It might be hard to believe that basketball got in Heinsohn’s way, but according to him — it did. To some extent, basketball continues to get in the way. Heinsohn still broadcasts some of the Celtics games on the local cable channel. But throughout his career as a player, coach and analyst, the artist has found a way to paint.

 

For Heinsohn the basketball-playing artist, or the painting former pro player, there have always been personal stories. One of his favorites speaks to how he handled the challenge of indulging his passion for painting while he was scoring for the Celtics. “I wanted to go to the Cochran Galleries down in Washington, a terrific museum,” Heinsohn said. “I asked a couple of guys at breakfast if they wanted to go with me and nobody wanted to go. I hopped a cab, took off, and the cab driver dropped me at the wrong entrance, so I had to walk around the building. As I walk around the building, I look down and in the basement they’re having a life class with a nude model standing in the window. So when I went back to the hotel, I talked to my teammates and told them this thing and they all wanted to become art lovers real quick.”

 

According to the artist, the gap between painting and basketball — or sports in general — is not as wide as might be supposed. Heinsohn says that each requires concentration and practice, but what’s most important is that the artist and the athlete must love what they do. Then, of course, is the matter of confidence, which, as a shooter, Tommy Heinsohn never lacked. “You gotta learn that if you’re gonna take the last shot of the game, it’s either gonna go in, or it’s not gonna go in, and you’re either gonna be the hero or the goat,” Heinsohn said. “So if you think every painting is going to be a masterpiece, all you got to do is harken back to taking the last shot of the game. It becomes immaterial.

 

“The difference between art and sports is that you know the results and peoples’ opinions within an hour after the game. You may never know (in art.) Look at Van Gogh. During his lifetime, I think he sold one painting, and it was to his brother, so you gotta go along on what you believe. You gotta have a little moxie, too, which is what Van Gogh had. He’s the type of guy that would be willing to take that last shot of the game.” And so the fellow known to his Celtics teammates as “Tommy Gun” because he was never, ever shy about hoisting up the last shot -– or the first shot, or any shot in between — embraces modesty regarding his canvases. He is not only a man of multiple passions, this large and loud champion who paints tranquil scenes and still-lifes, but a fellow who will surprise you as well.