John "Hondo" Havlicek

I got to thinking after reading ESPN columnist Jayson Stark's new book "The Stark Truth". In the book Stark goes on to name names of current and past baseball players who he thought were underrated or overrated. So I began thinking of players in all walks of sports who are overrated and underrated and John Havlicek came to mind. I consider him one of the most, if not the most, underrated player of all time. Not too many people associate that name with the one of the greatest of all time or even with the Boston Celtics. Most people would say Larry Bird, Bill Russell, John McHale, and Robert Parrish. I'm certainly not arguing the fact that those names shouldn't be synonymous with Celtics basketball but too many people leave Hondo's name out of that list. Only teammates Bill Russell and Sam Jones can say that they had won as many championships (8) as Havlicek did during their respective NBA careers. Havlicek also holds the record for most points scored (26,895) and games played (1,270) as a Celtic. Havlicek to his credit also made 13 straight All-Star teams, four All-NBA first teams and seven second teams, and was named to the NBA All-Defensive First or Second Team eight times. The man won the 1974 Finals MVP, and to this day, he ranks 10th in points, eighth in minutes, and seventh in playoff points. How does a guy with those kind of credentials get pushed out of memory? I could bet that if you asked a hundred people to name the top 30 players of all-time Hondo would be named maybe 5 times or less. Talk about an underrated player.