Who do you pick for an all-time Celtics starting lineup

[JordansBulls]

Can't leave Cousy off the list for starters. He won a league mvp.

[wigglestrue]

Here's my all-time Celtics roster, with a ridiculous six separate units.

First unit

C - Bill Russell
PF - Kevin McHale
SF - Larry Bird
SG - John Havlicek
PG - Bob Cousy

Second unit

C - Dave Cowens
PF - Kevin Garnett
SF - Paul Pierce
SG - Sam Jones
PG - Dennis Johnson

Third unit

C - Robert Parish
PF - Bailey Howell
SF - Tommy Heinsohn
SG - Bill Sharman
PG - Rajon Rondo

Fourth unit

C - Ed Macauley
PF - Paul Silas
SF - Reggie Lewis
SG - Ray Allen
PG - Tiny Archibald

Fifth unit

C - Kendrick Perkins?
PF - Cedric Maxwell
SF - Antoine Walker
SG - Danny Ainge
PG - Jo Jo White

All-bench unit

C - Bill Walton '86
PF - Satch Sanders '66
SF - Don Nelson '69
SG - Frank Ramsey '59
PG - KC Jones '62

[Witzig-Okashi]

To the OP, is this from a legacy standpoint, or the most effective starting 5 possibly standpoint?

It would be more difficult to make one for the latter....

I took it to mean the former, but the latter is way more interesting.
So many variations possible.

An all-passing squad would have one of the best passers ever at each position, at every position, two or three deep, too. Also a hell of a defensive team, necessarily, as a lot of Celtics greats have been both excellent passers and excellent defenders. There aren't many -- or any -- pure one-dimensional scorers in Celtics lore.

An all-white squad that would not only not be goofy but would be pretty dominant, too, almost all Hall of Famers, 12-deep:

C - Cowens, Walton
PF - McHale, Howell, Macauley
SF - Bird, Heinsohn, Ramsey
SG - Havlicek, Sharman
PG - Cousy, Ainge

That's about (vaguely educated guess) 30-35% of all shot-clock era great white players, if you did a Top 50 white players, not that a race-based list would be useful. But I wonder if some folks are especially slanted against the pre-90's Celtics because of how many of the players were white? I think we're long, long past the time here when a good-to-great player would be overrated for being white.

I'm certainly not opposed to pre-90s Celtic players. Cowens is probably my favorite player out of the 70s, along with Hondo.

My starting 5 for the effective standpoint:

C: Cowens
PF: Garnett
SF: Bird
SG: Hondo
PG: D. Johnson

I do recognize a KG-Russell frontcourt would be other-worldly, but even before revisiting the blog, if I was making a team, I'd use Cowens at the 5 just because of my favoritism bias that I alluded to (and the fact that Russell would probably be a unanimous pick otherwise, including me). I think a Cowens KG frontcourt would be interesting, too...Bird's team defensive capabilities would be utilized will with this lineup, too....

[lorak]

Had to take a peek, the site shouldn't give you the option to click, lol. Let's see what he says about Kareem's '75 and '76 compared to Hondo's '70 and '71. Will he use '75 and '76 to indict Kareem as an impactless player? Spoiler alert: NO.

You've suckered a lot of people into thinking you're an "unorthodox" but essentially a good-faith participant with a unique perspective. You're not. You're not unique, you're not the only person in the world with access to bkref. And it is totally obvious to me now that you are the opposite of a good-faith participant. I'm reporting you for being a fraud whose only goal here is to troll, because there's no way you actually believe the majority of what you type, like this:

BTW, overall 13 players played in 1969 for Boston. In 1970 still 10 (ten!) of them finished season as Celtic (34 years old Russell and 35 years old, 26 MPG Jones were basically replaced by Finkel and rookie Jo Jo White). So 1970 team was basically the same team that won title in 1969, only minus Russell (Sam Jones was role player at this point of his career). Of course that's really big "only", and it shows how impactfull player Russell was, but also how overrated was his supporting cast - including Hondo.

That is pure trolling.

Sam Jones in '69 was "35 years old, 26 MPG Jones", yes, that is accurate, technically, and one could even fairly describe him as a "role player", in the sense that he was not the first option. But leaving it at that gives the impression, to anyone who's either too busy to factcheck or too new to basketball history to know better, that Sam Jones was mostly just old and useless in limited minutes and far down the line in terms of importance to the '69 Celtics. Instead of the actual reality which was that Jones averaged 16.3 points (third most on the team), 3.8 rebounds, and 2.6 assists on 45% shooting.

This is not mere disagreement. This is not mere forgivable laziness on DavidStern's part. DavidStern is clearly being WILLFULLY DECEPTIVE, because no one knows just enough to post the stats he does and yet not enough to understand how totally dishonest it would be to not count Sam Jones. This is but one instance of his habit of being a mendacious troll.

