Mark Acres played but two nondescript seasons for the Boston Celtics, his contributions to the team accelerated by the injury-plagued retirement of backup center Bill Walton, but he remains a cult favorite among the hardcore Celtic fans of the day.  To them, Acres represented hope – hope that the team had finally found a player to ease the heavy minutes logged by timeless center Robert Parish, hope that the Celtics’ bench could finally compete with that of the hated Los Angeles Lakers, and hope that a 17th championship banner was just a roster tweak away.  Acres was an amalgam.  He was Greg Kite with a better offensive game.  He was Mel Counts with more meat on his bones.   He was a player who could spell either Parish or Kevin McHale, giving them a much-needed respite from the grueling endurance contest otherwise known as the NBA regular season.  That Acres was ordinary was of little consequence; to the hardcore Celtic fan, players such as Acres, Brad Lohaus and Conner Henry were diamonds in the rough, hidden gems to be unearthed in a valiant quest to bring yet another championship trophy to Causeway Street.  And while Acres may have seemed relatively pedestrian by NBA standards, remember:  The big man with the long first step was far better than the rest of us – if you’re reading this, chances are that you’ve never played for the Boston Celtics – and for two seasons he was good enough to hang with arguably the greatest frontline in all of basketball history.

Born in heart of Laker country, Acres grew up idolizing players such as Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain.  He rooted for the team in its annual quest for NBA supremacy, unaware that he would one day find himself thrust directly into the great Celtic-Laker rivalry, going toe-to-toe with the incomparable Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Unfathomable then, but that was long before Acres grew into a standout player at Inglewood’s Palos Verdes High School.  Acres was the star on a state championship team at Palos Verdes, and his play at John Wooden’s basketball camp drew comparisons to the great Bill Walton.  A McDonald’s High School All-American, Acres also competed in the U.S. Olympic Festival before attending Oral Roberts University.  It was at ORU that Acres, playing for his father, Dick, would become a four-time All-American and catch the attention of the Dallas Mavericks.  Acres led ORU to the Midwestern Collegiate Conference title as a junior, averaging 18.5 ppg and 9.6 rpg, shooting 56.4% from the field, second best in school history.  He starred in the post-season NCAA tournament against All-Americans Joe Kleine of Arkansas and Keith Lee of Memphis State.  Clearly, his stock was on the rise.

The Mavericks selected Acres in the second round (after selecting centers Bill Wennington and Uwe Blab with the sixteenth and seventeenth picks, respectively), convinced that he play at the NBA level if he bulked up and polished his game.  Acres did just that, playing in Belgium for two homesick seasons, returning to the United States more confident in his low-post game.  He was no longer the timid player that Norm Sonju, then the Mavericks’ president, had seen in that first training camp.