The Boston Celtics are the winningest franchise in NBA history with a total of 18 NBA championship banners hung on their rafters. But great and rich as the Celtics’ history is, there was an 8-year stretch from 1993 to 2001 during which they made only one playoff appearance and even had only one playoff win during that period.
When Bill Simmons was still with ESPN in 2002, he interviewed Celtics architect Red Auerbach and the most successful team executive in the history of North American Pro Sports blamed that rough patch on bad luck and the NBA.
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No cap relief from the NBA
The Celtics’ struggles began in 1993, when All-Star forward Reggie Lewis suffered a sudden cardiac death three months after he collapsed during a playoff game against the Charlotte Hornets. Lewis’ death came seven years after the Celtics’ next star, Len Bias, died of a drug overdose after he was drafted.
With Boston losing two future superstars and its two best players from the previous decade — Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, both already retired — there was a void during the 1993-94 season.
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According to Auerbach, what made those two losses hurt was that the league did not give them another pick to compensate for Bias’ loss in ’86 and even “punished” them by leaving Lewis’ salary on their books until it expired, preventing them from using it to sign a free agent.
“The bad break of it all was that the league never gave us a chance to recover from Reggie Lewis,” Red said. “Forget about Bias — they never gave us a pick or anything to recover from that — but they could have given us (cap) money to use for Reggie. They made us carry his salary on our cap for three years. Three!”
“Today, they changed (that rule). They realized how shabbily they treated us.” He sighs. “When you lose two All-Star players and get nothing back … just think about that. Go to New Jersey and take away Kidd and Van Horn. Where the hell would they be?” wrote Simmons.
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The NBA only gave the Celtics a $480K reprieve
When Lewis died, he was entering the third year of a five-year, $15 million deal that he signed in 1990; therefore, he was owed roughly $9 million, including his salary for the 1993-94 season.
However, because the NBA did not have a rule at the time to void contracts in the event of a player’s death, NBA Commissioner David Stern convened the Board of Governors to vote on an exemption for the Celtics.
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Unfortunately, the Board voted against it and only allocated $480,000 to the Celtics to sign a player to replace Reggie. But while Auerbach called it unfair, the Board had its reasons — both legally and because the other teams likely did not want to do a rival a favor.
“The Celtics are $5 million over the $15.175 million salary cap. They were once some $10 million over, and they got that way because teams are allowed to exceed the cap when re-signing their own free agents,”per the Hartford Courant. “Because they were over the cap when Lewis signed his major contract extension, the worth of Lewis’ cap slot reverted to the final year of his former contract.”
“This is a built-in penalty for teams who exceed the cap; it is known as base-year compensation. Lewis’ base-year compensation was $480,000. And that’s all the Celtics got after losing their best player, their captain, a former All-Star. It seems unfair, but it’s legal,” article continued.
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And so, because they were already hurting from Bias’s death, the Celtics had to lean on 1991 Dunk Contest winner Dee Brown and Euro import Dino Radja to lead them in 1993. The Celtics won only 32 regular-season games and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1979.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Dec 24, 2025, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.