Boston Celtics: the C’s 5 greatest villains from the 2010s

Throughout the years, the Boston Celtics have dealt with their fair share of franchise “villains”, especially during the 2010s.

Like some of the world’s most storied movies, the Boston Celtics — the NBA’s most storied franchise — have often found themselves going up against memorable opponents.

In regard to films like The Dark Knight, Star Wars, or any of the Harry Potter films the first character that comes into my mind for each is The Joker, Darth Vader, and Voldemort, respectively. I think of them before I think of the iconic protagonists in Batman, Luke Skywalker, and Harry Potter (his name is the freaking title and still I think of Voldemort before him).

These villains are such unique characters that they transcend the films they’re in. After all, stopping the villain is essentially the plot of said movies.

At this point, I should probably reassure you that this is actually a piece about basketball and, more specifically, the Boston Celtics.

Like every professional basketball team (with the exception of maybe the New York Knicks) the Cs have the goal of winning NBA championships. Just like how the main characters in those movies had villains that tried to stop them along the way, so do the Celtics when it comes to reaching their goal.

A strong villain makes it tougher to reach these goals and makes the path to winning a title more exciting and intensified.  As a team with 17 championships, Boston has probably been viewed as a villain by plenty of other teams, but they have a fair share of their own.

The villains they’ve had aren’t just teams and/or players that they’ve played against. There are different kinds of villains the Boston Celtics have dealt with. The top five villains from the last decade are all unique and distinct in their own way.

Let’s go through each one and talk about why we at the Houdini deem them as “villains”: