1999–2000 Boston Celtics season 1999–2000 Boston Celtics season The 1999–00 NBA season was the 54th season for the Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association. During the offseason, the Celtics signed free agent Calbert Cheaney while acquiring Danny Fortson, and former Celtics forward Eric Williams from the Denver Nuggets. In the third year of the Rick Pitino era, the Celtics played around .500 for the first few months, but then struggled suffering a ten-game losing streak between March and April. Fans and the media began to show their impatience with the struggling franchise, who finished out of the playoffs again with a 35–47 record,
Original Celtics fourth place, while first-half winner Cleveland slumped badly to fifth place. Cleveland’s fall was precipitated by the hasty mid-season departure of star Honey Russell, who was exiled to Chicago after a disagreement with team owner Max Rosenblum. The Celtics easily disposed of the weakened Cleveland team in three straight games to take the ABL championship. In 1926, the American Basketball League, developed by sports entrepreneur George Preston Marshall, effectively railroaded the team into joining its ranks by prohibiting member teams from playing against them. The Original Celtics responded by winning the next two ABL titles. During their first full season