Celtic Pride

Rick Fox, Todd Day, Bruce Bowen, David Wesley, Dana Barros, Pervis Ellison, Eric Williams, Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer, Tony Battie, Walter McCarty, and Paul Pierce: these were the Boston Celtics of my childhood. They were never very good, but they were our guys. If they won 15 games in a season, I didn't care, they were my team and I followed them, maybe not as closely as the Red Sox or Patriots, but I was always ready to watch the Celts on TV or head down to Boston to see them up close. I don't really remember any sports before 1995, so I can't speak about those years prior, but for the first six years of my sports memory, the Celtics were undeniably one of the worst teams in the NBA.

I have vague memories of being at the Boston Garden in 1996 when the Celtics trotted out a starting five of David Wesley, Rick Fox, Eric Williams, rookie Antoine Walker, and center du jour. They may have only won 15 games that year, but they played basketball, I loved basketball, they were in the NBA, and they were my team. A few years into Walker's career my Dad even drove my best friend Jack Ewing and I to Providence, Rhode Island to meet Antoine and get his autograph. He never showed up, but my Celtic support remained strong. Though my Dad remained a supporter of the Celtics team, he generally loathed Walker from then on out for making him drive hours away and sit in mall all day, for nothing.

Over the next few years the Celtics stockpiled an inordinate amount of Kentucky Wildcats because of joke-of-an-NBA-coach-Rick-Pitino's obsession with his former players. Did we really need Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer, Walter McCarty, and Tony Delk? I mean maybe, but I don't really think so. Slowly these guys were making progress. Landing Paul Pierce in the 1998 Draft a year after the failed ping-pong acquisition of Tim Duncan was a huge boost to the team, and a steal at the 10th pick. When Celtic's management ousted Pitino in 2001 in favor of assistant coach Jim O'Brien, the Celtics took off (well for them it was taking off) finishing 24-24 the rest of the way. At last- hope!

The 2001-2002 season came along and somehow we were winning games. Pierce and Walker were each in the top 10 in scoring in the NBA, Eric Williams played lock down defense, Kenny Anderson paced the offense, and we were on our way. In his first full year as an NBA coach O'Brien led the formerly lowly Celtics to nearly 50 wins and a third seed in the NBA's Eastern Conference.

After taking down the 76ers and an electrifying Allen Iverson in a back and forth five game series, the Celts easily defeated the Pistons in five, and were set to take on the New Jersey Nets in the conference finals. Unfortunately, Jason Kidd and co were too much for Celtics, who made the Nets earn there trip to the finals in a hard fought 6 game series which including the greatest comeback in NBA history. Despite the defeat I was feeling good about my team as it was the first time in my cognitive sports watching life that the Celtics made the playoffs. The 2001-2002 Celtics are hands down my favorite Celtic's team of my life (and I have a no. 8 Antoine Walker jersey to prove it).

After a few years mediocre play and early playoff exits, Celtics management, with Danny Ainge at the helm, decided it was best (for whom, will never know) to start making some of the most the most ill advised trades imaginable. Who wouldn't want Ricky Davis, Raef Lafrentz, Sebastian Telfair, and Wally Sczerbiak on their team? Beats me. Don't even try to argue that any of these guys made us a better team: I didn't like one of these guys. After trading away the core of the '01-'02 conference finals team [Walker, Battie, Williams], I became disillusioned. I didn't like the moves the front office was making, I legitimately hated Ricky Davis, and O'Brien was fired- I was out. The Celtics became a part of the background of my life. It wasn't the lack of success that drove me away but the string of seemingly disconnected roster moves, that left me with a crappy team I didn't even know. These were not my guys.

Several years went been before out of the corner of my eye I saw the Celtics tank the 2006-2007 season in order to “secure” a top 2 pick in the draft and either land supposed franchise center Greg Oden or the silky smooth Kevin Durant. In a kind of disturbing, shameful, and embarrassing way there was hope, but I still wasn't interested. The lottery came and when the Celtics drew the number 5 pick. I was absolutely stoked for the potential Yi The Chairman era in Boston- not.

