Boston Celtics: Top 10 NBA Draft picks in franchise history

10. Frank Ramsey (SG/SF) — No. 5 pick in 1953 NBA Draft

Career stats (with the Celtics):  623 GP, 13.4 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 1.8 APG, 39.9 FG%, 80.4 FT%

Leading us off is one of the winningest players in Celtics history, the immortal Frank Ramsey.

Though his numbers don’t quite jump off the screen, Ramsey was a member of seven title teams while in Boston, and played a crucial role for each of them. There’s actually a reason as to why his career averages are so mundane — the 2-guard played fewer than 25 minutes nightly over his nine seasons with the Celtics.

Why? We’ll let him explain from the video above:

"“I don’t know how it evolved except I was playing guard at the time and I was behind two All-Star guards: [Bob] Cousy and [Bill] Sharman…and I wasn’t big enough to be a full-time forward.”"

Simply put, Ramsey never became a starter because he had to sit behind two of the greatest basketball players of all time. (Yeah, the 1950s Celtics were stacked to say the least.)

Nonetheless, in the process, the former Celtics great became known for one major distinction: To this day, Ramsey is considered the NBA’s first sixth man, a concept that is still very much thriving.

Without his willingness to come off the bench, and Red Auerbach’s ingenuity in creating the role for him, who knows how long it would have taken for the sixth man to become mainstream. (It certainly would have happened eventually. Still, a pretty huge honor for Ramsey to be the first.)

And for that (plus the seven titles), he deserves his place in our ranking of greatest Celtics draft picks ever.