Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics are a professional basketball team from Boston that plays in the NBA’s Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. One of the league’s eight original franchises when it was founded in 1946, the team now plays its home games at TD Garden, which it shares with the NHL’s Boston Bruins. Widely considered the most successful franchise in NBA history, the Celtics hold the record for most championships (18) and most all-time wins.

The team’s rise to power started in the late 1950s after coach Red Auerbach acquired Bill Russell in 1956. Russell, Bob Cousy, and Tom Heinsohn led the Celtics to their first title in 1957. With a supporting cast of future Hall of Famers including Heinsohn, Don Nelson, K. C. Jones, John Havlicek, Sam Jones, Satch Sanders, and Bill Sharman, the team won eight straight championships from 1959 to 1966. After Russell became player-coach—the first African American head coach in any U.S. sport—the Celtics won back-to-back titles in 1968 and 1969. Following Russell’s retirement in 1969, the team entered a rebuilding period.

In the mid-1970s, the Celtics returned to contention, winning championships in 1974 and 1976 under coach Tom Heinsohn with Dave Cowens, Havlicek, and Jo Jo White. The 1980s brought another dominant era, anchored by the “Big Three” of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish. This team reignited a rivalry with the “Showtime” Lakers and won titles in 1981, 1984, and 1986—the latter two under coach K. C. Jones. After Bird and McHale retired, Parish left, and the deaths of 1986 draft pick Len Bias and star Reggie Lewis, the Celtics struggled through the 1990s and early 2000s.

Following another rebuild, the team assembled a new “Big Three” around captain Paul Pierce by acquiring Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in the 2007 offseason. Under coach Doc Rivers, the Celtics beat the Lakers for their 17th title in 2008, then lost to the Lakers in the 2010 Finals. By the 2013–14 season, Allen, Garnett, and Pierce were gone; Garnett and Pierce were traded to the Brooklyn Nets for four future first-round picks. Using two of those picks, the team drafted Jaylen Brown in 2016 and Jayson Tatum in 2017. Led by “The Jays,” the Celtics returned to the NBA Finals in 2022, losing to the Golden State Warriors, then beat the Dallas Mavericks in 2024 for their 18th championship.

The team name and mascot “Lucky the Leprechaun” honor Boston’s historically large Irish population and the Original Celtics, a barnstorming team from the early 1900s. The Celtics have a famous rivalry with the Los Angeles Lakers, who are second all-time with 17 titles. The two teams have met a record 12 times in the NBA Finals, with the Celtics winning nine of those matchups. Forty-one Hall of Fame players have suited up for the Celtics at least once. Four Celtics—Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Dave Cowens, and Larry Bird—have won NBA MVP, and the franchise holds a record 10 MVP awards overall.

In May 2025, the team was sold to private equity investor William Chisholm for $6.1 billion, the highest valuation ever for a North American sports franchise at the time. That record was later broken in 2025 when a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers was valued at roughly $10 billion, making the Celtics deal the second-highest in U.S. sports history.

The Boston Celtics were founded on June 6, 1946, by Boston Garden-Arena Corporation president Walter A. Brown as a team in the Basketball Association of America. In 1948, the team made its first playoff appearance, losing 4–1 to the Chicago Stags. The Celtics missed the playoffs in 1949, finishing fifth in the Eastern Division. On August 3, 1949, the team joined the NBA after the BAA merged with the rival National Basketball League. In 1950, the Celtics drafted Chuck Cooper, becoming the first NBA franchise to select a Black player. Actor Chuck Connors of The Rifleman was an original member of the 1946 team.

The Celtics struggled early on until hiring coach Red Auerbach, who initially had no assistants, ran all practices and scouting, and scheduled all road trips. One of the first great players to join was Bob Cousy, whom Auerbach initially refused to draft from nearby Holy Cross for being “too flashy.” Cousy’s rights went to the Chicago Stags, but when that franchise went bankrupt, the Celtics acquired him in a dispersal draft. After the 1955–56 season, Auerbach traded perennial All-Star Ed Macauley and the draft rights to Cliff Hagan to the St. Louis Hawks for the second overall pick. He then negotiated with the Rochester Royals—promising the Celtics owner would send the Ice Capades to Rochester if the Royals let Bill Russell fall to No. 2—and used that pick to select Russell.