On this day: Robert Parish, pick used for Kevin McHale traded for; Bird, Ainge drafted
On this day: Robert Parish, pick used for Kevin McHale traded for; Bird, Ainge drafted
On this day in Boston Celtics history, President of Basketball Operations Red Auerbach pulled off one of the most lopsided trades in NBA history in 1980. Auerbach dealt a pair of first-round picks used to select big man Joe Barry Carroll and center Rickey Brown to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for big man Robert Parish and the draft pick used to select Kevin McHale.
In one fell swoop, Boston's head honcho scooped up two-thirds of one of the greatest frontcourts ever assembled. Forward Larry Bird, who had already been drafted, completed the trio that win titles together in 1981, 1984, and 1986.
It is also the anniversary of the 1978 NBA draft, in which the Celtics took three players of note. They selected small forward Jeff Judkins out of Utah with the 30th pick of the draft. Judkins played two seasons for Boston, averaging 7.3 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game before being drafted by the Dallas Mavericks in the 1980 NBA expansion draft.
The Celtics also took shooting guard Freeman Williams out of Portland State with the eighth overall pick of the draft. Williams was immediately dealt with Kevin Kunnert, Kermit Washington, and Sidney Wicks to the (then) San Diego (now, Los Angeles) Clippers for Tiny Archibald, Marvin Barnes, Billy Knight, and draft assets.
They also drafted a player you may have heard of -- forward Larry Bird. Bird was taken with the sixth pick of the draft despite still being enrolled in Indiana State University, exploiting a since-closed loophole in the Collective Bargaining Agreement to do it.
He finished his final season at Indiana State before joining Boston for his Hall-of-Fame career that included three titles, 12 All-Star nods, 10 All-NBA teams, three Most Valuable Player Awards, and many other honors.
The 1981 NBA draft also fell on this date, with the Celtics again taking three noteworthy players. The first was shooting guard Charles Bradley, a Wyoming standout, taken with the 23rd pick. Bradley played two seasons with Boston, averaging 3.3 points, 1.1 rebounds, and 0.5 assists per contest before being waived in October 1983.
The Celtics took shooting guard Tracy Jackson out of Notre Dame with the 25th pick. Jackson played 11 games with Boston before having his contract sold to the Chicago Bulls. In those 11 games, he averaged 2.4 points, 1.1 boards, and 0.5 assists.
The Celtics drafted shooting guard Danny Ainge -- formerly of BYU -- with the 31st pick. The move was a gamble since Ainge had already signed with Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays. However, the move paid off big for Boston. Ainge won two titles with the team as a player which laid the groundwork for him to return later in life as an executive and win another in 2008.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
T.J. Watt has made his demand for a contract extension perfectly clear but with nothing in place, he will holdout of the Pittsburgh Steelers' mandatory minicamp this week.
T.J. Watt has made his demand for a contract extension perfectly clear but with nothing in place, he will holdout of the Pittsburgh Steelers' mandatory minicamp this week. originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Few players measure in comparison to the tangible impact T.J. Watt has had one the Pittsburgh Steelers defense over the last eight seasons. Watt is a proven game-wrecker, having developed into one of the most feared pass rushers in the NFL. Advertisement Since his rookie extension, Watt has an extraordinary pass rushing resumé, totaling 58.5 sacks in four seasons. That included 22.5 sacks in 2021, tying the single season record set by Michael Strahan. Watt's individual abilities jump off the page but he's arguably the catalyst for the success of others patrolling the Steelers' defense, commanding so much attention that offenses have no choice but to be vulnerable elsewhere. Arguably the most important Steeler of the last decade, he and the team have hit a rift this offseason. Watt, heading into the final year of that rookie extension, seeks a new contract. The two sides have not made any progress on a deal to this point, leading to a major announcement regarding Watt's status on Tuesday morning. According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, the six-time All-Pro linebacker will not be in attendance for the team's mandatory minicamp this week. Advertisement His holdout will result in a series of fines for the three days of absence including $17,462 on Day 1, $34,925 on Day 2 and $52,381 on Day 3. That comes out to a total of $104,768. Rival edge rusher Myles Garrett reset the market for defensive players earlier this offseason with an extension paying out $40 million per year with the Cleveland Browns. Watt's exact asking price is not exactly clear to this point, but it has certainly climbed with that move and other corresponding actions. He will have the most expensive cap hit for the Steelers this season with an expected figure of over $30 million. Advertisement Related: Steelers Fans Get Bad News on T.J. Watt to Open Mandatory Minicamp Related: Details Emerge on Aaron Rodgers' 'Cheap' Contract With Steelers As Signing Official This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 10, 2025, where it first appeared.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Watch: Sue Bird discusses Caitlin Clark's passing and WNBA ownership
