On this day in Boston Celtics history, the team participated in the 1958 NBA draft, held in New York City.
The Celtics would make two picks of note, both late in their respective rounds (there were several more rounds to the NBA draft then than there is today). Boston would take big man Bennie Swain first out of Texas Southern University with the seventh overall pick, and forward Jimmy Smith out of Franciscan College with the 15th overall selection. Swain would end up sharing the frontcourt with Celtics legendary center Bill Russell on the 1959 title team as a reserve.
He would record 4.6 points and 4.5 rebounds in his sole season with Boston, his career cut short by a devastating knee injury in the summer after his rookie season.
Before the injury, Swain was seen as a potential force in the paint that would have won more than his sole title with the Celtics, and perhaps in a bigger role.
“He was a forerunner of a (Kendrick) Perkins type of player,” said Boston Hall of Famer Tommy Heinsohn via Boston.com’s John M. Guilfoyle. “He was a big, strong rebounding type of guy, an inside player, and you’re always looking for rebounders, so he was going to get a really good look.”
“Red (Auerbach, legendary Celtics coach and GM) would break players in. They’d play a little bit and then they would carve out a niche for themselves. Swain could have been a really good player, I think,” added Heinsohn.
Smith was a promising prospect as well, playing power forward as an All-American collegiate player, but was drafted into the U.S. military.
Knee problems would force his discharge from the armed forces, and would also unfortunately end his basketball career as well in an unfortunately canny coincidence.
Instead of a career in the NBA, Smith would go on to become a civil rights activist advocating racial integration, a point reflected on by his former University of Steubenville head coach Hank Kuzma.
“During those days, I was like his bail bondsman,” said Kuzma in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s Paul Zeise. “He was constantly getting arrested because he was picketing at the headquarters of unions and at various construction jobs. And the fact that he was leading protests wasn’t popular. We received countless death threats, bomb threats, and burning house threats. Jim was a hero of sorts to the people in the community.”
Smith passed away in 2002 after a struggle with leukemia.
It is also the birthday of former Celtic point guard Vernell Eufaye “Bimbo” Coles, born in 1968 in Covington, Virginia, and who played for Boston as a late-season addition in 2003.
Coles had a very brief tenure with the Celtics, playing just 14 games with the club that season, over which he averaged 3.7 points and 1.1 rebounds.
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