This is #5 in a series of threads to determine the 25 Greatest Celtics of All-Time.
(I`m sorry for the delay. I wanted to wait until after the Draft, and then real life got in the way)
It´s the off-season, and we need something to talk about besides nonsensical trade-rumors.
So I thought we could make a big poll to decide once and for all who are the greatest Celtics of all-time. I´m sure it has been done many times before, and I know that it´s tricky to rate our legends, but I think there´s no better place for this than Celticsblog, and I haven´t seen such a poll here before.
Players to consider:
Tommy Heinsohn
Paul Pierce
Dave Cowens
Kevin McHale
Sam Jones
Robert Parish
JoJo White
Bill Sharman
K.C. Jones
Frank Ramsey
Satch Sanders
Danny Ainge
Rules1. Only former or current players are eligible.
No former coaches, GMs or owners. The Celtics´ history has just too many characters to include all of them.
You can´t vote for a player who has already won one of the earlier polls.
2. You can include off-the-court performances.
Although only former or current players are eligible, it is perfectly fine to include Tommy`s contributions as a coach and broadcaster, Danny Ainge´s work as a GM, or Dave Cowens´ nap on a parkbench after celebrating with the fans in 1974 in your evaluation.
3.
You have three votes.The first vote is worth 4 points, the second 2 points, and the third 1 point. This system is certainly more suited for a poll like this than a simple "one vote" poll.
Just write a post with your votes, and after the poll is closed, I will go through the thread and count every vote personally. I´ll close the poll in 2-4 days.
And if you want to discuss your votes, do it here, please:
http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=28994.0Makes it much easier for me to count the votes.
Thank you.
#1 Bill Russell
#2 Larry Bird
#3 John Havlicek
Winner of the last poll:
Robert Joseph "Bob" Cousy6× NBA champion (1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963)
13× All-Star (1951-1963)
1× Most Valuable Player (1958)
10× All-NBA First Team (1952-1961)
2× All-NBA Second Team (1962, 1963)
2× NBA All-Star Game MVP (1954, 1957)
The Boston Celtics, who had played the previous three seasons in the Basketball Association of America, joined the newly created National Basketball Association (a combination of the BAA and the National Basketball League) for 1949-50 and finished last in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 22-46 record. It became almost a foregone conclusion that the lowly Celtics would nab Cousy, a three-time all-american and one of the biggest names in college hoops, in the 1950 NBA Draft.
Instead, new coach Arnold "Red" Auerbach chose Chuck Share, a 6-foot-11 center from Bowling Green. (Share would go on to have an unremarkable nine-year career.) "We need a big man," Auerbach said at the time. "Little men are a dime a dozen. I'm supposed to win, not go after local yokels." Auerbach was blasted in the press.
Cousy went to the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, which soon traded him to the Chicago Stags, but that franchise folded before the 1950-51 season started. The names of three Stags -- Cousy and two much sought-after players -- were tossed into a hat. Gathered in a hotel room, the owners of the Celtics, the New York Knicks, and the Philadelphia Warriors each pulled out a name. All three wanted the league's leading scorer, Max Zaslofsky.
"When I drew Cousy, I could have fallen to the floor," Celtics owner Walter Brown said later. Cousy asked for $10,000 a year; he settled for $9,000.
It wasn't long before Brown and Auerbach were eating crow. Cousy dribbled, shot, passed, scampered and otherwise ran rampant as the Celtics ended the 1950-51 season with their first winning record, 39-30. "Easy Ed" Macauley, picked up from the St. Louis Bombers, pumped in 20.4 points per game. The 22-year-old Cousy averaged 15.6 points and 4.9 assists. The rambunctious rookie almost single-handedly drew fans into the Garden, although Auerbach was still unimpressed with Cousy's flair.
The Celtics added sharp-shooting guard Bill Sharman in 1951, and Cousy and the rest of the team continued to improve. Cousy averaged 21.7 points and 6.7 assists, both marks near the top of the league. As in the previous year, however, Boston was stymied in the first round of the playoffs by New York.
The Cousy legend started to form by the end of the 1952-53 season, only his third in the NBA. Cousy won the first of eight straight assists titles, averaging 7.7, remarkable for the era before the shot clock. The fast-breaking Celtics won a then franchise-record 46 games and swept the Syracuse Nationals in two games in the division semifinals. Cousy's dominating performance in Game 2 of that series would be one of the most talked about of his career and would even be compared to Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962.
Although hampered by a bad leg, Cousy scored 25 points in regulation, tying the game at 77 on a last-second free throw. In the first overtime Cousy scored 6 of his team's 9 points, including another game-tying free throw in the final seconds. In the second extra period he scored all 4 Celtics points. In the third he scored 8, including a 25-foot, game-tying jumper with three seconds left. With the Celtics down, 104-99, in the fourth overtime, Cousy scored 5 straight points, giving him 9 of the 12 points that Boston scored in the period. The Celtics finally prevailed over the Nationals, 111-105.
By the time the 3-hour, 11-minute game ended, five players on each team had been disqualified. Cousy finished with 50 points, including 30 free throws in 32 attempts. In the next round, the drained Celtics lost 3-1 to the rival Knicks.
