3 worst players to ever win NBA Finals MVP
By Phil Watson
2. Jo Jo White, 1976 Boston Celtics
Jo Jo White put up an impressive resumé in his 12 NBA seasons, earning two All-NBA selections and going to seven straight All-Star Games from 1971-77. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015, White was often overshadowed on the 1970s Celtics by John Havlicek and Dave Cowens.
The point guard for a pair of championship clubs in Boston, White was a volume shooter who topped six assists per game just twice in his career. During his All-Star run, White averaged 19.8 points and 5.5 assists a night on 44.3% shooting on 19.2 shots a game. He was also something of an iron man, even for that era, averaging 39.6 minutes a game over that seven-year span.
In the 1976 Finals against the upstart Phoenix Suns, who had knocked off the defending champion Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals, White led the Celtics with 21.7 points and 5.8 assists in the six-game series. It was a grueling battle, though, with Boston swinging the series its way with a triple-overtime win in Game 5 when seldom-used reserve Glenn McDonald scored six points late in the third OT to push the Celtics to a 128-126 victory.
White had 33 points in that game — dubbed "The Greatest Game Ever Played" — while playing 60 minutes.
In Janiuary 1979, White was traded to the Warriors for Golden State's first-round pick in the 1979 draft — which was traded two weeks later to the New York Knicks for 20 games of Bob McAdoo. White finished his career with the Kansas City Kings in 1980-81 and averaged 17.2 points, 4.9 assists and 4.0 rebounds over 837 career games.