The Original Celtics were a barnstorming professional American basketball team whose overall franchise history is considered to be very complex due to them operating throughout their overall existence under different owners, locales, team names, and even teams in general at certain points in time. During their various points in existence, the team played professional basketball games out in the Eastern Basketball League, the Metropolitan Basketball League, the 1926 rendition of the National Basketball League, and the (original) American Basketball League, with their time in the ABL being their most notable time in terms of professional basketball operations. The team has no relation to the NBA's Boston Celtics outside of them being an indirect inspiration for that successful franchise. The Original Celtics franchise as a whole was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959.
Early years The team's roots laid out as a local amateur team named the New York Celtics team that was created in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan by Frank "Tip" McCormack during the 1914–15 season (who were considered a "third-rate team" within the neighborhood of Hudson Guild and Hell's Kitchen at the time with players being local neighborhood boys under the management of McCormack that fit the local Irish descent of the population of New York City time, with their 1916–17 semipro season resulting in the New York Celtics getting a 31–10–1 record (including a 29–17 loss against the professional Newark Turners from the Interstate League, pp. 69–70)) that disbanded during the 1917–18 season due to World War I., p. 57 In 1918, James A. Furey, a cousin of Frank McCormack, alongside his brother, Thomas Furey, assembled their own team around a nucleus of those truly "original" Celtics, adding other players mostly from the West Side of New York City (which ended up becoming the best basketball players of their day during that period of time), with James defiantly calling his new squad the Original Celtics after McCormack ultimately decided he didn't want to lose control of his New York Celtics team to James and Thomas Furey., pp. 57–58 In their opening season under the Original Celtics name, the team had a good win/loss record while playing all of their games at the Century Theatre in Manhattan, with them going 65–4 during the 1919 year (likely due to them playing their games during the weekends back when professional basketball leagues were willing to play on the weekdays at the sacrifice of consistent quality of play) while continually drawing an average of 4,000 people to home games (partially due to the draw of having people dance after the games were finished, especially during the Prohibition era)., pp. 58–59 Near the end of the 1920–21 season, the Celtics would compete in a best-of-three independent championship series against the New York Whirlwinds team owned by Tex Rickard (and later by Charles Brickley), but it would never be completed after the Whirlwinds won Game 1 40–27 (though some outlets listed the final as 40–29 instead) at the 71st Regiment Armory under amateur basketball rules of the time and the Celtics won Game 2 26–24 at the 69th Regiment Armory under professional basketball rules for the time due to a potential combination of reasons including the fear of rioting fans, the lack of agreement on money, and both Nat Holman and Jim Furey looking to avert the possibility of certain gamblers looking to fix Game 3 since there was no confirmed reason for why the series was never completed properly., pp. 70–72, p. 6 Initially, outside of their original point of existence, they played in various struggling professional leagues, winning the Eastern Basketball League's championship after winning the second half of the 1921–22 EBL season following a late first half introduction from two teams folding (which would unfortunately be seen with the tragic passing of guard Ernie Reich during the season due to an awful case of pneumonia, pp. 106–109) and then being undefeated in the Metropolitan Basketball League in the following season with a perfect first half of the season there before becoming primarily a touring squad like they had been back in their early history, which involved them traveling up to 150,000 miles a year while completing a 102–205 game schedule. Despite those seemingly insurmountable odds, they notably won about ninety percent of their games throughout their history and finished their 1922–23 season with an unbelievable record of 193–11–1, including having an official 17–1 record in league games played that season., p. 76 When hoping to claim an undisputed national championship, they challenged the nationally famous Franklin Wonder Five high school team, but the Franklin coach refused as his team "was too tired" after a grueling year of play on their ends. With the players having generous salaries for the sport (reportedly being earned up to an incredibly high for the time $10,000 per season) while also being able to travel as far out as the state of Wisconsin at times, they would continue having very successful seasons (averaging around five victories for every six games played on their ends, with victories often going over 20-30 points, with only one reported victory being over 50 points since the less route-based victories would result in the Celtics being welcomed back more properly the next time they entered certain territories when compared to the routes the Buffalo Germans sometimes gave their opponents), with the 1923–24 season resulting in a 134–6–1 record (with the sole tie being a 32–32 tie to the Mount Vernon squad that presumably didn't want to pay Jim Furey for a chance to win in overtime, p. 76), the 1924–25 season would (presumably) see the Celtics lose only six total games (notably going 67–4 against future ABL teams, p. 127), and the 1925–26 season seeing the Celtics go 90–12 in games played when combining their long stretch of miles traveled with ABL teams being in mind., pp. 75–76
