The Boston Celtics made quick work of their Eastern Conference matchups en route to the NBA finals for the 23rd time in franchise history. The first game of the finals will be played tomorrow at TD Garden, the homestead of the Celtics, and at the center of their court lies the franchise’s heirloom, the Celtics logo, Lucky the Leprechaun.
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Lucky was the brainchild of Red Auerbach’s brother, Zang Auerbach, who designed the logo in the 1950s. An earlier version of it had a pipe, championship crown, and shillelagh, and often sat on a basketball.
But the Auerbach family gave the Celtics more than just a logo, as Red Auerbach led the Celtics to nine championships as a head coach and contributed to seven other title runs as a front office member.
Check out how the @celtics have switched up their logo over the years! #TeamDay pic.twitter.com/sp3X8jFVlo
— NBA TV (@NBATV) August 28, 2019
That being said, Zang Auerbach’s version of the logo wouldn’t stay as originally intended, as Lucky the Leprechaun went through different iterations over the years. Zang’s original version was mostly black and white with a green vest and wore an NBA crown.
The team changed the logo slightly between the early and mid-1960s, giving the logo an orange background. The next change came around 1968, after which fans saw a leaning Lucky for the first time. From 1974 to 1996, Lucky went through iterations that finally saw the logo adopt its characteristic green and white look. Instead of a basketball background, he had a green ring with Boston Celtics written in white.
The current version of the logo was finally seen in the 1996 season which showed his iconic pose, with a spinning basketball and the bowler hat but all of it being in full colour, unlike the montone versions previously seen.
But regardless of how much the Lucky might mean to the Boston fans, Irving doesn’t seem to care. The former Celtic even stomped on the mascot, as a sign of protest.
Kyrie Irving stomping on Lucky enraged Boston fans
Kyrie Irving will be public enemy no.1 when he and the Dallas Mavericks roll into TD Garden tomorrow to play the Boston Celtics for Game 1 of the 2024 NBA Finals. Irving’s toxic relationship with the Celtics franchise and its fans goes all the way back to 2017 when Kyrie first suited up for the Boston team.
While the majority expected great things out of Kyrie and the young Celtics core, things quickly fell apart as his time with the Celtics was characterized by injuries and locker-room drama. Even after promising Celtics fans that he would stay a year prior, Irving left for Brooklyn in 2019, worsening his relationship with the fan base further.
The former Nets guard often got booed when he played at TD Garden, with Irving even getting into verbal altercations with Celtics fans on a few instances. But things came to a boil between the two sides when Irving appeared to stomp on the Boston logo as he greeted his teammates at half-court postgame, after winning Game 4 against Boston in the 2021 playoffs.
It is safe to say that Celtic fans will be waiting to pay Irving back for his alleged mistreatment of their logo when the Mavs guard pulls up at their homecourt in less than 24 hours from now.
