Celtics Legend Tommy Heinsohn: The Untold Story of a Hall of Fame Triple Threat

Celtics Legend Tommy Heinsohn: The Untold Story of a Hall of Fame Triple Threat Steve Purciello: Hello, everybody. It's time again for Celtic Chalk Talk. My name's Steve Purciello, Boston Celtic fan for, for life. Go back to the Russell days, and we'll be talking a little bit about the Russell days in a few minutes. Before I do, I wanna just mention a couple things. First of all, the Peach Basket Network is, which is where you're seeing this pod, is a bunch of independent fans, basketball fans, NBA fans, and we all have something to say. We have some great pods. There's some great articles, on the website. I suggest you test it out and take a look, and if you really like it, subscribe. There's a bunch of good things and good opinions being shared on that. Now, I promised that we would go into the top 10, my top 10 all-time Celtics, and I will in a second, but I, I do wanna update a little bit of Celtic news in the last week. Jordan Walsh was signed to a four-year contract, and it was nice to see him, you know, get some money. First two years are guaranteed, last two are options. But there, there's a couple good things about it. First of all, Jordan is a pretty good player. He, he developed into an outstanding defender who can be a pest for a lot of good players. So that, that's it. That makes him worth that four million a year just on that. But the other piece that, that I find interesting is that four million isn't-- doesn't necessarily mean he'll be a Celtic. There's two things attractive about that. Four million is not a lot of money. You can attach it to a trade to bring the money up that you're losing. Also, the last two years being options, a team could take him, grabbing salary to make a deal, to make the deal work, but also then just not cut him or, or for the last two years, and they don't have to pay. So it, it's a very attractive deal for the Celtics. Now, will he help the Celtics? I believe he will. He's a good defender, as I just said. He can do a lot of things. If his shot continues to improve, he's a, a viable, viable, rotation player, and that's what you want with the Celtics. So I think it was a good move getting Jordan. They do have a bunch of wings. And you know what? I know they need to get better, those wings. But the team they have, I'm really happy with it. And I-- you know, after getting Mitchell Robinson, they have the two centers, and they have guards on the bench. They're, they're, they're gonna be okay. They're not gonna be a world beater. They can get better. If one of those younger players, and I'm talking about the Sherman, Hugo González, Walsh, Harper group gets better, all of a sudden the Celtics can be a legit, a legit team. Now, that's asking a lot. Last year a lot of things worked out well. This year they'd have to work out again. Now, let me talk about something I'm gonna do for the next couple weeks. I'm gonna each week, I'm gonna mention... I'll, I'll do Celtic news if there's any news, but also I'm gonna go into a different player and I'm gonna pick my... This is me. You can argue, and I, I welcome it, and I welcome to read it. You can argue with my choices. But I'm gonna pick my top 10 Celtics of all time. Now remember, I go back into probably the early '60s watching the Celtics on TV. You need to understand the Celtics weren't on TV as often as they are now, of course, and we have the League Pass, we can watch them every night, which we, which I do as a Celtic fan. But back then it was more difficult. I go back, I remember Bob Cousy's retirement when somebody yelled out from the stands, "We love you, Cous," and all that. So I go back and I do have a knowledge. It was difficult to pick the top 10, and as we go along, you'll see why. Number 10, today's number 10, Tommy Heinsohn. Now, I have an affinity for Tommy because he grew up in a town in, Union City, New Jersey. He was born in Jersey City. I, I grew up in a town about 10 miles from there. Union City St. Michael's School, I, I, I've been in, that's where he went to high school and so on, and he also went to Holy Cross. Tommy was a great player, and the primary reason that I believe he's a top 10 Celtic, there's a couple reasons, and I'll get to them, but one of the main reasons was Tommy played a game for the, for the NBA championship in his rookie year, game seven against St. Louis. Boston had yet to win a title. Tommy went out and he, he just had one of the greatest games ever, 37 points, 23 rebounds. This is a rookie, a rookie playing in the championship game, the big game. We talk about, a lot of people talk about Walt Frazier in, in '69, what he did against the Lakers, and that was a triple-double and a great game, I believe, and, and so on. So those are great games, and when you do it in a, in a situation like that, you can't forget it, and that's what Tommy did. In that same game, by the way, Bill Russell had 32 rebounds. Now think about that. Guys in the NBA today need two games to get that many rebounds. But Heinsohn was great. Now, Heinsohn was at a time when basketball players were not nearly as athletic and as good as today. Tommy had a little baby hook or a hook. He liked to throw the hook up, and he was pretty good at it. The other thing about Tommy was