The team's first dominant player was "Dutch" Dehnert, a standing guard where some people like author Murry R. Nelson credit with introducing the modern concept of pivot play. When ballhandling wizard Nat Holman (later to coach national championship teams at CCNY) was signed to play for then-head coach John Whitty in 1922, the Original Celtics truly hit their stride as a franchise. One key factor in helping secure players like them for their long-term dominance as a franchise was the fact that they were one of the first basketball teams, if not the very first basketball team, to utilize professional contracts to ensure both good payment for their players after the amount of games they played throughout an entire season and to keep them out of team jumping throughout a regular basis (which was a problem for the sport's early history of professional play, as noted by Ed Wachter's history as a player)., p. 4
During the 1921–22 season, the team replaced both the financially unstable Harrisburg Club and the New York Giants, with the owner of the latter team also owning the New York Whirlwinds during the first half of that season., p. 101 During the 1922–23 season, the team took over the Atlantic City Sandpipers franchise when that franchise was 2–9 and won five out of six games there before the Eastern Basketball League folded operations itself by January 5, 1923. They also competed in the Metropolitan Basketball League as well, but dropped out of the league during the first half after going 12–0, likely seeing themselves as too good to compete in that league following that period of time. During a brief period of time in the 1922–23 season, the Original Celtics also temporarily moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey to become the Atlantic City Celtics, but ultimately moved back to the New York City area and brought back their Original Celtics name again after having poor draws when playing in Atlantic City instead of in the boroughs of New York City. Following that season's conclusion, the Original Celtics would rent out the 71st Regiment Armory out in Manhattan on Sundays to play as the home team for independent matches from 1923 up until 1926.
Other outstanding individual players on these squads were another "big man", Joe Lapchick; John Beckman, who was called the "Babe Ruth of Basketball"; George "Horse" Haggerty; John "Pete" Barry; and the speedy Davey Banks, who would later be named an honorable mention member for the "All-Time Stars of Professional Basketball Team" that had been created by the National Basketball League, a future predecessor to the present-day National Basketball Association, during the 1944–45 NBL season. Other players that were a part of the Original Celtics franchise that would be listed as a part of that "All-Time Stars of Professional Basketball Team" (either for the first team, second team, or as an honorable mention) alongside Banks included Bennie Borgmann, Joe Lapchick, John Beckman, Nat Holman, Dutch Dehnert, and (debatably due to the late team history being in mind) Nat Hickey and Bobby McDermott., p. 137
1926–1930: ABL success During the summer of 1926, the team owners of the American Basketball League that were meeting up with each other were generally pleased by the results of the league's inaugural session. Following the expulsion of the Boston Whirlwinds by the end of the first half of that season due to a dispute over player contracts, only the Buffalo Bisons had decided to not sign up for the second season there. Not only that, but league president Joseph Carr had signed three new members to help expand the league for their goal of having the ABL become a national basketball league with new teams in Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia. The latter two were of particular importance to the league's credibility. Two Philadelphia boxing promoters, Jules Aronson and Max Hoff were recruited by Carr to finance the team and Philadelphia Sphas team owner Eddie Gottlieb was hired to run the team, which originally was named the Philadelphia Quakers before later being rebranded as the Philadelphia Warriors by the second half of the season. However, the situation in New York was considerably less clear than what was going on out in Philadelphia. The Original Celtics franchise were originally signed to represent the state of New York, but they were reluctant recruits, at best. After the previous season, Carr had banned any ABL team from playing games against the Original Celtics, thus drying up some of their most lucrative exhibition dates in the process. Such a tactic would not have intimidated the Celtics in the past, but they were already dealing with financial stress due to the June indictment of owner Jim Furey for embezzling $187,000 from a New York department store business that he was a major part of at the time called the Arnold Constable Corporation., p. 88, pp. 121–122
Then, in early October, just a month before the ABL season was supposed to get underway, the Celtics bolted to the newly organized National Basketball League (which was not related to the NBL that would eventually become a predecessor to the present-day NBA). That new league operated solely in and around the metropolitan New York City, but despite its geographical limitations was stocked with some of the best players in the country. After pulling off a coup by signing the Original Celtics away from the ABL, the NBL brashly raided the ABL's rosters for additional players into their league as well.