THE Boston Celtics have had gamers carrying a complete of 68 completely different jersey numbers (and three extra not a part of any numerical collection) since their founding on the daybreak of the Basketball Affiliation of America (BAA – the league that might develop into the NBA of ‘at the moment), worn by greater than 500 gamers throughout Celtics historical past. To commemorate the gamers who wore these numbers, Celtics Wire covers your entire historical past of jersey numbers and the gamers who wore them because the workforce’s inception.
With 25 of those jerseys now retired to honor a few of the biggest Celtics to put on these jerseys, there’s plenty of historical past to cowl. And for at the moment’s article, we’ll proceed with the sixteenth of 31 gamers to don jersey No. 4, former Boston huge man Tony Battie.
A Texas Tech alumnus, Battie was chosen with the fifth total decide within the 1997 NBA Draft by the Denver Nuggets, for whom he would play just one season earlier than buying and selling to the Los Angeles Lakers in 1998, who would yield it once more. in 1999 to the Celtics for Travis Knight.
Battie wore No. 40 for his first season with the Celtics, however switched to No. 4 for the remaining 5 seasons of his tenure in Boston. That resulted in 2003, when he was traded together with Kedrick Brown and Eric Williams to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Ricky Davis, Chris Mihm, Michael Stewart and draft belongings.
He averaged 6.8 factors, 5.9 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per sport, however he’s maybe additionally recognized in Boston for serving to save the lifetime of Paul Pierce after a 2000 stabbing.
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This text was initially printed on Celtics Wire: Historical past of the Celtics jersey #4 – Tony Battie (1999-03)
