Best and Worst Trades in Celtic History

[bc legends]

What do you guys have as the best and worst trades in the organizations history?

Mine would be,

Best:
- Trading our 1st (JBC) and 13th (Rickey Brown) picks in the '80 draft for Parish and the 3rd pick (McHale). This trade brought us three titles in the 80s.

Worst:
- I would have to say the Billups for Kenny Anderson.

[SonicYouth34]

Who ever we traded Joe Johnson for is the worst IMO.

[Celticsarelife]

I would definitely have to say the trade for KG was the best trade in Celtics history. The Parish trade was already mentioned so I chose him. It was a great trade for both sides in my opinion, Garnett wasn't going to win anything in Minny, so they got a great young future star in Jefferson. Gomes is a great player, and Telfair is an average NBA point guard, although he is gone. We all know about Gerald Green though, lol. The reason I pick this is obvious, KG and Ray came in and this Celtics team clicked from the start. He brought us our first championship in 22 years, how could you not choose that one!

[Andrew McCeltic]

What'd Red trade for Russell? I think that has to take precedence over Parish/Mchale and Garnett, simply because of the number of titles involved.

The original Montross/Samaki Walker for Antoine trade has to be in the running for worst trade in Celtic history, along with the great Pitino/Wallace blunders. Joe Johnson; Marion-Declerq for Potapenko; Vin Baker.

Just kidding about the Antoine thing.

Billups for Anderson, though bad long-term, made some sense at the time- Billups was a long way from the player he became and Anderson had some ability- it's just a hated trade because it was part of an overall pattern of giving up on young talent too soon for mediocre, stop-gap veterans. But it's not horrible as a short-term talent swap.

[Jammer]

Best Trades

1. 1956 - Ed MacCauley (28 year old 6 Time All-Star C) and 24 year old Cliff Hagan (Future 3 Time All-Star SG/SF) for draft rights to Bill Russell.

2. Summer 1978 - Traded PF Sydney Wicks (1971 #2 Pick), PF Kermit Washington (1973 #5 pick), 1978 #8 pick and C Kevin Kunnert (1975 #11 pick) to the Clippers for Tiny Archibald, Billy Knight (traded in October to Indiana for 1978 #3 pick Rick Robey (who was traded in 1983 for Dennis Johnson) and a second round pick that the Celtics eventually used to select Danny Ainge), PF Marvin Barnes (1973 #2 pick), and the 1979 #9 and #21 picks (which were combined with the 1979 #3 pick to obtain Bob McAdoo, who was traded for the 1980 #1 pick, which was then combined with the 1980 #13 pick and traded for Robert Parish and Kevin McHale).

3. 1950 - after joining the Celtics about a week after the draft, Red Auerback, in his first Celtic trade, trades the Celtics 1950 First Round draft pick, Center Charlie Share, to the Washington Franchise for the Washington Second Round Draft Pick, Future 7 Time All-Star and All-Star Game MVP SG Bill Sharman

4. 1966 - Mel Counts (1964 Seven Foot C #9 pick who average 3.3 ppg and 3.3 rpg in 7 mpg, while shooting 80% FT) for 29 year old 5 Time All-Star PF Bailey Howell (Howell make the 1967 All-Star Team as a Celtic, his 6th, alongside Bill Russell, Sam Jones, and John Havlicek - 4 Celtics. Most amazingly, Bailey Howell was able to continue putting up 21 ppg @ 50% FG and 9.8 rpg in 35 minutes while playing alongside Bill Russell, Sam Jones and John Havlicek.

