In 1916 a team called the Original Celtics was formed. The players were part of an amateur community club in New York City at first, but two years later they turned professional. The team was managed by James and Thomas Furey, two sports promoters. The Celtics usually drew good crowds wherever they played.
The Celtics went on to become basketball’s most famous team. In 1921-1922 they won the Eastern League championship, and the next year they won 13 straight. Then they quit the Eastern League to go on tour. They played 205 exhibition games and lost only 11.
Year after year the Celtics remained the top team in the United States. Sometimes the opposition was inferior, and the Celtics tried to add excitement to the games. The players would take it easy, making errors, letting the other team build up a lead. Then they would come from behind and just manage to pull the game out.
Sometimes their strategy backfired. Once they played a game against a pickup team, which was headed by Lou Gehrig, the first baseman of the New York Yankees. The Celtics probably forgot about the score. When they tried to rally, it was too late.
In 1926 the Celtics became part of the new American Basketball League. They represented Brooklyn, New York. Of course they won the championship. The next season the Celtics were switched to Manhattan, and a team called the Visitations took over the Brooklyn franchise. It made no difference; the Celtics won.
As the years passed, the magic of the Celtics began to fade. Different players and different owners seemed to change everything. At one time the team was owned by Kate Smith, the singing star. Finally, in 1941, the Celtics played a short exhibition game and disbanded forever.
It is practically impossible for any team to beat the records set by the Original Celtics. They racked up a total of 1,320 victories against only 66 defeats. Many of the players from the various rosters are in the Basketball Hall of Fame: Nat Holman, Joe Lapchick, Johnny Beckman, Henry “Dutch” Dehnert (he developed the pivot play), Stretch Meehan, Elmer Ripley, and many others. In the Naismith Hall of Fame there are numerous great starts enshrined, but only two complete teams. One is the team from Springfield, Massachusetts, that played basketball’s first game in 1891. The other team is the immortal Original Celtics.
From The Giant Book of More Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Celtics
The Original Celtics had a winning percentage of .950. The closest team to that is the NBAs San Antonio Spurs with an all time winning percentage of .636.
Is there any connection between this team and the Boston Celtics?
Not that I can tell. They weren’t part of the NBA and Boston founded their team several years after these guys disbanded.
Don’t think they had much competition back then though, black men weren’t allowed to play until 1950 in the pros. I always love when the sports commentators talk of the greatest teams of all time and go back to the Celtics from ’57 to ’69 but fail to talk about lack of salary cap or any way to achieve parody like we have now. Lacking time travel, the best we can really do is rely on computers to figure it out. The guys at 538 did a pretty good job on this list for the NBA & that Celtic dynasty seems to be missing from the top completely.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-best-nba-teams-of-all-time-according-to-elo/
It’s always hard to make comparisons like that, especially considering the actual physical differences between players 70 years ago and players today. There’s a reason why records don’t stand forever.