he was, he was a, an enforcer, tough and took no crap from nobody. Some interesting, numbers. He, he averaged 18.6 in his career. He retired early, played only nine years, Hall of Fame basketball player, 8.8 rebounds per game. He's also a Hall of Fame coach, so he, he's really-- And I'll talk about the coaching, and that's another thing that pushed him over the top in my mind because of the coaching. Played from '56 to '65. Six-time All-Star, Rookie of the Year, eight championships. Now again, when we talk about all-time Celtics, we naturally think of Russell, 11, and then we think about Sam Jones, 10. This man had eight, and if he extended the career, he would've had more 'cause Boston continued to win after he was gone. As a rookie, 22.3 and 10 rebounds a game. I mean, just, just a, a, a great player. I, I can remember as a kid watching the Baby Hook, and I, I can remember this, this tough physical player and, and my memory isn't great because it was so long ago and I was so young and I was still trying to understand the game of basketball. But Tommy and Bill Russell are people that, that attracted me to the Celtics, and I guess I like winners, but that's what they did. Sam Jones as well and Cousy, they all did. But Tommy was, stood out. Now, the next part of his career was interesting. Tommy then became the coach of the Celtics. Now I want you to understand in '69-- '67, Russell became the coach. He didn't win it in '67. First time Boston didn't win it in quite a while. And then in the next two years, player-coach Bill Russell, Black, first Black head coach in the NBA, wins two titles. In '69, Bill Russell retires. Red Auerbach has to find a coach. He goes and hires Tommy. Tommy coached, coached the Celtics from '69 to '78. He won two more championships. That's with the Jo Jo White, Havlicek, and, and, Dave Cowens teams. So Tommy not only, and this is what pushed him in my mind to a top 10 player, Tommy not only was a very good player, great player, Hall of Famer, he was a Hall of Fame coach. He did that. Now, we're not done. Tommy then became an announcer when Red Auerbach fired him in, in '78 when the Celtics were going into a bad period when they had Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe, and things just weren't working, and they, they started losing, and they wouldn't turn it around till Bill Russell. I mean, Larry Bird came in, came back. But so he was fired in '78. But Tommy then began to do the, announcing on the Celtics, on the Celtic broadcast, and Tommy was tremendous. He was so good, by the way, that when the NBA was doing their games, I believe on CBS, he was the color man for the NBA. He was so good. He was funny, and he was, just-- and he was good. He, he just knew the game and understood the game. Now, I wanna tell you something just to go back to his coaching days. Tommy was not the quiet coach. He would explode over everything. He made Red Auerbach look calm when it came to referees. He was all over them at all times. Never, never happy about anything. Just did some, some things that were, fascinating to watch on TV. He only had one assistant. I believe John Killilea was there for quite a while with him. And one thing that stands out as a coach, when the Celtics lost at home, and I believe they were going back to Milwaukee in '70, what is that? '72, I guess. They were going back to Milwaukee, and they had to win. And, and now Milwaukee had a guy by the name of, Lew Alcindor or Kareem Jabbar. Tommy decided he was going to guard Jabbar just with Dave Cowens. Now understand, Dave Cowens was 6'9", giving away a lot. Cowens played well, but Boston beat Milwaukee fairly easy. Now a lot of you don't realize Jabbar or, Alcindor started out with Milwaukee and won a title there. But Tommy was able to, to get them, with his coaching, a title by winning that game. I can go into coaching with Tommy. He had a few good years, but I wanna really spotlight the fact what a, a great player he was, an All-Star many six times, a Rookie of the Year and all the other things, and he won eight championships. I don't know many players who've done that outside of Russell and Sam Jones. So all of that comes together to make him my number 10. Now, I want you to understand when I did this, if you, if you think there's something wrong, please, please, make comments. But when I did it, I used a couple things. The player had to play for the Celtics for five years at least, and he also had to win a title. So when we did this, now, you know, we can, we can bring in the Kevin Garnetts and all the others, and I'm not saying we won't, but you need to understand Garnett won one title, and he wasn't there that long. So that's one of the reasons why I did exclude Kevin Garnett. The one title doesn't add up to what these guys did when winning, when Russell's time, 11 out of 13, Bird got three, Havlicek got a whole bunch, I, I, you know, Cowens got a couple, and so did Jo Jo White and people like that. So there's different levels, and I just think titles are, are an important piece. Well, that's it for this week. That's another week of "Celtic Chalk Talk." Again, if you disagree, that's fine. Just let me know, and I'll be glad to, to, discuss it with you. Thank you, and, we'll see you again next week for number nine on "Celtic Chalk Talk." Thank you.