Where are moderators when we need them? This post is nothing but personal attack - since when such things are tolerated here?

[wigglestrue]

Next to each I listed the following:

HOF = Hall of Famer (with any team)
MVP = MVP winner (with any team)
MVP/C = MVP winner (with Celtics)
ANBA = All-NBA (with Celtics) (highest team selection noted)
ADEF = All-Defensive (with Celtics) (highest team selection noted)
SMOY = Sixth Man of the Year (with Celtics)
DPOY = Defensive Player of the Year (with Celtics)
FMVP = Finals MVP (with any team)
FMVP/C = Finals MVP (with Celtics)
AS - All-Star only (with Celtics)

[expected or hypothetical in brackets]

Here's my all-time Celtics roster, with a ridiculous six separate units.

First unit

C - Bill Russell - HOF, MVP/C, ANBA1, ADEF1, [FMVP/C], [DPOY]
PF - Kevin McHale - HOF, ANBA1, ADEF1, SMOY
SF - Larry Bird - HOF, MVP/C, ANBA1, ADEF2, FMVP/C
SG - John Havlicek - HOF, ANBA1, ADEF1, FMVP/C, [SMOY]
PG - Bob Cousy - HOF, MVP/C, ANBA1

Second unit

C - Dave Cowens - HOF, MVP/C, ANBA2, ADEF1,
PF - Kevin Garnett - [HOF], MVP, ANBA1, ADEF1, DPOY
SF - Paul Pierce - [HOF], ANBA2, FMVP/C
SG - Sam Jones - HOF, ANBA2
PG - Dennis Johnson - HOF, ADEF1, FMVP, AS

Third unit

C - Robert Parish - HOF, ANBA2
PF - Bailey Howell - HOF, AS
SF - Tommy Heinsohn - HOF, ANBA2, [FMVP/C?]
SG - Bill Sharman - HOF, ANBA1,
PG - Rajon Rondo - ANBA3, ADEF1

Fourth unit

C - Ed Macauley - HOF, ANBA1
PF - Paul Silas - ADEF, AS
SF - Reggie Lewis - AS
SG - Ray Allen - [HOF], AS
PG - Tiny Archibald - HOF, ANBA2

Fifth unit

C - Kendrick Perkins
PF - Cedric Maxwell - FMVP/C
SF - Antoine Walker - AS
SG - Danny Ainge - AS
PG - Jo Jo White - ANBA2, FMVP/C

All-bench unit

C - Bill Walton '86 - HOF, MVP, FMVP, SMOY
PF - Satch Sanders '66 - [HOF as Contributor], [SMOY?]
SF - Don Nelson '69 - [HOF as Coach, lol], [SMOY?]
SG - Frank Ramsey '59 - HOF, [SMOY]
PG - KC Jones '62 - HOF, [ADEF1]

Hey, and just for kicks, here are some other good to great players who played at least some significant stretch of games as a Celtic at some point in their career, but even the barest stretch, like McAdoo for 20 games in 1979, with their highest PER as a Celtic:

C - Shaquille O'Neal 17.4, Bob McAdoo 17.5, Clyde Lovellette 16.8, Artis Gilmore 10.2
PF - Al Jefferson 19.8, Sidney Wicks 15.4, Willie Naulls 14.4, Rasheed Wallace 13.1, Marvin Barnes 12.3
SF - Dominique Wilkins 16.3, Xavier McDaniel 16.3, Wally Szczerbiak 17.2, Bruce Bowen 11.0
SG - Pete Maravich 15.6, Charlie Scott 14.5, Jason Terry 12.8, Michael Finley 12.1, Joe Johnson 12.0
PG - Gary Payton 15.1, Paul Westphal 17.3, Chauncey Billups 15.4, Dave Bing 13.4

And, I hereby nominate as the Most Underrated Celtic of All Time: Larry Siegfried.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay guys:

1) Seeing a post like "where are moderators when we need them" from a poster who has been here for year drives me crazy. There is a Report button. Use it. Do not expect moderators to find every little thing under the sun on their own, and anyway it's called Backseat Moderating to say in public what the job the mod should be doing and guys have gotten warnings for that type of thing since the beginning of internet time. So don't do it.

2) This is not on one poster though. If you want the moral high ground from a mods eyes, don't call out the other guy for "pure trolling" in public.

3) Regardless, looking at the allegation of "pure trolling", I don't see clear evidence of that. I think one would be better served just to use the rest of the argument that was given.

So consider this a public warning to the group. Chill. Make reports. When a mod sees enough of a pattern, he'll take further steps.