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A reserve for the Boston Celtics during the early part of his career in the ’60s and then again in the late-’70s, John Havlicek is the most important backup in NBA history. Though he owes much to his predecessor off the pine, Frank Ramsey, Havlicek is the best early example of the weaponized sixth man.
If the Celtics hadn’t basically invented the concept of the super-sub with Ramsey, it’s unlikely Havlicek would have ever spent a second outside the starting five. He averaged 19.3 points per game during his first seven career seasons, all as a reserve, leading Boston in scoring (19.9 points per game) and becoming the first and only non-starter to ever make an All-NBA team.
He pulled off those feats in 1963-64, a year that also saw the Celtics become the first NBA franchise to field an all-black starting five.
Prior to Havlicek, reserves were reserves because they weren’t as good as the starters. But there was never any question the mythically energetic and skilled Havlicek was first-unit quality. The guy had it all.
“It would’ve been fair to those who had to play him or those who had to coach against him if he had been blessed only with his inhuman endurance,” famed New York Knicks coach Red Holtzman once said, via NBA.com. “God had to compound it by making him a good scorer, smart ball-handler and intelligent defensive player with quickness of mind, hands and feet.”
That endurance and talent were the reasons Havlicek was always on the floor at the end of games. His last-second steal in the 1965 Eastern Conference Finals, which produced one of the NBA’s iconic play-by-play calls, showed future sixth men that non-starters could be great finishers.
Havlicek became a full-time starter in 1969-70, but by then he’d already helped the Celtics to six titles off the bench. Boston would win two more with him in the starting five.
He retired in 1978 as a 13-time All-Star with 11 All-NBA nods, eight seasons on the All-Defensive team, eight rings, the 1973-74 Finals MVP and more points than any player in Celtics history.
Havlicek is one of those rare cases where the original model remains superior to all of its successors. Scoring touch, high energy and shutdown defense would, separately, become defining characteristics of many great bench players to follow. But Havlicek had all of them.
If any single player made backup duties cool, it was him.
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