On this day in Boston Celtics history, former Boston big man Hank Beenders was born in Haarlem, the Netherlands in 1916. Beenders would later immigrate to the U.S. at age eight and won a National Invitational Tournament championship with Long Island University in 1942. He then would join the Providence Steamrollers as one of the first international players of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), a precursor league to the NBA.
He would be traded to the then-Philadelphia Warriors in 1948, who would turn around and deal him to the Celtics in that same year with center Chick Halbert for big man Ed Sadowski.
The Haarlem native would play just 8 games for Boston in 1948-49, his last stop in the BAA. He averaged 2.4 points and 0.4 assists per game — rebounds were not yet being recorded.
