On this day: Celtics center Jason Collins born; 3rd-lowest scoring Cs game
On this day in 1978, former Boston Celtics big man Jason Paul Collins was born in Los Angeles, California. Collins played collegiately with the Stanford University Cardinals, where he won NABC Third Team All-American and First Team All-Pac 10 honors in 2001. He would be drafted 18th overall by the Houston Rockets in the 2001 NBA draft, but was immediately traded with Brandon Armstrong and Richard Jefferson to the (then) New Jersey (Now, Brooklyn) Nets for Eddie Griffin. He would play stints with that team, the Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves and Atlanta hawks before he signed with the Celtics as a free agent in 2012. https://twitter.com/HonestLarry1/status/1334119793159528452?s=20
The Californian would play 32 games with Boston before he would be dealt to the Washington Wizards with Leandro Barbosa for Jordan Crawford, having averaged 1.2 points and 1.6 rebounds per game with the team. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCJNAOXMnhY Soon after the season ended, Collins came out as gay, becoming the first athlete in any of North America's four major sports to play as such, and helping to change problematic attitudes towards gays and lesbians in sport as a result.
It is also the date of one of the lowest scoring games in NBA history, a 46 - 44 win over the (now defunct) Pittsburgh Ironmen. https://twitter.com/si_vault/status/448843885993668608?s=20 The game was the Celtics' third-lowest score in franchise history, and an opponent's third-lowest scoring games as well. [jwplayer 6Av5bIan] [lawrence-related id=43911,43908,43903,43899] [listicle id=43879]
