Kevin McHale is one of the best players of all time.
His Post Game and his time with the Boston Celtics will never be forgotten.
In this Video NBA Legends like Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and more will say how Good Kevin McHale was.
If ever there were a player who possessed the ideal physique for the game of basketball, it was Kevin McHale. With his incredibly long arms and legs, McHale presented an unforgettable image on the hardwood. He used his physical gifts to excellent advantage during his 13-year career with the Boston Celtics, becoming one of the best inside players the game has ever seen and forming with Larry Bird and Robert Parish, one of the greatest front lines in NBA history.

“He became the most difficult low-post player to defend — once he made the catch — in the history of the league,” contended former NBA coach Hubie Brown in The Boston Globe. “He was totally unstoppable because of his quickness, diversification of moves and the long arms that gave him an angle to release the ball over a taller man or more explosive jumper.”

McHale had all of these qualities, coupled with an uncanny ability to get to the free-throw line or nail the high-percentage shot in the clutch. He retired in 1993 as the fourth-leading scorer and sixth-best rebounder in Celtics history. A two-time winner of the NBA Sixth Man Award and a six-time member of either the NBA All-Defensive First or Second Team, McHale ranks 15th in the NBA in career field goal percentage (.554). Teaming with Bird and Parish, “The Big Three” led the Celtics to three NBA Championships in the 1980s.
McHale was the best sixth man of his generation at a time when key reserves were becoming fashionable. His scoring improved in each of his first six seasons, beginning with an average of 10.0 points per game as a rookie in 1980-81. He also chalked up 4.4 rebounds and 1.84 blocks per game that year and was named to the NBA All-Rookie Team. Although still playing limited minutes, McHale proved to be a key contributor to a Celtics team that won the 1981 NBA Championship.

McHale improved his output in each of the next two seasons, but the Celtics failed to return to the NBA Finals. After the team replaced Coach Bill Fitch with K.C. Jones, McHale and the Celtics enjoyed a magical campaign in 1983-84. Playing 31.4 minutes per game off the bench, McHale averaged 18.4 ppg and 7.4 rpg, shot .556 from the floor and won the NBA Sixth Man Award. He also made the first of his seven All-Star appearances. Boston won the Atlantic Division with a 62-20 record, then took the NBA Championship after a grueling seven-game battle with the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals.

McHale won the Sixth Man Award again in 1984-85, becoming the first repeat winner in the award’s history. For the season, he shot .570 from the floor and averaged 19.8 ppg and 9.0 rpg. In a game against the Detroit Pistons he poured in a career-high 56 points, setting a team record that Bird broke with a 60-point performance less than two weeks later. The Celtics blasted through the regular season at 63-19, then plowed through the playoffs to a rematch with the Lakers in the NBA Finals. This time the Lakers prevailed, winning in six games. McHale was outstanding in the postseason, averaging 22.1 ppg and 9.9 rpg.

Prior to the 1985-86 season the Celtics traded Cedric Maxwell to the Los Angeles Clippers, and McHale became the team’s starting power forward. Although he had another outstanding year, averaging 21.3 ppg, McHale had his first experience with the ankle and foot injuries that would haunt him later in his career. After missing only three games in his first five seasons, McHale sat out 14 contests in 1985-86 with a sore left Achilles tendon.
Over 13 NBA seasons, all with the Celtics, McHale had amassed 17,355 points, 7,122 rebounds, 1,690 blocked shots and a .554 lifetime field-goal percentage. Through the 2016-17 seasonn he ranked fifth on the Celtics’ all-time scoring list, behind only John Havlicek, Paul Pierce, Bird and Parish.

On January 30, 1994, during an 18-minute halftime ceremony at Boston Garden, Kevin McHale’s uniform No. 32 was retired. Waving one of those big arms toward the crowd, he could at last take the spotlight. Bird, in whose shadow McHale had played for 12 of his 13 seasons, sat in the audience. McHale’s No. 32 was raised next to Bird’s No. 33 in the Boston Garden rafters.

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