Few names are more synonymous with basketball excellence than Sue Bird. A four-time WNBA champion, Bird spent her entire 20-year career with the Seattle Storm, where she earned a record 13 WNBA All-Star selections, made eight All-WNBA teams, won five Olympic gold medals, and still holds the league's all-time assists record with 3,234. Advertisement And on Saturday, she'll be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame at the Tennessee Theatre. Bird has remained just as impactful off the court since her retirement in 2022. She became part-owner of the Storm in April 2024 after joining the team's ownership group, Force 10 Hoops. In May, she was appointed as the first managing director of the USA women's national team. If that wasn't enough, the 44-year-old is also making waves in podcasting. She co-hosts 'A Touch More' with her wife, former soccer star Megan Rapinoe, and hosts her women's basketball-focused show, 'Bird's Eye View.' On the latest episode of 'No Offseason,' Zena Keita and Ben Pickman interviewed Bird to discuss WNBA media, her passion for podcasting, the unique perspective she brings to team ownership, and what makes Caitlin Clark such a special passer. A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on the 'No Offseason' feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Keita: Sue, you officially retired in 2022, but you haven't really fully stepped away from the game and you've been very much involved since your retirement. One of the biggest things you've been doing since is podcasting, and you've inserted your voice in a unique way into the world of women's basketball. When you think about the media landscape right now, we know there's been a boom. … You know what it was like when there wasn't that much interest in your practices or games, and now everyone wants to get in there. So what do you see in the media landscape right now when it comes to women's basketball? Bird: Obviously, there's been a ton of growth, which is something we always wanted. It wasn't that we didn't have any coverage, but it was just that we didn't have enough, and now that's starting to enter into the picture. The way I refer to it is like an ecosystem. Think about what happened as the WNBA boomed in the last year or two. This ecosystem grew and more people were coming into it, but we didn't have a balance. We didn't have enough people who really understood the league, who knew the league, knew its history, knew why certain things would happen, why certain wouldn't, and had a true understanding of it. I think that's where I come into play, and not just myself, but other former players who are doing this and people like yourselves who are involved in women's basketball. Advertisement It's important to balance that ecosystem and to have an understanding, because with all the influx of people who were new to women's basketball, they were getting some of the narratives wrong. Some of them were just off, meaning those narratives took on a life of their own at times, and there wasn't something to counteract it, and there wasn't that balance. So the more that starts to increase, and as those of us who really know the game start to get larger platforms, it can all exist. Because sadly in our world today, you do need the hot take, you do need the wrong take, and you need to have these conversations to really get to the bottom of things. But what was missing was accuracy I would say. Keita: Exactly, and I imagine that's what you want to bring with 'Bird's Eye View.' I've been really enjoying that content, and particularly the accuracy you just mentioned where you're allowing players to tell their stories themselves, and provide that perspective and narrative themselves. Was that the impetus for why you launched your podcast? To be able to give players that lane that maybe you remember missing as a player? Or were you even hearing in the ecosystem from players saying, 'I really wish I could talk to a former player as opposed to a media member.' Is that one of the things that 'Bird's Eye View' wants to address? Bird: Yeah, partly, a lot of what I said about the ecosystem was more pertinent to 'A Touch More' because that's kind of how it got started. Then as we were doing that show, we talked about all different sports across the board, but obviously the WNBA and women's basketball was something we tapped into a lot. But I just found that I wanted to go deeper, and I wanted to talk about it more. And what I'm finding now as I'm doing it, is what you're saying, which is that I just really love having these conversations with players. I do think there's that element of being a former player where I'm able to disarm in a different way. But I also know that these players know I'm not trying to get any 'got you' moments, and I'm not trying to catch them out with anything. I'm just trying to have a real conversation. And I do think it gives them a chance to really talk about things and have somebody who can connect, relate and hopefully leave space for them to tell their side. So I've been really enjoying it and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I do have a couple of minutes on each side of the interview where I get to talk about the specific basketball things I want to talk about. Sometimes it's players, teams, themes, whatever it is. But for the most part, it's really just letting these players have that space. Pickman: Sue, when we had Candace Parker on the show, she talked about sometimes needing to take the white gloves off and the importance of that in the ecosystem. What are your thoughts on how media can do things differently, or about the idea of being fair but also critical when the situation warrants it? Advertisement Bird: Fair but critical is a great way of saying it, and that's something that not just Candace and I have talked about, but really all of us have for a long time. There wasn't a lot of critique, and in fairness to everyone who's been around for 20-plus years, it felt too risky to critique at times because it was so easy for so long to jump on that critique and then paint it across the whole league. If you said one bad thing about one thing, that was it: the whole league had no value. So it felt risky. But I do think we're now getting into this place where you can have both. But the important part is to be fair while also critical; both have to