That's right. I loved those teams of McHale, Bird,Dennis Johnson, Parrish, Ainge, and all the rest of the crew. McHale never looked in shape, chest always looked flabby to me, but the length of his arms was amazing and he could get shots off from anywhere. If I remember right, he was also crying to the refs all the time for a foul.
One player that didn't play long for the Celtics but was great was Nate Archibald who was the NBA scoring leader in '72-73 with Kansas City. Had a friend who was all Southern Cal High School who got to play against Nate and my buddy was the quickest player I had ever seen. Well, Nate had him fouled out of the game in about 6 minutes. My buddy said he was the most unstoppable player he had ever seen.
My only other friend who played ball was Ted Luckenbill. Ted's favorite line when asked how good he was use to reply "Well, in one game Wilt Chamberlain and I scored 104 points combined. Wilt had 100, I had 4" and then he would double over laughing. Ted was built like Wes Unseld, so large from the waist down that they just didn't look that tall but when you go near them you thought you were standing next to a tree. Ted's claim to fame was getting the last rebound to feed Wilt when he scored 100 points. He has a great story there, also, as he has heard where he fought off 8 or 9 guys to secure the rebound but in reality when he got the rebound everybody on the other team was already back past half court to try and stop Wilt.
I think of the artistry of Wilt's one handed fade away and then compare him to Shaq who couldn't score unless he was within 3" of the bucket and I realize how much I miss the old style of play.
