7th greatest Celtic player off all time

[Fencer reregistered]

I'm going with Jones over McHale, but it's close. We may also all be underrating Parish, because of his lack of flash on and off the court.

And it's definitely not time for Garnett yet.

[Fencer reregistered]

As for who to add to the voting list: The most accomplished player not yet on is surely Ed McCauley. Reggie Lewis and Danny Ainge are also obvious candidates. Let's please not even add Ray Allen to the list until after KG has been selected. That said, McCauley doesn't really need to be on the list either until Sharman has been selected, while Parish and DJ will surely go well ahead of Ainge.

[JRsmithereens]

Theyre all mediocre.

Sent from my SM-G550T1 using Tapatalk

[Curmudgeon]

Garnett is # 3 and Sam Jones #4 for me.. oh well, at least I get to vote for them over and over again.

Of course, if Garnett is only viewed as a part-time Celtic, and Jones as merely a benefactor of a great team, despite his 11 rings, then what can I say. The first is hard to argue with, but if he's on the list, then he's on the list. The second, I would argue, was superior to all but Russell, Bird, and Garnett.

"11 rings" is an overstatement.

K.C. Jones has 11 rings: 8 as a player, two coaching the Celtics and one as a assistant coach with the 1971-72 Lakers. He could have had a 12th ring in 1975, but his 60-win Bullets were swept by the 48-win Warriors in one of the biggest upsets in NBA finals history.

[Ed Pinkney]

Voted Tommy. Would have no problem with McHale, Jo Jo, or Jones.

[CeltsfaninDC]

Sam Jones.

The Celtics would be 12x or 13x NBA champions without him.

Think about that for a moment please before you vote!

If you don't really know who he is please look at
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jonessa01.html#all_playoffs_per_game

Again, we'd have 4 or 5 titles fewer, as a franchise, without Sam Jones.
KG? 1 fewer
McHale? Definitely 2 fewer, maybe 3.

Thank you!!!!
My first thought when I saw the poll results were “Do you kids KNOW who Sam Jones is?” I love McHale, but he was a 6th man on his own team for a long time.

[Jammer]

Sam Jones.

The Celtics would be 12x or 13x NBA champions without him.

Think about that for a moment please before you vote!

If you don't really know who he is please look at
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jonessa01.html#all_playoffs_per_game

Again, we'd have 4 or 5 titles fewer, as a franchise, without Sam Jones.
KG? 1 fewer
McHale? Definitely 2 fewer, maybe 3.

Thank you!!!!
My first thought when I saw the poll results were “Do you kids KNOW who Sam Jones is?” I love McHale, but he was a 6th man on his own team for a long time.

I can see why people don't get it, but just consider the following:
I am probably as Big of Fan of McHale and Parish as anyone on this board, but their place in Celtic history is not comparable to Tommy Heinsohn or Sam Jones. Just isn't. Just like Cowens and Russell were better players than Parish, although Parish was an automatic 17 ppg, 11 rpg and 2 apg every night.

I just realized that Sam Jones Celtic career average of 17.7 ppg was in 27.9 mpg.

Per 36 minutes that's a 12 year career average of 22.8 ppg.

For those who don't know what Sam Jones looked like:







In truth, these guys are all great players.

But when you talk about NBA Champions, they all had a closer, or 2 closers, to win the close games. Someone had to be able to do it.

Kobe/Shaq were closers 3 times together and Kobe did 2 more on his own.

Durant was a closer twice.

LeBron was a closer 3 times, and one of those he had Kyrie along side him.

Pierce was a closer once. Ray Allen had to comes off screens to get open.

Bird/McHale were closers 3 times.

Sam Jones was closer for 9 NBA Champions. Not Russell, Not Havlicek, Not Cousy, Not Sharman, Not Heinsohn, Not Bailey Howell. Sam Jones played alongside four teammates who were First Team All-NBA (one of the 5 best players in the NBA, namely Russell, Cousy, Sharman and Havlicek) and two players who were second team All-NBA (Tommy Heinsohn and Bailey Howell).. But despite playing along six players who were voted by fellow NBA players as one of the 10 best at some point in their career. Sam Jones was the guy who was the closer, Mr. Last Shot, for 9 NBA Teams. Why? Because he could get his own shot, and he ALWAYS came thru in the playoffs.

