1946: Birth Of The Celtics The Celtics came into being on June 6, 1946. On that day 11 men (all of whom owned either professional hockey teams, large arenas in major cities, or both) met to discuss the formation of a new professional basketball league. They christened the new league the Basketball Association of America and modeled its season-which featured a 60-game schedule and a series of playoffs-after the National Hockey League's. The game itself was based on college …showed first 75 words of 9615 total…

…showed last 75 words of 9615 total…slow down, averaging 16.5 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.71 steals for the year. Pierce, a unanimous selection to the All-Rookie First Team, teamed with Antoine Walker (18.7 ppg) and Ron Mercer (17.0 ppg) to form a high-scoring trio. The Celtics, however, still had their struggles and finished 19-31. The Celtics landed a new starting center on March 11 when they acquired Vitaly Potapenko from Cleveland for Andrew DeClerq and a first-round pick. Potapenko averaged 10.8 points and 7.2 rebounds in 33 games with Boston.