A brilliant but underappreciated star from the dawn of the Celtics dynasty and who extended it into the 1970’s.
When you look at the Celtics dynasty that Red Auerbach built in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, perhaps the most underrated player on those teams was Tommy Heinsohn.
Partly this was his own fault.
Heinsohn, who was taken as a territorial draft pick in 1956, in some ways was quite different from his teammates. He had an eccentric personality that saw him attend one team party as Little Lord Fauntleroy. No one else would have done that.
To an extent he took on critics as a lightning rod, somewhat as Christian Laettner did at Duke though without Laettner’s considerable ferocity. In Heinsohn’s case, it was also within the team. Bob Cousy once said “I’ll say this for Tommy: he never met a shot he didn’t like.”
He had nicknames like Tommy Gun and the like.
All of this masked a considerable basketball talent.
When you watch this clip, you’ll see a guy with subtle talents. He was an excellent passer for one, much more than a simple gunner. He was also quite decisive.
He had a really nice hook shot, which is pretty much a lost art these days. No one really does a full hook shot anymore but as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar proved, it’s a very dangerous weapon.
He was a great fit for those Boston teams though and he also helped the Celtics to win two championships as a coach, taking over when Bill Russell retired as player-coach and rebuilding the team around John Havlicek, Dave Cowens and JoJo White.
And after that, he joined the Celtics radio crew where he was also became an institution.
He won 10 titles as a player and coach and has a ridiculous number of honors. And yet he is, generally speaking, underappreciated.
