John Havlicek ✝

John Joseph Havlicek (/ˈhævlɪtʃɛk/ HAV-lih-chek; April 8, 1940 – April 25, 2019) was an American professional basketball player who spent his entire career with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning eight NBA championships, beginning with his first four seasons with the team. Only teammates Bill Russell (11) and Sam Jones (10) won more. Havlicek is just one of four players to win 8, and one of three with an unsurpassed 8–0 record in NBA Finals. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest players in the history of the game, and was inducted as a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1984. Havlicek was born in Martins Ferry, Ohio, where his parents ran a general store. He was of Czech and Croatian descent, from his father and mother respectively. Havlicek was a three-sport athlete at Bridgeport High School in Bridgeport, Ohio, where he was a boyhood friend of Baseball Hall of Famer Phil Niekro.