5. 1980- Traded 1980 #1 and #13 picks for Robert Parish and #3 pick (Kevin McHale). Golden State actually proposed this trade, Auerbach had reservations, Celtic Coach Bill Fitch supposedly convinced Auerbach to accept Golden State's Trade Proposal. 26 year old Robert Parrish, who was putting up 17 ppg and 11 rpg in Golden State, wanted to get paid. Auerbach paid him, Golden State got Seven Foot #1 pick Joe Barry Carroll, who they thought would put up 25 and 13, but did have a best season of 21 ppg and 9 rpg once. McHale was way better than anyone thought, there was not a single player to be had at #13, no matter who Golden State drafted. Killer trade for the Celtics. Sometimes you get lucky.

6. 2007 - Traded Wally S. and Delonte West for Ray Allen and draft rights to Glen Davis

7. 2007 - Traded Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, Gerald Green, Sebustian Telfailure, Ryan Gomes, $3 Million Cash, 2009 First Round Draft Pick and Returned Draft Pick from Wally trade for Kevin Garnett.

8. 1983 - Traded 27 year old C Rick Robey for soon to be (September) 29 year old PG Dennis Johnson.

Worst that was really one of best (?)

1976 - Bought 27 year old Sidney Wicks contract for $2 Million Cash. Too bad Sydney didn't have his knees left. Oh well, guess this one should be on the worst list. Sydney really only had 1 good year left. Pretty sad for someone who would be on the list for one of the top 5 most recruited high school players (even today) and best college players of All-Time. Sydney played alongside Lew Alcindor (future Kareem Abdul Jabbar) on the 1969 UCLA team, arguably the best college team ever, hands down, led UCLA to two National Championships by himself (Sydney played in 3 losing games over 3 years of college), and as a NBA rookie, averaged 24 ppg and 11 rpg. Just realized, Wicks was traded 2 years later in the megadeal with the Clippers (the re-located Buffalo Braves) in item 2, above, that brought in Tiny Archibald, and helped indirectly land Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale; (and Bob McAdoo, who became the 1980 #1 pick which, when paired with the 1980 #13 pick, became Robert Parish and McHale).

[vct33]

Not the worst trade but definitely my most hated because I lost one of my all-time favorite C's.

Danny Ainge & Brad Lohaus for Ed Pinckney & Joe Klein

[chakdaddy]

Regardless of the revisionist history that says Danny could predict the future and HAD to get Ratliff's contract...the Telfair trade was incredibly bad.

Even if we wanted to dump the pick, get Telfair, and get Ratliff's contract - Ainge basically told Portland "keep the change" on that one.

[gocelts]

Best trade was gettting McHale and Parish.

Worst was that Vin Baker mess....

[greenmachine_2849]

Who ever we traded Joe Johnson for is the worst IMO.

I defended the trade at the time as a good one and still do. It got us into the playoffs (although we MAY have gotten there regardless) for the first time in seven years, out of the first round (probably would not have gotten by Philadelphia without Rogers' ability to play center and neutralize Mutombo) for the first time in ten years, and into the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in fourteen years. And we didn't give up anything, as good as Joe Johnson turned out to be, that was irreplacable. Right now, both our starting small forward and our starting shooting guard are better than, or at least as good as, Joe Johnson, and it shouldn't be THAT difficult to find a quality swing man to take over their roles when they are no longer starter-quality in a few years. The trade may have set us back a little long-term, but I think both the Vin Baker trade and the Raef LaFrentz trade set us back a heck of a lot more.

[sully00]

Joe Johnson and Chauncey Billups are overrated as bad trades. First of all Kenny Anderson was better than Chauncey Billups for the life of both players contracts, Billups was on the scrap heap when MINN signed him. It took JJ another 3-4 years to become a good player on a terrible team so he would have been dumped somewhere for 25% for his eventual value. The selections of Kedrick Brown and Joe Forte make the trading of JJ worse than it really was.

Brandon Roy for Telfair is clearly a worse trade no matter the ends. Save the Ratliff contract stuff, you don't think that MINN wouldn't have been happy to take Raef and Roy instead of Ratliff and Telfair?

What was almost the worse trade in franchise history was the 3 1st round draft picks to the Knicks for McAdoo by John Y Brown that almost made Red resign and join the Knicks.

