Original Celtics Original Celtics The Original Celtics were a barnstorming professional American basketball team. At various times in their existence, the team played in the American Basketball League, the Eastern Basketball League and the Metropolitan Basketball League. The team has no relation to the modern Boston Celtics. The franchise as a whole was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959. The team's roots lay in the New York Celtics team that disbanded during World War I. In 1918, James Furey assembled his own team around a nucleus of those truly "original" Celtics, adding other players mostly from the
Original Celtics of owner Jim Furry for embezzling $190,000 from a New York business. Then, in early October, just a month before the ABL season was to get underway, the Celtics bolted to the newly organized National Basketball League. The 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, the NBL brashly raided ABL rosters for additional players. The Brooklyn Arcadians were particularly hard hit, losing stars Red Conaty and Rody Cooney, while