Fencer reregistered wrote:Open-ended and fairly subjective: Which Celtic roster(s) had the most impressive set of post-playing basketball careers?
Mid-80s you get:
-- Bird, Ainge, and McHale, each with long executive tenures and also head coaching careers.
-- Rick Carlisle, well-regarded coach.
-- Sam Vincent, briefly an NBA head coach.
-- DJ, a interim NBA head coach.
-- Sichting, assistant coach, and I'd guess a college HC too.
-- Chief, who coached some minor league team or other.
-- Walton, a major broadcaster (or Maxwell, but not both as they were traded for each other).
I forget exactly who overlapped with whom, but in the 60s you get:
-- HoF coaches Russell, Heinsohn, Sharman, Nelson, and John Thompson.
-- Highly respected coaches KC Jones and Satch Sanders.
-- Unsuccessful coach Bob Cousy.
By the way -- I don't know where they stand on quantity, but the Lakers had Jerry West and Pat Riley play together in the 70s, which is great post-playing quality. Long-time not-so-great GM Elgin Baylor played with them part of that time.
This is no contest. SIXTIES by a landslide.
Heinsohn won 2 NBA titles as a coach, and was HIGHLY respected NATIONAL Broadcaster.
Sharman won an NBA title (1972) as a coach, was President of the Showtime Lakers, and took a bunch of Ragtag '67 Warriors to the Finals.
KC Jones won two NBA titles as a coach.
Thompson won an NCAA title as a coach.
Satch Sanders coached Harvard for 4 years, the Celtics for a few months and then went to New York to CREATE the NBA's program for rookies.
Don Chaney was a successful NBA coach.