Today in Boston Celtics history: Gene Englund, Tom Kelly debut; Hoot Gibson born

Today in Boston Celtics history, Gene Englund made his debut with the team in 1949, when the team was still in its infancy during the Basketball Association of America — a precursor league of the NBA — era. An alum of the University of Wisconsin — who he led to an NCAA title in 1941 — Englund played in the National Basketball League (NBL – not be confused with the Australian league of today) before it merged with the Basketball Association of America in 1949 to form the NBA of today.

After stints with the defunct Oshkosh (Wisconsin) All-Stars and (also defunct) Brooklyn (New York) Indians of the NBL, Englund made his way to the NBA at the end of his career. He played 24 games with the Celtics before being traded to the (then) Tri-Cities Blackhawks (now Atlanta Hawks) for John Mahnken in 1950. His first game for Boston came in a 93-82 loss to the (now defunct) Indiana Olympians on this date in 1949, with Englund putting up a very solid 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting.

We don’t know too much else about the outing, however, as few other statistics were being tabulated in that era.

Other debuts

Speaking of NBA yesteryear, it is also the date of a less auspicious debut, that of Celtic guard Tom Kelly.

Kelly played collegiately for New York University, drafted 33rd overall from the 1948 BAA draft by Boston.

Birthdays

Finally, that era of basketball seems to be the theme of the day given it is also the birthday of former Boston big man Ward “Hoot” Gibson, born this day in Des Moines, Iowa in 1921.

An undrafted prospect out of Creighton, Gibson played just two games for the Celtics in the 1949-50 season, over which he averaged 3.5 points per game. Needless to say, short stints were much more common in that era.

This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Celtics history: Gene Englund, Tom Kelly debut; Hoot Gibson born

Source: Sports Yahoo