[s1ickd]

Joe Johnson is sort of overrated. If he was really an all star caliber player, he would take Bibby, J Smith, Childress, M Williams, and Horford into the second round easily. Paul Pierce would certainly do it and he's an all star reserve.

Even in Pheonix, when he was with Nash, Amare, Bell, Barbosa, etc.... he didn't prove that he was even CLOSE to being the best player on that team. Not even second best. It wasn't an argument.

He's an above average shooting gaurd who has a very versatile smooth game. Dime a dozen.

[Jammer]

What was almost the worse trade in franchise history was the 3 1st round draft picks to the Knicks for McAdoo by John Y Brown that almost made Red resign and join the Knicks.

sully, i have often wondered if the reported deal made by the owners wife,
trading the 1979 #3, #9 and #21 picks to the Knicks for Bob McAdoo,
was billed that way so Auerbach could re-route McAdoo to Detroit for the #1 pick in January 1980.

Since the deal had supposedly been done by the owner's wife, Auerbach and the Celtics could re-route McAdoo less than 5 months later with a clear conscience. But what I always wondered was it Red's plan all along to re-route McAdoo for a top pick in the following draft, knowing how the Detroit coach at the time loved McAdoo.

Just saying ... I know about Red talking to the Knicks.

[sully00]

Jammer,

There is some good reads if you do a search on line about that whole situation. Basically Red was leaving for the Knicks, it wasn't John Y Brown's wife who made the deal, he did, she just liked McAdoo, who was a great player but not a good fit for the C's (or anyone else) especially at that time.

Red had prepared to rebuild as the '77 team had shown its age. He drafted Max '77, Bird and Robey in '78, and had 3 1sts in the '79 draft. The owner then dealt them away for McAdoo in February of a terrible season. So Red was going to quit and go to the Knicks and facing that situation basically told John Y Brown one of them was leaving the Celtics. Red and whatever forces at play engineered the trade of franchises were essentially John Y Brown's organization became the Buffalo Braves on route to San Diego to become the Clippers and the Boston Celtics became owned by an investment group out of Miami and in the hands of Red. That off season he quickly dispatched McAdoo to the Pistons for a first round pick were his black thumb presence lead the Pistons to last place and the first overall pick for the C's.

[Tenbomber]

What was almost the worse trade in franchise history was the 3 1st round draft picks to the Knicks for McAdoo by John Y Brown that almost made Red resign and join the Knicks.

This IMO was definately the worst trade...but the C's of that time were not up to par....and they were hoping that having a star like McAdoo would light a fire under the team....

Unlike the relatively recent KG trade... that just didn't happen!

I guess that Joe Barry Carol trade that brought The Chief and McHale to Boston had to be the biggest steal ever!....

I wonder if Red was ever a used car salesman?

[BigHands]

What was almost the worse trade in franchise history was the 3 1st round draft picks to the Knicks for McAdoo by John Y Brown that almost made Red resign and join the Knicks.

sully, i have often wondered if the reported deal made by the owners wife,
trading the 1979 #3, #9 and #21 picks to the Knicks for Bob McAdoo,
was billed that way so Auerbach could re-route McAdoo to Detroit for the #1 pick in January 1980.

Since the deal had supposedly been done by the owner's wife, Auerbach and the Celtics could re-route McAdoo less than 5 months later with a clear conscience. But what I always wondered was it Red's plan all along to re-route McAdoo for a top pick in the following draft, knowing how the Detroit coach at the time loved McAdoo.

Just saying ... I know about Red talking to the Knicks.

Red wrote about it....excerpt below.

http://celticsgreen.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... rt_21.html

...Things quieted down for awhile, but with John Y. it was only a matter of time before the next bomb went off. The Earl Tatum thing really bothered me, but it couldn't hold a candle to the Bob McAdoo deal seven months later. That one took the cake.

