No team in the NBA has the same prestige as the 18-time NBA Champion Boston Celtics. Winning DNA is a core tenet of what it means to be a Celtic, and as a result, the historic franchise has produced enough all-stars to fill 31 starting fives. It's quite the odyssey to name them all.
Dating back to the inaugural NBA All-Star Game, which took place at the Boston Garden in 1951, a whopping 64 players have represented the Celtics for a total of 156 appearances. Only the Los Angeles Lakers have produced more all-stars with 69.
It takes quite the historian, or Bill Simmons and his Dad, to name all 64 all-stars in Celtics history. The latest quiz from Sporcle below puts your Celtics fandom to the test, and shows just how close you are to being an honorary Simmons.
Can you name every Celtics all-star in franchise history?
John Havlicek and Bob Cousy share the lead for the most all-star selections in franchise history with 13 each. Behind them is who the most casual fans would expect to top the list, Larry Bird and Bill Russell, with 12 all-star game nods a piece. Paul Pierce is the only other player in franchise history with double figures as he was a 10-time all-star with the Celtics.
Recent seasons have been dominated by Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, which will no longer be the case after the polarizing Brown trade to Philadelphia. The last non-J to make the All-Star Game as a Celtic was Kemba Walker in 2020 in what is somehow one of the most forgettable all-star appearances despite it being so recent.
Recent all-stars have dominated the responses according to Sporcle's data. According to the site, more people correctly guessed Isaiah Thomas (92.3%) than Cousy (88.5%) and Robert Parish (88.4%).
Only a select few remembered these surprising Celtics all-stars
Even a team as prestigious as the Celtics has some pretty surprising all-stars. Some younger fans may have forgotten that once-beloved executive Danny Ainge was an all-star well before he brought a championship to the team as an executive. Ainge spent eight seasons with the Celtics as a solid role player, earning a lone all-star nod in 1988.
Ainge isn't even close to being the most surprising name on the list, though, as over half of players guessed him correctly. Tiny Archibald, Reggie Lewis, Bill Sharman, Ed Macauley, Paul Silas, and Bailey Howell were all guessed at a lower rate than Ainge.
Howell was the lowest of the bunch with only 18.1% of users guessing the 1967 all-star correctly. The Hall-of-Famer was a six-time all-star throughout his career with one appearance as a Celtic.
Silas is better known by modern fans as an NBA coach. That underappreciates his 16-year NBA career, four such years being spent with the Celtics. He was a one-time all-star. His son, Stephen Silas, spent three years as the Houston Rockets head coach and is currently an assistant on the Detroit Pistons staff.
The only other one-time all-star near the bottom of the list was Lewis, who unfortunately passed away in 1993 as a member of the Celtics. Lewis was an all-star in 1992 and averaged 17.6 points per game across his six-year career in Boston.
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