exist. And like I said, no 'we got you' moments, but real conversations. And in those real conversations come shooting slumps, come a game or a play where you look back and wish you did something different, or maybe a relationship with a teammate you wish you handled differently. Those are just real conversations. Pickman: You've mentioned some of your conversations with players, but I'm also curious about your conversations with ownership. We know you have an ownership stake in the Seattle Storm, and obviously there's an ongoing CBA negotiation. What have you learned about being on that side of the business? Have you talked to Ginny Gilder, Lisa Brummel, and the other members of the Storm ownership group about the ongoing negotiation? And what do you bring to the mix in terms of those talks? Bird: Yeah, I definitely do stay in touch with them, and what I'm bringing is what I knew I was going to bring the minute I became an owner just over a year ago. Which is I'm on the ownership side of things, but I have a player's perspective and that's unique. At times, I'm able to learn from the ownership group because I don't know that side as well. But then I'm also able to provide a little bit of understanding and nuance on what a player might be thinking in certain situations or certain moments. It's just a really good balance. And at the end of the day, I actually don't feel that much different being on this side as opposed to the player side. We all just want a great deal, and we just want this league to succeed, period, point blank. Pickman: You're the all-time leader in assists, and we have some great passers in the league right now. Courtney Vandersloot unfortunately tore her ACL this past weekend, and she's one of the all-time great passers too. But Caitlin Clark is very much on pace it seems to chase down your record one day. Bird: These records have no chance because they play way more games now. I don't want to get too caught up in the games played because it is what it is. I don't feel any way about it because records are meant to be broken. But I played 34 games for the majority of my career. So the players today are on the clock with these records, they better break those things in like five years. Pickman: Very true, and they probably will. But I wanted to ask, what makes Caitlin Clark so special as a passer in your mind? And what separates her as a passer compared to all her peers? Bird: The important thing to recognize here with Caitlin, and this conversation is we're not even bringing her name up unless she has incredible court vision, and unless she has the type of vision where she's able to anticipate and read. What I would add to that and what I think separates her, on top of all the qualities that most great passers have, is that she has strength. Sometimes she's able to make passes not because she sees it or because she's reading the defense — yes, those things exist, but that's not why she's able to make the pass — she's able to make the pass because she can actually get it there. The easiest way to see it is with her full-court passes, but they also happen in the half-court. Sometimes she'll have picked her dribble up, somebody will cut, and she still has the zip to get a backdoor pass off the bounce to her teammate on time. I would add that strength as a differentiator to some of the other great passers we've seen. You can listen to full episodes of No Offseason for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube. (Top Photo:for Fast Company)
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Chicago Sky React to Major Angel Reese Announcement
Chicago Sky React to Major Angel Reese Announcement originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Chicago Sky had a tough weekend. After suffering a 79–52 loss to the Indiana Fever and falling to 2–5 on the season, the team received even more difficult news on Sunday: veteran guard Courtney Vandersloot has torn her ACL and will miss the remainder of the season. Advertisement Now, on Tuesday, the Sky are set to face the defending WNBA champion and currently undefeated New York Liberty for the second time this season. However, ahead of the matchup in New York, some positive news emerged Monday night. Sky forward Angel Reese was officially named the BET Sportswoman of the Year for the third straight year, a major honor that drew a celebratory reaction from the Sky franchise on Tuesday morning. "YOUR BET SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR," Sky posted."keep shining Angel." Fans reacted to Reese winning the prestigious honor: "When she steps on the court, it's her world and we're just living in it. Angel's not just playing the game; she's defining it," a fan said. Advertisement Someone else added, "what the culture feeling." Another fan posted, "BARBIE." "Congratulations, Angel Reese! You deserve it!" One more fan commented. Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese (5) walks on the court during the second half of a Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Angel Reese has had a major impact on the game of women's basketball dating back to her college days at LSU, where she helped lead the Tigers to a national championship. Since being drafted into the WNBA in 2024, she has quickly become one of the league's brightest young stars. As a rookie, she led the league in rebounds, became the fastest player in WNBA history to record 500-plus points and 500-plus rebounds, and earned an All-Star selection. Advertisement Now in her second season, through seven games, Reese has faced some challenges offensively as she adjusts to new head coach Tyler Marsh's system. However, she continues to contribute in other areas, averaging 12.3 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.6 steals, along with 9.1 points per game. Related: Big Angel Reese Announcement Made Ahead of Sky-Liberty Game This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 10, 2025, where it first appeared.