[Fencer reregistered]

Jammer's post seems a bit hyperbolic about Jones' early seasons, especially his rookie year, when he scored only 31 points in the entire postseason, as per the stats in https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jonessa01.html By his fourth season his role was much more balanced with Sharman's, but Jones' stats went down from the regular season to the playoffs, while Sharman's went the other way.

[CeltsfaninDC]

Jammer's post seems a bit hyperbolic about Jones' early seasons, especially his rookie year, when he scored only 31 points in the entire postseason, as per the stats in https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jonessa01.html By his fourth season his role was much more balanced with Sharman's, but Jones' stats went down from the regular season to the playoffs, while Sharman's went the other way.

C’mon now, you know Red’s rule about rookies

[Jammer]

Jones became a starter during the 1961 season, at the end of which 35 year old Sharman was unprotected in the expansion draft, and wound up in a rival league the following year. Years ago I read somewhere that Auerbach designed last shots for Sam Jones as early as 1959.

[Fencer reregistered]

Jones became a starter during the 1961 season, at the end of which 35 year old Sharman was unprotected in the expansion draft, and wound up in a rival league the following year. Years ago I read somewhere that Auerbach designed last shots for Sam Jones as early as 1959.

http://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/bill-russell-celtics-championships-11-rings-great-escapes/1drwgkl77j07n1g47jlbeumt5h has Jones absolutely living up to what you said from the 1962 postseason onward. But I still think you overstated his centrality to the team for the first 40% of his career.

In his final season, by the way, I get the impression he hit the game-winning shots in Games 4 and 5 of the Finals. Credit for the Game 7 winner generally goes to Don Nelson.

[Jammer]

Jones became a starter during the 1961 season, at the end of which 35 year old Sharman was unprotected in the expansion draft, and wound up in a rival league the following year. Years ago I read somewhere that Auerbach designed last shots for Sam Jones as early as 1959.

http://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/bill-russell-celtics-championships-11-rings-great-escapes/1drwgkl77j07n1g47jlbeumt5h has Jones absolutely living up to what you said from the 1962 postseason onward. But I still think you overstated his centrality to the team for the first 40% of his career.

In his final season, by the way, I get the impression he hit the game-winning shots in Games 4 and 5 of the Finals. Credit for the Game 7 winner generally goes to Don Nelson.

Sam fouled out in Game 7, one of the few times in his career. Nellie's shot was a doozy, but in those days Nellie was all muscle and not the bloated coach he became. Don't remember game 5, the 2 close games in 69 were Game 4 of the ECF where Jones was double teamed by 2 1rst Team All-Defense players (Walt Frazier and Dave Debusshere but Jones scored anyway) and game 4 of the Finals. Check out Red Auerbach coming out of the stands to embrace Jones after the 69 Finals. It really left an impression on me.

Now you exaggerate the 40%. Sam was a starter for 8 1/2 seasons. He came off the bench for 3 1/2. Like many players he spent 2 years in the Army before getting to the NBA. Imagine if he had not gone back for those last 2 years but joined the Lakers, who wasted a #11 pick on him even though he told them he wanted to be the first member of his family to graduate college. He actually was a high school history teacher for many years after stints as an Assistant Coach with the New Orleans Jazz, Head Coach at his Alma Mata and athletic director at Federal City College.

[Fencer reregistered]

Jones became a starter during the 1961 season, at the end of which 35 year old Sharman was unprotected in the expansion draft, and wound up in a rival league the following year. Years ago I read somewhere that Auerbach designed last shots for Sam Jones as early as 1959.

http://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/bill-russell-celtics-championships-11-rings-great-escapes/1drwgkl77j07n1g47jlbeumt5h has Jones absolutely living up to what you said from the 1962 postseason onward. But I still think you overstated his centrality to the team for the first 40% of his career.

In his final season, by the way, I get the impression he hit the game-winning shots in Games 4 and 5 of the Finals. Credit for the Game 7 winner generally goes to Don Nelson.

Sam fouled out in Game 7, one of the few times in his career. Nellie's shot was a doozy, but in those days Nellie was all muscle and not the bloated coach he became. Don't remember game 5, the 2 close games in 69 were Game 4 of the ECF where Jones was double teamed by 2 1rst Team All-Defense players (Walt Frazier and Dave Debusshere but Jones scored anyway) and game 4 of the Finals. Check out Red Auerbach coming out of the stands to embrace Jones after the 69 Finals. It really left an impression on me.

