50 Years of NBA WAR — Day 3: Boston Celtics Top 50
Continuing the 21-day series of ranking the Top 50 players by WAR for every franchise that has played in all 50 seasons covered by my dataset (1976-77 through 2025-26), in third place are my beloved Boston Celtics.
The Celtics rank 2nd in cumulative regular season WAR (1,690.9) behind the Spurs, and 2nd in cumulative playoff WAR (194.3) behind the Lakers, but third in combined WAR.
Unfortunately for me and other Celtics fans, this arbitrary cutoff point really misses a lot of Celtics history as 13 of their 18 championships aren’t covered, including them winning in the preceding year (1976), and the entire career of arguably the greatest Celtic of all, Bill Russell, isn’t covered, as well as other franchise legends like Bob Cousy, Sam Jones, and Tommy Heinsohn. It also only captures two seasons of John Havlicek and four of former MVP Dave Cowens.
That being said, there is still quite a bit of Celtics history packed into these 50 seasons, beginning with the final years of the Cowens/Havlicek era, the Bird years, the Big 3 Celtics, and the Jays era.
For the full explanation of the methodology and Estimated RAPTOR/LAKER, see Day 1: San Antonio Spurs.
For a quick refresher: these rankings use total WAR = regular-season WAR + playoff WAR, and only WAR accumulated with that franchise counts. Since WAR is cumulative, longevity and playing time are naturally part of the metric — this is intended to measure total value accumulated for a franchise, rather than peak ability.
Here’s the Celtics Top 50:
Rank
Player
Seasons
RS WAR
Playoff WAR
Total WAR
1
Larry Bird
13
163.3
26.9
190.2
2
Paul Pierce
15
128.8
10.4
139.2
3
Robert Parish
14
113.1
12.8
125.9
4
Kevin McHale
13
84.9
15.3
100.2
5
Jayson Tatum
9
77.4
16.0
93.4
6
Rajon Rondo
9
57.7
11.6
69.3
7
Jaylen Brown
10
53.6
9.6
63.2
8
Kevin Garnett
6
51.0
11.4
62.4
9
Cedric Maxwell
8
47.6
7.1
54.7
10
Ray Allen
5
38.6
7.4
46.0
11
Marcus Smart
9
39.1
5.9
45.0
12
Derrick White
5
37.8
5.3
43.1
13
Danny Ainge
8
35.7
5.7
41.4
14
Al Horford
7
31.5
9.9
41.4
15
Reggie Lewis
6
34.6
3.0
37.6
16
Antoine Walker
8
29.7
1.5
31.2
17
Dee Brown
8
23.3
0.5
23.8
18
Dennis Johnson
7
18.9
3.5
22.4
19
Dave Cowens
4
20.1
1.2
21.3
20
Payton Pritchard
6
19.4
1.7
21.1
21
Kevin Gamble
6
20.6
0.5
21.1
22
Rick Fox
6
20.2
-0.1
20.1
23
Jae Crowder
3
17.7
1.3
19.0
24
Isaiah Thomas
3
18.4
0.6
19.0
25
Kyrie Irving
2
17.7
0.5
18.2
26
Ed Pinckney
6
16.3
1.2
17.5
27
Robert Williams
5
14.5
2.9
17.4
28
Tiny Archibald
5
15.3
1.4
16.7
29
Kenny Anderson
5
15.7
0.7
16.4
30
Tony Battie
6
15.4
0.9
16.3
31
Sam Hauser
5
14.6
0.8
15.4
32
Avery Bradley
7
13.8
0.8
14.6
33
Chris Ford
4
12.4
1.4
13.8
34
David Wesley
3
12.5
0.0
12.5
35
Kendrick Perkins
8
10.3
2.0
12.3
36
Dino Radja
4
11.4
0.0
11.4
37
Tony Allen
6
10.3
0.3
10.6
38
Kristaps Porziņģis
2
9.7
0.5
10.2
39
Neemias Queta
3
9.6
0.5
10.1
40
John Havlicek
2
9.8
0.1
9.9
41
Gordon Hayward
3
9.5
0.4
9.9
42
Jrue Holiday
2
7.8
2.0
9.8
43
Gerald Henderson
5
7.6
2.0
9.6
44
Ricky Davis
3
9.2
0.3
9.5
45
Eric Williams
7
7.8
1.5
9.3
46
Kelly Olynyk
4
8.9
0.3
9.2
47
Jared Sullinger
4
9.3
-0.2
9.1
48
Luke Kornet
5
8.4
0.5
8.9
49
Daniel Theis
5
8.1
0.4
8.5
50
Amir Johnson
2
8.3
-0.2
8.1