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
Celtics–Lakers rivalry was actually laid down in college basketball of the late 1970s. During the 1978–79 NCAA season, Michigan State was led by Magic Johnson to the championship game of the NCAA Tournament, where they faced Indiana State University, which was led by senior Larry Bird. In what was the most-watched college basketball game ever, Michigan State defeated Indiana State 75–64, and Johnson was voted Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. Magic Johnson would go on to be drafted by the Lakers, and Larry Bird by the Celtics. The personal rivalry formed by these two basketball greats during college would transfer