Three-time NBA champion Larry Bird is one of the top-5 assist leaders in Boston franchise history.
With a seemingly endless list of Hall of Famers, which Celtics players have been the best at facilitating success for their teammates with their skilled passing? Here are the top five contributors in assists during the Celtics’ storied history:
Bob Cousy, 1950-63 (6,945 assists)
Bob Cousy came to define the early excellence of the legendary Celtics franchise, arriving in Boston just four seasons into the team’s existence and charting a Hall-of-Fame career for the next 13 years. That span included six NBA championships, 13 All-Star nods and one league MVP, and it featured Cousy’s development into one of the great facilitators of his era. The 6-foot-1 guard ramped up with 4.9 assists per contest during his rookie 1950-51 campaign. And in his third season, he started a run that saw him average between 7.1 and 9.5 assists per contest for 10 straight years. All the while, Cousy was making an impact as a scorer and rebounder as well, making him a catalyst for the foundation of one of the NBA’s legacy franchises.
John Havlicek, 1962-78 (6,114 assists)
John Havlicek essentially took the baton from Cousy during his rookie season and never looked back. Following a standout college career at Ohio State, Havlicek was taken by the Celtics with the seventh overall pick in the 1962 NBA Draft and went on to extend the run of championship seasons that Cousy had helped ignite by helping Boston to eight more titles. The 13-time All-Star and four-time All-NBA First Team member managed to balance his ability to put up prolific offensive numbers with frequently setting teammates up for their own success, and his longevity helped him get to No. 2 on this list despite a modest start to his career as a facilitator. After recording between 2.2 and 3.4 assists per game in his first five seasons, Havlicek went on to six straight seasons of averaging between 5.4 and 7.5 assists per contest, and he also averaged 5.1 dimes in his penultimate season (1976-77).
Larry Bird, 1979-92 (5,695 assists)
In addition to his elite shooting prowess and excellent rebounding ability, Bird was also adept at teeing up teammates for their own buckets. In addition to averaging a double-double in points and rebounds for each of the first six seasons of his legendary career, the Indiana State product recorded at least 5.5 assists per contest in five of those years. He then dished out a career-high 7.6 dimes per game during the 1986-87 campaign, and he’d go on to record over 7.0 assists per contest in two other seasons before a back injury forced his retirement in 1992.
Rajon Rondo, 2006-14 (4,474 assists)
Rajon Rondo arrived in Boston via a draft-day trade with the Phoenix Suns in 2006 and went on to have a long NBA career. The first eight-plus years of his professional tenure were spent in Beantown, and by his second season, Rondo was a fixture on the first unit. The skilled distributor was an elite defender and strong complementary source of offense, but his passing was on a level all its own. Rondo averaged between 8.2 and 11.7 assists during his last six-plus campaigns with the Celtics before a trade to the Dallas Mavericks midway through the 2014-15 season, quickly vaulting him up the franchise leaderboard.
Paul Pierce, 1998-2013 (4,305 assists)
One of Rondo’s contemporaries during the first seven years of the latter’s career, Paul Pierce landed with the Celtics via the 10th overall pick in the 1998 NBA Draft following a decorated college career at Kansas. He was one of the best all-around players of his tenure in the league, averaging over 21.0 points for seven straight seasons at one point and also serving as an above-average rebounder and top-shelf defender. Pierce’s contributions as a facilitator were therefore somewhat under the radar, but he netted 4.1 assists per game or more for a six-season run and later recorded 4.5 and 4.8 per contest during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 campaigns, respectively.
