Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin.
George Gervin, Nate Thurmond, Gus Johnson.
Great players all, indeed all Hall-of-Famers, but n’ary anNBAchampion among them.
Just doesn’t seem fair, does it?
Especially when you consider that Adam Morrison, Chuck Nevitt, and Harthorne Nathaniel Wingo all own championship gold.
With 17 championships to their credit, it would stand to reason that there have been certain members of Celtic title squads who have similarly found themselves to be, unlike the great Dr. John, in the right place at the right time.
Abacus Reveals the seven most “More-Lucky-than-Good” Boston Celtic championship players of all time.
No one has better—or at least more recognizable—hair.
No one delivers a more enthusiastic high-five —except maybeLeBron Jameswhen he’s inciting the opposition and essentially discarding his first title.
No one seemed more popular with the Garden denizens.
ButBrian Scalabrinewas, is, and ever will be a player of limited skill.
A career shooting percentage of less than 40 percent (barely 31 percent in the ’08 championship season) pretty much tells you all you need to know.
That, and the fact that the Big Three was searching for backup frontcourt help inNew Orleans’s ninth ward during the 2008 All-Star weekend.
Side note to the Scal fans:
Don’t be mad at Abacus.
You should blame KP’s bad knee.
Because if Doc Rivers’s boys had been able to finish the job in 2010 and hoist Banner No. 18, this spot on the list would belong to Shelden Williams, who can’t even outplay his wife.
Johnny McCarthy (standing, far left) was a member of the 1963-64 World Champion Celtics, his sixth and final NBA season and only season in green.
McCarthy was a steady, playmaking 6’1” guard who, even in an era of poor shooting and gargantuan rebound totals (and not just by a couple of guys named Russell and Chamberlain), couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn.
For three consecutive seasons, he led his team in assists, including the St. LouisHawkswho fell in the Finals to Boston in 1960 and again in 1961.
But by the ’61 playoffs, more and more of McCarthy’s playing time was being ceded to Hawks’ rookie point guard Lenny Wilkins.
A serious leg injury limited Johnny to a mere 15 games for St. Louis in ’61-’62, and he didn't play at all the following year.
Red Auerbach brought McCarthy to Boston for the 1963-64 campaign to replace some of the veteran leadership that had retired with Bob Cousy the previous spring. McCarthy appeared in just 28 games while the Jones boys, John Havlicek, and an aging Frank Ramsey did the heavy backcourt lifting.
Oh, and about that shooting? “Eagle-Eye” Johnny converted five out of 13 free throws—for the season (One doesn’t need an abacus to calculate that as unacceptable).
Johnny McCarthy took his championship ring back to UpstateNew York, where he would briefly coach the expansion Buffalo Braves as well as his alma mater, Canisius College.
Poor Hank Finkel —he was doomed from the start.
He was very tall—a seven-footer—and he was left-handed.
But those were the only things he had in common with the player he was brought in to replace —fella named Russell.
Following Big Bill’s unexpected retirement in the summer of 1969, Red Auerbach purchased Finkel from the San DiegoRockets.
High Henry lacked so much athleticism that rookie coach Tom Heinsohn took to using second-year, 6’9” string bean Richie Johnson for the center-jump that began each quarter of play back in those prehistoric days.
The drafting of Dave Cowens the following year relegated Finkel to a more traditional backup role.
And by the time Cowens, John Havlicek, Jo Jo White, et al were showing their championship mettle in 1974 against Jabbar, Oscar Robertson and theBucks, the immortal Jimmy Ard had moved Hank one more notch down the depth chart.
A genuinely good guy and subsequently a common sight at the old Garden, Hank Finkel and his championship ring retired after the ’74-’75 season.
Trivia Time:
Which San Diego Rocket teammate of Finkel shared that 1974 championship experience with him?
HINT: He had a rather unusual nickname.
Rick Weitzman (No. 26), a 6’2” guard, was selected by the Celtics in the 10th round (110th overall)) in the 1967 NBA draft.
Until Reggie Lewis joined the club 20 years later, Weitzman was the best player from Boston’s Northeastern University ever to have played for the Celtics.
Of course, he was the only player from Boston’s Northeastern University ever to have played for the Celtics.
Including the playoffs, Rick appeared in 28 games for a grand total of 80 minutes in his one and only NBA season. He shot less than 30 percent from the field and had as many personal fouls as he did assists.
Weitzman does, however, hold the distinction of scoring Boston’s final basket in the championship-clinching Game 6, a 124-109 victory in Los Angeles.
Knee problems turned Rick Weitzman into a school teacher before rejoining the club as a scout—ultimately their chief scout—in the ‘80’s.
Tom Boswell was the Celtics’ first-round draft pick (17th overall) in the 1975 NBA draft. Boswell had played his third and final college season for Red Auerbach’s old buddy Frank McGuire at South Carolina.
The athletic 6’8” frontcourt rookie spent most of that ’76 championship campaign tethered to Coach Heinsohn’s bench, then contributed about 15 mediocre minutes a game backing up the UCLA duo of Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe the following two seasons.
The development of first-year man Cedric Maxwell in the second of those seasons may have induced Boswell to sign withDenverin the summer of 1978.
T.B. took his talents (no, not to South Beach, but rather) to the Riviera for the 1980-81 season, where he contributed about 15 points per game to Italian League champion Pallacanestro Cantu.
Retirement at age 30 followed a one-season reprise with theUtah Jazzin 1983-84, ironically another “Banner Year” for Boston.
Tom Boswell’s Boston Celtic career was epitomized during garbage time one night at the Garden during his final year in green. Ahead of the field, “Hot Dog” Boswell tried to put a little too much mustard on a reverse dunk and got caught up on the rim.
The sheepish grin on Boswell’s face stood in stark contrast to the scowl that spread across Heinsohn’s.
On the heels of a stellar collegiate career at North Carolina State, John Richter was selected in the first round (sixth “non-territorial” pick overall) in the 1959 NBA draft.
The 6’8” pivot man logged 12 minutes a night for 66 games backing up Russell, Heinsohn and Gene Conley as Coach Auerbach’s troops were forging their third title in four years.
Richter contributed about five rebounds and five points per game with a rather lackluster 34 percent shooting touch.
Rather than return to Boston for a second season, Richter chose to embark on a lengthy career in the Eastern Basketball Association. A revitalized Jim Loscutoff and rookie Tom “Satch” Sanders were more than able to fill the void.
Maybe aPhiladelphiakid like John Richter just couldn’t bring himself to keep playing for Boston.
Was there ever any doubt about who would top this list?
No less an authority than the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan, even before he became a full-fledged curmudgeon a few years ago, had dubbed Greg Kite the least talented player in the NBA.
It’s mind-boggling that he lasted for 12 seasons and earned nearly $5 million NBA dollars.
Kite’s one discernible skill was the “hard foul,” and he was just clumsy enough to strike fear into the opponents who might be on the receiving end of one.
Big Greg, 6’11” and 250 pounds, ranked in the Top 10 of a statistical category exactly one time in his career—in 1990-91, he was seventh in Personal Fouls with 298 while playing for the woefulOrlando Magic.
In over 10,000 career, regular-season minutes, Greg Kite managed to score 1,717 points while committing 1,589 fouls.
Playoffs, you and Jim Mora ask? 378 minutes, 57 points, 94 fouls. Now that’s what you call “steppin’ it up,” huh?
If the Houston, TX native had been born one national border to the north, he would have learned how to skate and had just about the same career in the NHL.
What other NBA player could make such a claim?
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