Now you exaggerate the 40%. Sam was a starter for 8 1/2 seasons. He came off the bench for 3 1/2. Like many players he spent 2 years in the Army before getting to the NBA. Imagine if he had not gone back for those last 2 years but joined the Lakers, who wasted a #11 pick on him even though he told them he wanted to be the first member of his family to graduate college. He actually was a high school history teacher for many years after stints as an Assistant Coach with the New Orleans Jazz, Head Coach at his Alma Mata and athletic director at Federal City College.

Good point on the fouling out.

But are you sure he became a starter his second season? He was seventh on the team in mpg that year. The year after that he was sixth, with Ramsey being one of the guys ahead of him, but I'd have thought that the starters were Cousy, Sharman, Russell, Heinsohn and another forward. (Maybe Loscy or Conley, whose minutes were very close to his.) In the 1960-61 season his minutes were slightly more than Sharman's, but before that Sharman's were well greater.

[Jammer]

He didn't become a starter until his 4th season, but I read on what I thought was a very reputable Celtic history site that Auerbach called a play for him in 59. The author may have meant 1961. In any event he was the starter for 9 playoff seasons, which means he was a starter for 8 of his 10 Championships and clearly the guy to take the last shot for those 9 years. Before that they won so easily (4-0 Finals in 1959), which changed dramatically once Jerry West joined the Lakers but in 60 and 61 their Finals opponent was the Hawks.

[Fencer reregistered]

3. L.A. Lakers at Boston, NBA Finals, April 18, 1962
With 74 seconds remaining Boston led 100-96. But guard Frank Selvy hit two shots to tie it and could have clinched it in regulation when he popped free for a 12-footer from the side with 7 seconds remaining. It missed right.
The game went into overtime. Jim Loscutoff, Tom "Satch" Sanders and Tommy Heinsohn had fouled out for Boston; Rudy LaRusso and Elgin Baylor were gone for the Lakers. Sam Jones got 5 points in the extra period, Russell got 4 and the Celtics captured their fourth straight championship, 110-107. Russell had 30 points and equaled a playoff record with 44 rebounds. Baylor averaged a dazzling 41 for the series (including a playoff record 61 in Game 5 to put the Lakers up 3-2) and West averaged 31 points. It wasn't enough.

9. Philadelphia at Boston, East finals, April 5, 1962
It was the year that Chamberlain averaged 50 points, nearly 20 ahead of anyone else, and led his team to 49 wins. But those 49 were 11 less than the Celtics registered. In the end his team succumbed to Boston by 2 points, 109-107.
Twice Philadelphia had 9-point leads in the third quarter. The Celtics were on the ropes as Tom Sanders and Jim Loscutoff both fouled out. But Frank Ramsey came off the bench and he and Bob Cousy rallied the Celtics to a 102-91 lead. When Chamberlain was called for goal-tending on Tommy Heinsohn, it was 107-102. Then Chamberlain hit 2 free throws and converted a 3-point play in the next possession to tie it with seconds remaining. But Sam Jones hit a jumper with two ticks left and then stole an inbound pass to clinch a 109-107 victory.

http://www.espn.com/nba/playoffs2006/columns/story?columnist=shouler_ken&id=2452524

[radcot]

The Celtics teams that Sam played on during his career had a total of 10!!! hall-of-famers (including Sam himself). Three of his teammates have already been voted by the forum as the first, third, and fifth greatest Celtics of all-time. No wonder he gets a bit undervalued in Celtics history. He was a great shooter, held his own at the defensive end, and (as Jammer/Fencer document above) one of the best C's EVER in the clutch. I went with McHale for 7, but Sam is definitely up next.

[DavorFanCroatia]

Garnett is # 3 and Sam Jones #4 for me.. oh well, at least I get to vote for them over and over again.

Of course, if Garnett is only viewed as a part-time Celtic, and Jones as merely a benefactor of a great team, despite his 11 rings, then what can I say. The first is hard to argue with, but if he's on the list, then he's on the list. The second, I would argue, was superior to all but Russell, Bird, and Garnett.

"11 rings" is an overstatement.

K.C. Jones has 11 rings: 8 as a player, two coaching the Celtics and one as a assistant coach with the 1971-72 Lakers. He could have had a 12th ring in 1975, but his 60-win Bullets were swept by the 48-win Warriors in one of the biggest upsets in NBA finals history.

Actually 12 rings. You forgot KC was Bill Fitch assistant on 80/81 championchip team

[Elrod is Back]

I gave it to McHale. He peaked in 86-87, at age 29, he was first-team all-NBA and easily a top 5 player in the league. Best defensive forward and unstoppable offensively. He toughed it out and played on a broken foot in the playoffs and was never the same again, though he played another six seasons.

