Boston Celtics All-Time Team: The Results
Well, Boston Celtics fans, the gig is up!
About two weeks ago, I started my All-Time Boston Celtics Team series, in which I nominated 4-5 players at every position and opened the voting up to you readers. On Friday, I published my final poll in order to decide who would coach this legendary team, and now it’s time to tally the votes and declare the winners! Here it is, your All-Time Boston Celtics squad!
At starting point guard . . . Bob Cousy. Thank the stars for this result – I’m not sure how fitting it would be for our Hardwood Houdini site to award this spot to anyone other than the Houdini of the Hardwood himself! Early voting saw Rajon Rondo with the lead, but by the time it was all said and done, Cooz was sitting pretty with 72% of the total votes.
At shooting guard . . . Sam Jones. This was the closest vote we had . . . although Jones’ 59% of the vote to Ray Allen’s 25% is not exactly a nail biter. I’m going to assume that Allen was hurt by the fact that he spent the majority of his career playing for other teams, and his “defection” to Miami may not have helped his cause. All in all, just one more win for Jones, who experienced his fair share of winning during his career.
At small forward . . . Larry Bird. Who else did you expect? He’s one of the top five players to ever play in the NBA, so the fact that he won 87% of the vote is about as surprising as Miley Cyrus, child actress, becoming a “bad girl.” Saw that coming!
At power forward . . . Kevin McHale. The fact that McHale won did no surprise me, although I thought KG had a legitimate chance to make this vote closer than it was (71%-22%).
The big man at center is . . . Bill Russell. Not only did he win this vote hands-down, he did so by accumulating the largest percentage of votes (91%) of any player in this series. I could have penciled in this result before I even clicked the Publish button!
Coming off the bench . . . John “Hondo” Havlicek. Even though Hondo had also appeared in the small forward vote, he was allowed to run for sixth man due to Bird’s domination. On the flip side, McHale was disqualified from this vote because he was the leading vote-getter in the power forward vote. Trust me – I didn’t forget that McHale won two sixth man of the year awards himself! Since he earned the starting role as power forward, he couldn’t also steal votes for sixth man, and Hondo (who obviously could have won even with McHale in the vote) hogged 85% of the votes to win his spot on the All-Time Celtics team.
And the head coach of your All-Time Boston Celtics Team is . . . Red Auerbach. I mean, this one wasn’t even close! When I closed the poll, only two other candidates had received votes (they each had two), and one had not received even a single nod. Red walked away with 94% of the votes . . . which makes sense. If you want to assemble the greatest team in Boston Celtics history, you have to had the reins over to the greatest coach Boston has ever seen.
I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this vote was absolutely dominated by players from the 50s-80s. I really thought there were a few modern-era players who would put up more of a fight. Granted, the modern players will watch their legacies grow as time goes by, so if I were to revisit this topic in a decade, I might see different results. All in all, this proves that Hardwood Houdini fans are a knowledgeable, savvy bunch who appreciate the rich tradition that the Boston Celtics enjoy. Thanks for taking part in this series – I really enjoyed it!