Lone Ranger

The Celtics won three NBA championships during the 1980s, mostly by relying on Larry Bird, McHale, and Robert Parish, who are generally regarded as the best front-court combination ever assembled in the NBA. By the 1986-87 season, McHale was an unstoppable offensive force, becoming the only player in NBA history ever to sink more than 60 percent of his field goal attempts and more than 80 percent of his free throws in a single season.

“There is absolutely nothing as good as being able to play pro basketball,” McHale says, watching wannabe draft picks try to become pros on the Target Center courts. “I can’t remember how old I was, maybe twenty-five, driving home from the Boston Garden right after we won the Eastern Conference finals. I remember thinking, ‘Man, I am maxing out my life while I’m in my twenties. That can’t be good.’ For pure, unadulterated fun that makes you feel lucky and blessed, nothing even comes close.”

Perhaps that’s why, after breaking the navicular bone in his right foot near the end of his unprecedented 1986-87 season, McHale ignored doctors’ warnings that it could be a career-threatening injury without immediate surgery and rest. McHale continued playing heavy minutes straight through to the NBA Finals and paid the price in limited endurance and maneuverability in the last six years of his career. To this day, he walks with a pronounced limp due to the break and other ailments acquired during his time on the court. 

“The doctors said I was taking risks and I said, ‘I hear ya,’ ” McHale recalls. “I kept going. Part of it is that you think you’re bulletproof and part of it is that injuries are a part of basketball. I guess I should be telling you I would never do it again. But if all of a sudden I was twenty-eight again and in the same situation, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”