Then something happened. Danny Ainge got lucky. The Celtics shipped the fifth pick, Delonte West and Sczerbiak (who generally sucks) to Seattle for Ray Allen. Ray Allen is good, but certainly not the missing piece to a Celtic's championship run regardless of how weak the eastern conference may have been heading into the 2007-2008 season.

Then something truly amazing happened. For New England fans it has happened for us now twice in the last two years. While watching the ESPN bottomline scroll along I see Celtics acuqire Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Garnett for yadda yadda yadda (aka a bunch of guys who will not be missed and Al Jefferson). You have got to be kidding me! New England gets Randy Moss and Kevin Garnett within a 15 month span? No way!

You know the rest from the there. Pierce, Allen, and Garnett lure classy veterans, tutor some young players, and lead the Boston Celtics to their 17th title. (over the Los Angeles Lakers no less to put the cherry on top)

Obviously I was pumped, but the Celtics 2007-2008 championship season for me wasn't as gratifying even as their 2001-2002 conference finals run. As Bill Simmons has pointed out, in sports nowadays we're just rooting for laundry. Players come and go, so us, the fans, are left rooting for the uniform instead of players we've grown to know and love. The recent 2004 Red Sox championship and all three Patriots titles have been so gratifying because we'd been watching the same group of core guys over years getting better. They were our guys. I mean... yes, the Celtics won the finals, but more than half of the team's key players weren't even Celtic's roster the year before. KG, Allen, James Posey, Eddie House, PJ Brown, Sam Cassel all played for other teams the previous season.

I'm not at all questioning the validity of the Celtic's championship, I'm merely assessing it from a fans point of view. The city of Boston, especially Doc Rivers and Danny Ainge, got lucky. After years of highly questionable acquisitions and coaching strategies, Ainge and Rivers found a group of hungry veterans all after one thing- a ring. Were they our guys? Well Pierce was our guy, but the rest of the team? For me, not really.

Don't think that I didn't enjoy every second of the Celtic's dominant season last year- I did. But for me it's just not the same as watching the success of the same group of guys you've been rooting for for years. Maybe you think I'm a championship spoiled fan with nothing better to do than complain that his most recent championship wasn't his favorite. Think what you want, but personally I like rooting for the guys that have been around a while, the guys that have fought to pull our team up the bottom of the league standings. Those are my guys.

A year later I feel more at home with these Celtics. No one, even someone as dumb as Ainge would tamper with the roster of a championship team, woops never mind- ciao James Posey. But this year the Celtics have everyone back except for the aforementioned Posey and the retired PJ Brown (Scott Pollard you will be missed too (not really)), and I couldn't be happier. These are our guys now. We've been there with them through the near collapse in Atlanta, through the suffocating Cleveland defense and prowess of Lebron James, and of course a championship. I know Ray Allen disappears some nights and can't guard anybody quicker than Kendrick Perkins, but has the capability to take over offensively. I know that Pierce has a got swagger, and a mean fade away jumper. I know KG is a defensive maniac, that he loves to take 19 foot jumpers, and shies away from post play. I know Eddie House has the quickest release on the team, Rajon Rondo is one of the quickest guys in the league, and that Leon Powe is our only true threat on the low block. These are my guys. I love my team, and I couldn't be happier that the Boston Celtics are back in my life.


Notes-
1.It definitely would not have have taken a championship to get the Celtics back in my life, but it didn't hurt the cause. I just want to see some continuity and know what I'm rooting for.
2.Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers are the luckiest GM coach pair. They find three of the most championship starved superstars in the sport all the same unselfish point in there careers, and bring home the title. Technically they were part of the championship team, but clearly the players deserve 100% of the credit. So for 4-5 of terrible management and coaching, and one entirely lucky championship season where they were just along for the ride they are both rewarded with lucrative contract extensions. Sweet!
3.It would have been cool if Nomar could have been apart of the 2004 Red Sox World Series title.
4.Honestly the trade for Sebastian Telfair.... I just don't get it. Not in any way shape or even form does it make the most remote bit of sense. NONE!
5.In a sort of incidental redemption Ainge did manage to get rid of all four awful players he worked to acquire. [LaFrentz, Sczerbiak, Telfair, Davis]