Over the next five years Boston would add Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, K.C. Jones, Frank Ramsey, and Jim Loscutoff to its already high-scoring team. By 1956-57, Russell's rookie season, the Celtics were nearly unstoppable. Their 44-28 record was the best in the league that year. Cousy won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, finishing first in the league in assists (7.5 apg) and eighth in scoring (20.6 ppg), just behind teammate Sharman (21.1 ppg).
In the playoffs "the Green and White" swept Syracuse in three games to reach the NBA Finals. Boston prevailed in a tight series against the St. Louis Hawks, winning Game 7 when a Bob Pettit shot bounced off the rim as time expired in the second overtime. Cousy and Boston had won their first NBA Championship.
The Hawks got their revenge the next year, besting the Celtics in six games in the 1958 NBA Finals. What followed was a period of dominance by Boston that has not since been duplicated by any other team-and probably never will be. From 1959 through 1966 Boston won eight consecutive NBA titles. During the streak the Celtics brought in Tom "Satch" Sanders (1960) and John Havlicek (1962). The deadly combination of talent made the Celtics the most feared team ever. Until he retired in 1963, Cousy was the one player who brought it all together for Boston with his brilliant playmaking and court savvy.
"Cooz was the absolute offensive master," Heinsohn told the Boston Herald in 1983. "What Russell was on defense, that's what Cousy was on offense -- a magician. Once that ball reached his hands, the rest of us just took off, never bothering to look back. We didn't have to. He'd find us. When you got into a position to score, the ball would be there."
Cousy was the ultimate point guard, the engine that propelled the team. At full speed he could see the whole court and spot the open man -- even if that player was trailing behind. The league had never seen a player with sharper peripheral vision. His repertoire of passes; no-lookers, spinning dishes, behind-the-back feeds and half-court rocket shots-predated those of Earvin "Magic" Johnson by three decades. When driving to the hoop he knew precisely when to dish off, and to whom. An amazing dribbler, Cousy could keep the ball away from defenders long enough to allow plays to develop. And when no one could get open, he'd burn opponents with outside shots or slashing drives of his own.
So admired were his skills that errant behind-the-back passes in that era's city neighborhood pickup games were often met with the joust, "Who d'ya think ya are, Cousy?"
During the Celtics' tear, they defeated teams that also ranked among the finest ever: the Hawks, led by Pettit and Cliff Hagan; the Minneapolis and Los Angeles Lakers, with Elgin Baylor and Jerry West; and the Warriors, with Wilt Chamberlain and Guy Rodgers. Just to reach the Finals the Celtics had to outduel the likes of the Syracuse Nationals, with Dolph Schayes and the Oscar Robertson-led Cincinnati Royals. Although they had their share of stars, the Celtics were a team in the truest sense of the word.
At age 35, Cousy retired as a player. Even his final moments on the court were spent basking in Celtics glory. His last regular-season game became known as "the Boston Tear Party." Cousy was rendered speechless by emotion during a 20-minute farewell statement that was supposed to last only seven minutes. Then a voice cried out from the sold-out Boston Garden, "We love ya, Cooz." Those words from Joe Dillon, a city water worker and certifiable Celtics nut, broke the tension and sent the crowd into a frenzy. President John Kennedy wired to Cousy: "The game bears an indelible stamp of your rare skills and competitive daring."
Cousy went out on top. Boston defeated the Lakers in the 1963 NBA Finals in six games. In the fourth quarter of Game 6, Cousy sprained an ankle and had to be helped to the bench. He went back in with the Lakers ahead by a point. And although he didn't score again, he provided the emotional lift that carried the Celtics to victory, 112-109. The game ended with Cousy chucking the ball into the rafters
In his 13-year, 924-game NBA career, Cousy finished with 16,960 points, 4,786 rebounds and 6,955 assists, translating to averages of 18.4 points, 5.2 rebounds and 7.5 assists per game. He was regarded as the first great point guard of the NBA, winning eight of the first 11 assist titles in the league, all of them en bloc, and had a highly successful career, winning six NBA titles, one MVP award, 13 All-Star and 12 All-NBA First and Second Team call-ups and two All-Star MVP awards. With his eye-catching dribbling and unorthodox passing, Cousy popularised modern guard play and raised the profile of the Boston Celtics and the entire NBA.
In recognition of his feats, Cousy was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1971 and was honored by the Boston Celtics franchise which retired his number 14 jersey. Celtics owner Walter Brown said: "The Celtics wouldn't be here without him [Cousy]. He made basketball in this town. If he had played in New York he would have been the biggest thing since [New York Yankees baseball legend] Babe Ruth. I think he is anyway."
Source: Hoopedia/Wikipedia
Final Outcome(points in parenthesis):
Total Votes: 22
Bob Cousy (66)
Tommy Heinsohn (25)
Paul Pierce (21)
Dave Cowens (19)
Kevin McHale (14)
Sam Jones (8 )
Brian Scalabrine (1)
Topic: 25 Greatest Celtics of All-Time : #5 (Read 8693 times)