We were having a terrible season. Havlicek was gone. The Archibald-Barnes-Knight thing never worked out. We ended up losing 53 games that year, the worst record in the history of our franchise. The Boston press was starting to climb all over Brown, and this really upset him; he was extremely sensitive to criticism.

We had a home and home series with the Knicks that February: down there Saturday night, back to our place Sunday afternoon. We won the Saturday game, and when we arrived home Sunday morning the papers were filled with rumors of a big trade involving McAdoo. Brown had gone to PJ Clarke's with Sonny Werblin, and I guess he wanted to show everyone what a big wheel he was.

That's what I figure he had bought the team for: The prestige, the ego gratification of being associated with the Celtics. Later on, word had it that it was his wife, Phyllis George, who came up with the bright idea of having McAdoo come to Boston. I don't know if that was true or not. All I know is that it wasn't my idea.

Sonny was smart. He went along with Brown: "Let's make a deal!" He wanted to get rid of McAdoo anyway, so he started bringing up the guy's stats. There they are, talking a big deal, and nobody's got any contracts in front of him so there's no way of verifying any of the essential information.
Brown calls me up. I tell him, "No way. I don't like it. I don't approve of it." All right, he finally agreed, no deal. He'd back off. I left the Garden that night believing it wouldn't happen.

But it did happen. The deal was officially announced the next morning; apparently it had been consummated over the phone the previous afternoon, sometime after Brown told me he wouldn't do it.

How crazy had the situation become? Get this: When Jan Volk, my legal aide who's now our general manager, got into the office that morning he began going over the paperwork and discovered there was major issue involving $1 million of deferred compensation that had been assumed by the Knicks when they acquired McAdoo from Buffalo in 1976. Now it was up in the air as to whose responsibility that would become. When Jan brought this to Brown's attention, Brown told him "Don't worry about that. You stay out of it, I'll take care of it."

Meanwhile Brown's partner, Harry Mangurian, who kept a pretty low profile, called the office and wanted to know what the hell was going on. Jan told him about the $1 million question and also told him how Brown had ordered him to keep his nose out of it. Harry became very concerned and told Jan, "I don't care what he said, I want you to straighten that out."

It did get straightened out, and the obligation went back to the Knicks where it belonged. But if it had been left up to Brown - who was very poor on details - we'd have eaten that mistake.

That was it; that was enough for me. There was just no living with the situation any longer. The man was just so hyper, so adamant, so unwilling to listen to suggestions, so certain that he knew it all, when in reality he didn't know a damn thing about what he was doing.

So I put it to him, "John," I said, "if you don't sell this team, I'm going to leave."
There had been rumors that he was thinking of selling to Mangurian, who, as his partner, had first option to purchase Brown's interest in the club. So I went to Harry, too. I told him if he didn't own the team within two weeks from that day, a Tuesday, I'd be gone.

Werblin told me he'd keep that job offer alive for three years, a great gesture on his part. But I made up my mind that I wasn't going to jerk him around again. Therefore, I was very firm in my remarks to Mangurian. "Harry," I told him, "you're a nice guy, a good businessman. I'd have no trouble working for you. But I'm not interested in offers that have been tendered or any of that crap. Those things can be kicked around for months, and meanwhile I'm still dealing with John Y. So as far as I'm concerned, if you don't own this team outright - that means 100 percent - two weeks from now, then you can count me out. I don't want to be here. You can run it yourself. I'm not going to sit around cooling my heels while lawyers go through tons of paper. I won't hang around for that. I'll release myself from the situation."

Well, it took two weeks, but Harry did it. He bought out John Y. Brown. Then weeks later we signed Larry Bird, whom I'd drafted the previous spring as a junior eligible at Indiana State, and two years after that, we were world champions again.

The nine month siege was over. That's how long Brown owned the Celtics. Nine months. But it was long enough to nearly destroy what we'd spent 30 years putting together. And you wonder why I say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?