In my book, the next four are, in no particular order, Sam Jones, Tommy, Parish, and the woefully underrated Sharman, who is considered the premier 2 guard of his era, and arguably as a great a pure athlete who as ever played on the Cs. (His career was coterminous with Cousy, so that means no one here has ever seen him play.)

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/sharmbi01.html

All four of those guys are first-ballot hall-of-famer types.

Then comes KG, and only because his career in Boston was short, with only one and 1/2 seasons of classic top 5 in the league KG before the knee injury that reduced his game to top 15 player.

ASIDE: Putting Antoine Walker on the ballot is an insult to a lot of tremendous players in Cs history. Here is a list of some of the forwards who are more deserving of even being on the ballot, let alone getting votes:

Frank Ramsey
Tom Sanders
Don Nelson
Bailey Howell
Paul Silas
Cedric Maxwell

[Fencer reregistered]

ASIDE: Putting Antoine Walker on the ballot is an insult to a lot of tremendous players in Cs history. Here is a list of some of the forwards who are more deserving of even being on the ballot, let alone getting votes:

Frank Ramsey
Tom Sanders
Don Nelson
Bailey Howell
Paul Silas
Cedric Maxwell

Only 2 of those 6 guys ever made an All-Star team. So while each has a case to be selected before Toine -- even Satch Sanders -- it's not nearly as cut-and-dried as you're suggesting.

Except for Bailey Howell. Putting Toine on earlier than him was objectively ridiculous. Good catch there!

[Elrod is Back]

The case against Antoine is based on the fact that he had more talent than all but a handful of guys in the league, but he never ever worked at his game, at his body and he completely squandered it. He was a loser, pure and simple. He was a failure. The weakest guys on the list above--Sanders and Nelson--got the max from their talents and were key players on numerous championship teams. They were winners.

Antoine peaked at age 23 and began a rapid descent thereafter until he was washed up before he was 30. His career trajectory makes Rondo look like Tim Duncan.

Three points make the case against Antoine that I can recall.

First, I once did a statistical breakdown of every game Antoine played for the Cs over one season back in his "prime," like 2000-01 or 01-02. Antoine was a magnificent passer and in games where the he got 6 or more assists the Cs had a record of like 22-7. In games where Antoine took over 20 shots and made less than 1/3 of them the Cs were like 10-35. (These numbers are from memory and not exactly accurate, but close enough for the point I am making.) It was painfully obvious what he needed to do to be a winner, yet he always preferred to jack up crazy shots. As Rick Pitino once said, in his most lucid comment as Cs coach, and I paraphrase, "If Antoine wants to take all these crazy shots he needs to at least practice them so he can start making them."

Second, I recall when Antoine went to his all-star game that the Cs radio announcer at the time--I cannot recall if it was Sean Grande or someone before Sean-- said in an interview that he hoped Antonie would take a look at the physiques and bodies of the other players on the all-star team. They were all chiselled with like 6 percent body fat. Antoine even at age 22 was doughy and in dreadful shape for a professional basketball player. He should have been a bowler or professional poker player with his body. It was obvious he never took conditioning seriously at all. That was a real clear signal that the dude lacked what it takes. Conditioning is the one thing an athlete can control, and virtually every other NBA player was in vastly superior shape.

Third, when Danny Ainge took over the Cs in 2003 the very first order of business was getting rid of Antoine. There was never a shred of doubt that Antoine had to go. Toine was just turning 27 at the time he was traded to Dallas, and in theory should have been entering his prime and he was had two seasons left under his contract. If Danny thought he had a shred of promise he never would have dumped him in a fire sale. Sure Danny brought Toine back for half a season in 05 when he was already a "journeyman," but he made no effort to keep him that summer when he was a free agent.

I hold no animus toward Antoine as I write that. He seems like a nice guy. He was apparently generous with his friends, to a fault. I am sad that he has lost all of the tens of millions of dollars he earned during his career, and more. But I am not surprised. He did not ask to be given exceptional gifts or to be 6-8 in height. And regrettably he did not have what it takes to develop his exceptional gifts, not even close.

Any of the six guys listed above had vastly better Cs careers than Antoine. And for Ramsey, Howell, Silas and Maxwell, it is a thorough insult to even suggest Antoine was remotely close to them as a Celtics player.