Excluding Hall of Famers, who are your five all-time favorite Celtics?

Celtics player Cedric Maxwell, center, gets a pass off from the ground around Rockets players Robert Reid, Moses Malone and Billy Paultz during a game at the Boston Garden on May 5, 1981. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff

By Chad Finn

May 12, 2017

2 minutes to read

Welcome to Boston.com’s Sports Q, our daily conversation, initiated by you and moderated by Chad Finn, about a compelling topic in Boston sports. Here’s how it works: You submit questions to Chad through Twitter, Facebook, email, his

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Today’s Sports Q comes from … well, how about that. It’s from me, Chad F. Huh.

I thought it would be fun to ask you to name your five favorite Celtics players of all time, but with a catch: You can’t include Hall of Famers.

It’s a tougher question than it initially looks based on one thing: The Celtics have a lot of Hall of Famers. The top 10 players in franchise history in games played are all enshrined in Springfield or will be (Paul Pierce). So are many greats who had little more than a cameo here — Bill Walton, Pistol Pete Maravich, Tiny Archibald, Bill Walton. Even Don Nelson is a Hall of Famer.

So the list of potential candidates for this exercise gets narrowed down pretty fast. But there are still plenty of excellent and admirable players to choose from.

Bradley is a no-brainer for me; he’s such a complete, competitive, winning player when he’s right.

Here’s my starting five:

Kendrick Perkins:

Everyone loves Perk. Perk was a beast.

Cedric Maxwell: Larry Bird, 1981 NBA Finals: 15.3 points, 15.3 rebounds, 7 assists per game on 41.9 percent shooting.

Max, 1981 Finals: 17.7 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists per game on 56.8 percent shooting.

Bird could have been the MVP, but he wasn’t. Max was, based largely on his 17 of 24 shooting over the series’ final two games, both Celtics victories in a six-game takedown of the Rockets. Jump on my back, boys, indeed.

Reggie Lewis: He was an All-Star, all lanky grace, unstoppable from midrange with that pull-up baseline jumper I can picture vividly as I write this, 24 years after his last shot. Man, what a loss.

Avery Bradley: Bradley’s my choice for the aforementioned reasons, but there was some temptation to go Rajon Rondo here.

Danny Ainge: For the last time, Tree Bit Man, and not vice-versa.

Toughest omission: Paul Silas. Maybe he’ll make your starting five. Let me know about them in the comments. And don’t try to sneak any Hall of Famers by me.