9 Players the Boston Celtics held on to for way too long

Brian Scalabrine (2005-10)

The White Mamba, or Brian Scalabrine, is a player that is going to live forever in the minds of those that followed the late-2000s Boston Celtics closely. Not a huge contributor by any means, but he was the consummate professional and exact role player that every team wants at the end of the bench. And he somehow managed to catapult that to a few extra years with the team that he probably, from an objective point of view, never should’ve gotten.

During the 2005 offseason, Scalabrine signed a five-year deal with the Celtics. He would go on to play out the entire length of his contract in Boston. But after his second season with the team, his production, minutes, and role quickly diminished. During his final season with the team, Scalabrine appeared in just 52 games and was averaging less than 10 minutes per appearance.

While he may have been the example of a true professional in that locker room and was probably a welcomed veteran presence for the big 3, it’s a true riddle how he managed to hang around in Boston without playing a huge role on the team after the first two years of his five-year deal. Especially with how much the team was shuffling the roster around the big 3.