Who was Larry O’Brien, for whom the NBA Championship Trophy is named?

Congratulations to the Boston Celtics for hoisting Banner 18 at the rafters at TD Garden. It was an incredible season and here’s to the quest for Banner 19 in 2025!  

The Larry O’Brien trophy was presented courtside at TD Garden to the Boston Celtics organization by NBA Commission Adam Silver on Monday, June 17, the night the Celtics became the coveted NBA champions. 

And on Friday, June 21, the 25.5″ inch-tall, 30-pound trophy was hoisted by Celtics star Jason Tatum along the three-mile victory parade route, attended by more than one million people.

Many basketball fans are wondering, who is Larry O’Brien, for whom the National Basketball Association (NBA) Championship Trophy is named. Here is a quick sketch of Mr. O’Brien.

Lawrence Francis O’Brien (1917-1990) was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of Irish immigrants Lawrence Sr. and Myra Sweeney from County Cork. He attended Northeastern University, was a World War II veteran, and became a trusted political advisor to President John F. Kennedy and his family, and later, to President Lyndon B. Johnson. 

O’Brien and the Kennedys

O’Brien’s connections to the Kennedy family go back to the early 1950s when he signed on to help then-U.S. Representative John F. Kennedy on JFK’s 1952 Senate campaign, where he mobilized an army of volunteers and defeated Henry Cabot Lodge.

O’Brien became part of The Irish Brotherhood, a term used to denote JFK’s inner circle of Irish-American advisers whom the president most trusted, which also included Ken O’Donnell, Dave Powers, Bobby Kennedy, and others.

The Lawrence F. O’Brien Personal Papers are archived at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.

“O’Brien went on to serve as director of organization for both the Kennedy for President Campaign and the Kennedy-Johnson ticket,” notes the JFK Library. “After his election, President Kennedy appointed O’Brien as special assistant to the president for congressional relations. In this capacity, O’Brien won congressional support for Kennedy’s “New Frontier” programs.”

O’Brien accompanied President Kennedy on many of the president’s travels, including the famous Kennedy family trip to Ireland in June 1963. O’Brien was with President Kennedy when JFK was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963, and he accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy on Air Force One with the president’s remains. O’Brien was also with Senator Robert F. Kennedy when he was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968.

Afterward, O’Brien said, “My twelve years with John Kennedy were a golden age. I never expect to see anything like it again.”

O’Brien stayed on at the White House as special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson, where he continued his good work. “In his role as congressional liaison,” notes his JFK Library biography, “O’Brien was instrumental in the passage of several landmark bills including the Peace Corps, the Alliance for Progress, the enabling legislation for Medicare, the nuclear test ban treaty, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an increase in the minimum wage, and many others.”

As Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 1970, O’Brien unwittingly became part of an unsavory chapter in American politics. As DNC Chairman he revitalized the party’s organization and fought for equal broadcast time. In 1972, Richard Nixon’s Committee to Reelect the President “authorized the installation of electronic surveillance equipment, and five men were arrested for breaking into O’Brien’s office at the DNC headquarters.” Nixon was forced to resign from the presidency two years later.

He was also Postmaster General during the Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations.    

O’Brien and the NBA

In 1975, O’Brien was named Commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), after a distinguished career in politics and government. Because of his leadership and organizational skills, O’Brien was deemed perfect for the job, which he held for about a decade.

In a story written shortly after O’Brien’s death from cancer, Boston Globe sports columnist Bob Ryan quotes Celtics legend Red Auerbach as saying, “At a time when we needed it, (O’Brien) gave us real prestige. When he came along, the league was successful, but it needed to improve its public image, not only from the standpoint of politics but also from the standpoint of the sports world. Everyone took notice when a man of Larry O’Brien’s background became commissioner of the NBA.”

According to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Springfield, MA where the game was invented, “O’Brien’s contributions to the world of basketball are enormous. He spearheaded the merger of the American Basketball Association with the NBA, signed a lucrative television contract with CBS, negotiated a historic collective bargaining agreement with the NBA Players Association, and modified the college draft. Under O’Brien, the NBA expanded from 18 to 23 teams and in 1979 adopted the three-point shot.”

In 1984, the NBA Championship Trophy was renamed the Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy. Previously, the trophy had been named for Walter A. Brown, the original owner of the Boston Celtics, and was given out each year from 1947 to 1976, and was passed to the reigning champion from one year to the next. Now, the champions get to keep the trophy each year. Learn more about the trophy.

O’Brien served as president of the Basketball Hall of Fame from 1985-87 and was enshrined in the hall in 1991. 

O’Brien died on September 27, 1990, and his funeral mass was held at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Springfield, where he was baptized as a baby. He is buried at St. Michael’s Cemetery in Springfield, next to his immigrant parents. ♦

Michael Quinlin is the author of Irish Boston (Globe Pequot Press) and editor of Classic Irish Stories (Lyons Press). He founded the Boston Irish Tourism Association, created Boston’s Irish Heritage Trail, and formed MassJazz to promote the vibrant jazz scene in Massachusetts. Mike lives in Milton, Massachusetts with his wife, Colette, and son, Devin. Follow Michael’s blog, Irish Boston History & Heritage, and learn how the Boston Celtics got their name.