On this day in Boston Celtics history, former Boston Celtics point guard Andrew Michael Phillip was born in Granite City, Illinois in 1922. Phillip played his college ball with the Illinois Fighting Illini on both sides of a tour in the U.S. Marine Corps at Iwo Jima during the Second World War. He was drafted by the (now defunct) Chicago Stags of the Basketball Association of America (BAA — a precursor league of the NBA) with the 31st pick of the 1947 BAA draft.
He would play for that team, the (then) Philadelphia Warriors (now, Golden State), and the (then) Fort Wayne Pistons (now, Detroit) before coming to the Celtics.
After Boston claimed him off of waivers from the Pistons, that is.
“Handy Andy” (as Philip was known) would win a title with the Celtics in 1957 (the team’s first) during his two-season tenure with the team spanning 1956 to 1958.
He averaged just 3.9 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game in a reserve role during the twilight years of his career.
But, the Illinois native would later be elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame with five All-Star bids, two All-NBA teams and two-time league assist leader honors to his name.
It was also on this date in 1995 that former Celtic small forward Dominique Wilkins would score 19 points off of the bench for Boston in a 110-115 loss to push his career scoring above 25,000 points.
At the time, he was just the ninth player in history to reach that mark, and remains 14th overall all time as of this writing.
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