Boston ? The Boston Celtics might not be bagging championships like they used to, but they’re still collecting NBA coaching jobs like they did in their glory days.

When the Los Angeles Clippers promoted Dennis Johnson this week, he became the 26th former Celtics player to get a head-coaching job in the league. It’s the fifth time the NBA’s most luckless franchise has turned to the leprechaun to turn its fortunes around — more than any team except Boston itself.

“I don’t think anybody can borrow a mystique,” Johnson said Thursday after working out his new team at his old one’s practice facility, where banners note his retired No. 3 and the two NBA championships he helped win. “But at some point, we’re going to make our own history.”

It’s only natural that teams looking for better times turn to those who have experienced them. The Celtics have won an NBA-record 16 championships — most recently in 1986, when Johnson teamed with former coaches Larry Bird (Indiana 1997-00) and Danny Ainge (Phoenix ’96-00) and current Detroit Pistons coach Rick Carlisle.

From generation to generation, the tradition is passed on: Red Auerbach coached Tommy Heinsohn, Heinsohn coached Dave Cowens, Cowens coached Chris Ford and Ford coached Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale.

“It’s just because of the tradition, of the team,” said Cowens, who played for the Celtics from 1970-80 before three coaching gigs. “They get that recognition, and they carry that name with them.”

But reputation only goes so far. Even now, amid the longest title drought in Celtics history, five former players lead NBA squads: Johnson, Carlisle, New York’s Don Chaney, Dallas’ Don Nelson and New Orleans’ Paul Silas.

“With the Celtics’ system, you were taught the correct way,” said Chaney, who’s now in his fourth coaching stop. “Fundamentals, teamwork — it was beyond being a game. It was a thought process.”

Silas and Chaney are among the five former Celtics to coach the Clippers (including John McCarthy, who coached the Buffalo Braves before they moved to California). Johnson said he doesn’t think the franchise has tried to deliberately imitate the Celtics; but if they were going to, it would be the one to copy.

“There is a mystique. There’s something,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s really that guy sitting in the middle of the floor. What really makes up the leprechaun is all the guys that have come through here.”