On this day in 1967, the Boston Celtics lost three players to the expansion draft held to populate two new teams being added to the league.
Those teams would be the San Diego Rockets and Seattle Supersonics, the former now relocated in Houston, Texas as the Houston Rockets, and the latter now the Oklahoma City Thunder since 2008.
Expansion drafts function similar to the regular draft, except the team or teams joining the league can raid the rosters of existing teams save for a certain number of “protected” players each team can prevent from being drafted away to the expansion team or teams.
The first Boston player taken was UConn product Toby Kimball, a forward who played just one season with the Celtics.
He would average 2.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 0.3 assists per game across 38 contests.
The second Boston player drafted was Ron Watts, a 6-foot-6 forward out of Wake Forest taken with the 17th overall pick of the 1966 draft.
He would win a championship with the Celtics in his rookie season, and played two seasons with Boston before being taken in the expansion draft, over which he averaged 1.4 points, as many rebounds and 0.1 assists.
Finally, the last player selected from the Celtics’ roster was wing Jim Barnett, drafted by the Celtics with the eighth overall pick of the 1966 NBA Draft out of Oregon.
Barnett would play one season with the Celtics, averaging 4.1 points, 1.1 boards and 0.9 assists per game.
It is also the birthday of big man Amir Johnson, who signed a two-season contract to play for Boston in 2015 after stints with the Detroit Pistons and Toronto Raptors.
Johnson averaged 6.9 points, 5.5 boards and 1.7 assists over his career with the Celtics.
Today is the anniversary of two playoff victories for Boston since the season of their last title in 2007-08. The first was an 87-80 win over the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the 2012 Eastern Conference Playoffs.
Paul Pierce would almost single-handedly will the Celtics to the win, outscoring the Hawks by himself over the final 15 minutes of game time to log a 36-point, 14-rebound performance.
Kevin Garnett added 15 points, 12 rebounds and 5 assists to help tie the series 1-1.
It is also the date of Boston defeating the New York Knicks 92-86 a year later in 2013 to take Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Playoffs first round.
Garnett would lead Boston with 16 points and 18 boards to cut New York’s series lead to 3-2 in what would ultimately be a losing effort. “We’re still down. Our mentality has to be all-out,” Garnett said at the time via the Associated Press. “It can’t be anything [else].”
Forward Brandon Bass added 17 points and 5 rebounds while Jason Terry contributed 17 points off the bench.
