John Celestand

John Celestand ( born March 6, 1977 in Houston, Texas ) is a former American professional basketball player. After graduating, he was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA and was a junior player equal NBA Champion 2000. Then he got a new contract and moved to Europe, where he was particularly active in the German Basketball Bundesliga. Celestand ended his playing career in 2005 already with 28 years. Subsequently, he worked in his home country as a television commentator and founded his own consulting firm players.

Playing career

During his studies at Villanova University in Pennsylvania Celestand was active for the high school team in the NCAA Division I Wildcats. He is one of the ten best original donors of all time this team and was also team internally topscorer in his last two college seasons. Following his studies he was selected by the LA Lakers in the NBA Draft in 1999 and was involved in a team with star players like Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant with the fact that the Lakers once again won the championship for the first time in twelve years in 2000. As a rookie Celestand however, was only used in a total of 16 matches and dismissed after the season of his contract. First, he then played in the short-lived International Basketball League, which later became in the CBA.

In February 2001, he then undertook the German first division of Brunswick. The plug end in severe financial turmoil club had replaced after getting out of the new name sponsor Metabox almost the entire team and coaches. The new coach Ken Scalabroni could reach in particular not only keep the class with the help of Celestand, but still a play-off position in the 2000 /01 BBL season. Through the achievements in the BBL is Celestand had recommended for better European clubs and he was obliged in the following season by the Italian vice-champion Fortitude from Bologna, for which he won only six games in Serie A completed. In November 2001, he joined the French LNB Pro A ASVEL for the vice- champion in Lyon. By his own admission he did not get along with coach Bogdan Tanjevic and left the club in February 2002, again before ASVEL later the 16th national championship and first won for 21 years. The following season, he was briefly the German champion Alba Berlin, for which he had put in more games in the ULEB Euro League than in the Premier League. In February 2003, also ended this commitment before Alba was able to celebrate the championship for the seventh time in a row. He then played one season in Kiev, Ukraine. In 2004 he returned to the place of origin of his European career, playing for BS Energy, the new sponsors name of the Brunswick Club. The Braunschweig who had already started with his former coach Ken Scalabroni in the season, had after a poor start to the season the former German national coach Henrik Dettmann, previously athletic director, installed as a new coach. Although the league has been reached, but the desired play-off placement was clearly missed. Given his last regular services in Brunswick Celestand was not a particularly lucrative deals and frustrated with the decisions of management and coach, he ended his career as a player.