Boston Celtics Retired Numbers
The Boston Celtics have retired 22 numbers. Each one below records who wore it, the seasons they wore it, and what earned it a place in the rafters.
Back to Boston CelticsRobert Parish
1980-1994
The Boston Celtics retired Robert Parish's #00 in 1998, a year after his final season. Parish arrived in Boston in 1980 in one of the most consequential trades in NBA history: the Golden State Warriors sent Parish and the third overall pick — used to select Kevin McHale — to the Celtics, completing a frontcourt of Larry Bird, McHale, and Parish that is widely considered one of the three greatest ever assembled.
Why #00 was retiredWalter Brown
Founder
Red Auerbach
Coach/GM
Dennis Johnson
1983-1990
Kevin Garnett
2007-2013
Jo Jo White
1969-1979
Bob Cousy
1950-1963
Bob Cousy's #14 hangs in the Boston Garden rafters as the number of the first great Celtic — the player who established the culture of unselfishness, intelligence, and team-first basketball that Bill Russell's arrival would elevate into dynasty. Cousy arrived in 1950, three years before Russell, and spent fourteen seasons in Boston, winning six championships in 1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1963.
Why #14 was retiredTom Heinsohn
1956-1965
Tom Sanders
1960-1973
John Havlicek
1962-1978
The Boston Celtics retired John Havlicek's #17 in 1978, a year after his final season; he entered the Hall of Fame in 1984. The number honors a sixteen-season career that began with "Havlicek stole the ball!" — Johnny Most's famous call of the half-court steal that preserved a one-point Eastern Conference Finals lead against Philadelphia on April 15, 1965. Havlicek won eight NBA championships, second only to Bill Russell in Celtics history, played sixteen consecutive postseasons, and never missed a season.
Why #17 was retiredDave Cowens
1970-1980
Don Nelson
1965-1976
Bill Sharman
1951-1961
Ed Macauley
1950-1956
Frank Ramsey
1954-1964
Sam Jones
1957-1969
The Boston Celtics retired Sam Jones' #24 as part of a franchise that understood ten championships do not happen without exceptional players at every position. Jones won ten NBA championships in twelve seasons, second only to Bill Russell in all-time rings, playing quietly alongside the greatest winner in basketball history and proving crucial to every title.
Why #24 was retiredK.C. Jones
1958-1967
Cedric Maxwell
1977-1985
Kevin McHale
1980-1993
The Boston Celtics retired Kevin McHale's #32 in 1993. The number represents three championships, six All-Star selections, two Sixth Man of the Year awards, and the most technically accomplished post game in NBA history. McHale created an entirely new language for low-post scoring — the jump hook, the step-through, the up-and-under, the reverse pivot, the baseline spin — a catalog so complete that mastering the counter to one move only exposed defenders to three others.
Why #32 was retiredLarry Bird
1979-1992
February 4, 1993. The Boston Garden lowers the lights, and a green-and-white #33 begins its slow climb into the rafters, into the company of Russell and Cousy and Havlicek and Cowens. Larry Bird sits courtside in a suit, twenty-five months removed from the last competitive game his back would ever allow him to play, and the building does the one thing the old Garden never did quietly — it holds its breath. Bird had spent thirteen seasons telling everyone in every arena exactly what he was about to do to them, and then doing it.
Why #33 was retiredPaul Pierce
1998-2013
In 1998, the Boston Celtics used the tenth overall pick in the NBA Draft to select Paul Pierce from the University of Kansas. The Celtics were not good. They had not been good for several years. Pierce arrived as a promise — the franchise player who would eventually, if everything went right, return Boston to relevance. It took a decade and the arrival of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. But it happened. And when the 2008 championship banner went to the rafters of the TD Garden, Paul Pierce's name was on it first.
Why #34 was retiredReggie Lewis
1987-1993
15 of these 22 numbers are still awaiting a full write-up.