On this day, former Celtics forward Antoine Walker was born.
Today in Boston Celtics history, Celtics forward alum Antoine Walker was born in 1976 in Chicago, Illinois. Walker played his NCAA basketball at Kentucky, where he won an NCAA championship in 1996, and was drafted by Boston with the sixth overall selection of the 1996 NBA Draft. He was named to All-Rookie First Team in his first season in the league, and reunited with Rick Pitino when the former Kentucky coach took over as coach and president of the Celtics the season after. Walker played eight total seasons in two stints with Boston.
He played seven in his first stint, elected to three All-Star teams in that stretch before being dealt to the Dallas Mavericks. Walker played one more season with the Celtics in 2004-05, having been being dealt back to Boston from the Atlanta Hawks. In 2005, Walker was dealt to the Miami Heat, where he won an NBA championship.
Walker averaged 20.6 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 1.5 steals per game in his time as a Celtic across both stints.
Finally, it was also on this date in 2020 that the NBA circulated a memo on rules for the so-called Orlando bubble. It was created to maintain safety for the isolated grounds the league was finishing the 2019-20 NBA season on after the pandemic derailed play for four months.
Players were able to have up to four guests (that limit may be exceeded for children) they have known previously, the latter restriction included minimizing the potential for distractions, according to the terms agreed upon at that time by the league and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). That excluded people players have business relationships with like chefs, tattoo artists, trainers, and agents, and required seven days of quarantine before being allowed to mingle with others in the NBA campus.
Players were allowed a ticket per game each available for those friends and family, with up to one additional seat for a child in an effort to minimize risk. Those guests were not able to travel to the theme parks and were restricted to the Disney NBA campus.
This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Celtics history: Walker born; NBA circulates rules for Orlando bubble
Category: Basketball
