There's something special about a handwritten note.

Yes, it’s 2026, so almost everything is a text or an email. But the effort behind picking up a pen, writing words by hand, and sending that message out has an extra personal touch to it. 

Someone actually thought words and used their own hands, not some AI bot, to convey them. For all the technology at our fingertips, something as simple as pen and paper still carries a lot of weight. 

And the Boston Celtics knew it. 

Letters from Legends

Dillon Mitchell is fighting for his spot in the NBA. He’s a second-round pick on a two-way deal, so nothing is guaranteed. Every day, he just pulls his number 20 over his head, hits the practice floor, and hopes he makes enough progress to build on tomorrow. Even little steps will get him closer to taking the floor for the Boston Celtics someday. 

One day, a letter showed up for him. It came from another number 20. 

“Ray Allen,” Mitchell told Celtics On SI, with a broad smile and the inflection of someone who just won something. “I've always just been a Ray Allen guy. And then obviously now I'm with the Celtics … So it meant a lot.”

The letter was part of an initiative spearheaded by Celtics assistant Matt Reynolds. It’s called “The Legends Project,” and it’s aimed at connecting current Celtics with 80 years of team history. 

“We just don’t want to take for granted how special this place is,” Reynolds told Celtics On SI. “It’s been really cool to see Paul Pierce and Ray Allen back around the organization so early  into the season. I just wanted to tap into these guys being part of this brotherhood of 500 people-plus … and give these guys some context as to the environment that they're a part of now.” 

That effort is hitting home. Mitchell couldn't believe that it was really Allen who wrote him. He’d never spoken to Allen before, so the letter was his first interaction. He didn’t know if it was actually Ray or some assistant taking dictation. He harbored some doubt until Allen showed up at the Knicks game and they actually had a face-to-face conversation. Allen asked Mitchell “Did you get my letter?” which supercharged the connection. 

“It's big,” Mitchell said. “You could just tell how much he cares about the players that wear this uniform on a personal level as well. So it was good to get up close and [talk about] what's going on and the work ethic it takes, and what it takes to make it.”

Mitchell framed his letter, and is using it as motivation to carve his own path. But Mitchell wasn’t alone. Every Celtic got a letter from a former player who wore his number. Mitchell Robinson, who wears number four, got one from Isaiah Thomas, one of Boston’s biggest cult heroes. His message?

“When you put on a Boston jersey, just embrace it,” Robinson told Celtics On SI. “You give your all to the city and they’ll give their all back. And I'm like, that's some encouraging words there … Obviously we appreciate, especially for me,  what he’s done for the league over time, through the traumas and all that stuff. And to be able to still put that jersey on and go out and fight each and every night here is just unbelievable.”

The Legends Project

There is a poster in every Celtics locker this season. 

“The poster is each guy's Celtics lineage,” Reynolds said. “Depending on where they're from or where they went to school or whatnot … They all have people that have walked their path to get here before them, whether it's from their hometown, their home state, the college they went to, a different country.”

History is part of the Celtics brand. Red Auerbach made sure that would be the case when he started retiring numbers quickly after players from his championship rosters retired. He wanted to make sure everyone knew the Celtics were built on the backs of legends. It’s a tradition the Celtics have always embraced. The Legends Project is how it’s being done today.

“You look up here, they got a lot of championships here,” Robinson said, pointing to a ring of championship icons visible to the players as they sit at their lockers. ”The history behind it is just through the roof. The culture that's just here for this team is like, there's nothing like no other. And to be able to be a part of it now, it's amazing.”

Robinson is actually part of the reason The Legends Project exists at all. He’s one of three new additions, along with Paul George and Mike Conley, with long careers elsewhere. This effort is part of the team’s emphasis on the concept of “once a Celtic, always a Celtic.”

“We've done some stuff in the past, but not quite as intentional as this,” Reynolds said. “It's one of the oldest basketball franchises in the world, and what's our opportunity to kind of place value on that, and one of it is just kind of trying to make good on what these guys are a part of.”

‘That’s a lot of Tommy Points’

You can’t tell the story of the Boston Celtics without Tommy Heinsohn. He’s in the Hall of Fame as a player and as a coach, and many will argue that he should be in as a broadcaster, too. The 2024 championship was the first in team history that he wasn’t around for, but the legend lives as large as ever. 

Reynolds and the Celtics wanted to tap into that. 

“If you didn't play here, if you didn't grow up here, and even if you do play here, you may not know what a ‘Tommy Point’ is,” Reynolds told Celtics On SI. “[It was] really just giving these guys a little window into how our fans view their play, and so we just [talked] about Tommy Heinsohn for a little bit, and then showed some plays over the years of Tommy getting excited for the guys getting on the floor, taking a charge, getting an offensive rebound, and connecting that to to the identity that we have as a group here.”

The overtime win over Brooklyn showed just how much that message hit home. 

Sam Hauser and Baylor Scheierman both dove for a loose ball late in the third quarter of the game, waking up a sleepy crowd and triggering a run that sent the building into a frenzy and forced the Nets to call a timeout. As Robinson walked back to the bench, he said “That’s a lot of Tommy Points out there.”  

Mission accomplished.

“That was really cool,” Reynolds said. “It's just a little thing, but [we’re] just trying to do what we can to connect our guys to the Celtics organization at a deeper level.”

Hitting Home

The Celtics are long on household names who made a big impact. There aren't many franchises in any sport anywhere that can compete with the scope of legendary players who have passed through town. 

But the Celtics didn’t just get here riding the coattails of legends. There have been workhorses. There have been blue collar workers who did dirty work. They are part of the “oh yeah, I remember that guy” set of players who aren’t exactly always front of mind. 

They're guys like Vitaly Potapenko, who spent four seasons in Boston as they floundered through the Rick Pitino era. If there's anyone who would want to forget wearing number 52 for a franchise, it’d be that guy. 

But, once a Celtic, always a Celtic. So Potapenko wrote Luka Garza a letter.

“It was awesome. Honestly, didn't know too much about him, but then reading the letter and then going back and doing my own research, it was cool to hear from him,” Garza told Celtics On SI. “He had some you know nice words for me just as I go into the season. I think it was in general just a really cool exercise to do as a team.”

The Legend Project was designed to connect the present to the past. November is only just beginning, but the effort already seems to be a big success. In this transient era of sports where teams are constantly changing, the Celtics continue to establish themselves as a constant.

“It just shows that when you put on this uniform, it means something,” Garza said. “You're not only playing for yourself and your family or whatever, you're playing for the history of everyone who's come through these doors and you play to that standard. Like they say, it's different than other places that I've been and I feel like anybody's been. It's rare to have an organization with that kind of mentality.”