn garnered Rookie of the Year honors in a draft class with teammate Bill Russell and won a title as well that season. He won seven more with Boston as a player while making six All-Star games and four All-NBA teams.

After transitioning to the other side of the clipboard with the Celtics, Heinsohn won two more titles as Boston’s head coach.

Tommy Heinsohn, (15) of the Boston Celtics leaps to score as Bob Pettit, left, of the St. Louis Hawks attempts to block the play in their National Basketball Association playoff game at Boston Garden on April 10, 1958. Watching the play is Jack McMahon (21) of the Hawks. AP Photo/J. Walter Green