Write On Sports LLC - "The Boston Celtics Are Back!" by Troy Somero

The Boston Celtics Are Back!

2007-08-04 12:35:16 | By: Troy Somero

The cover of Sports Illustrated's November 28, 1994 issue featured St. Johns' Freshman Felipe Lopez with flying through the air beside the headline, "The Big East Is Back". This "announcement" that one of college basketball's headline conferences was indeed back has since become both a running joke for people that are critical of Sports Illustrated and another affirmation of the infamous Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Felipe Lopez fizzled out and never had the college career experts assumed he would have. At the same time, however, Lopez's matriculation in the New York City university did create media frenzy around the conference and helped to propel many Big East teams (Connecticut, Georgetown, St. Johns) into the national limelight in the mid-to-late 1990s.

While this week's Sports Illustrated has a cover graced by new Cleveland Browns running back Jamal Lewis, the magazine could not have been given an easier opportunity to resurrect the November 28, 1994 cover headline than the opportunity provided by the Boston Celtics this past week. By trading for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in the last month, the Boston Celtics have suddenly become relevant in the basketball world for the first time in nearly two decades. Simply stated, the Boston Celtics are back!

The Celtics organization has faced two contradictory reactions to the decision to trade seven players (two of which are draft picks) to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Garnett. Basketball "experts" and non-Celtics people have chastised the franchise, stating that even though the team has the strongest three-man rotation in basketball, this new core was only possible by mortgaging the team's future. In juxtaposition to this point of view, people close to the franchise believe the Celtics have instantly become the Eastern Conference's strongest team and a viable NBA Championship contender for the 2007-08 season.

Whether you sit on the critical or celebratory sides of the fence with respect to this issue, the overarching theme when considering the move is the question of whether or not this summer's traded were wise and prudent moves for the Celtics franchise.

"Franchise" is the key term when considering the trade. The Celtics have been an also-ran in the Eastern Conference for the past two decades, with their best season being the 2002-03 campaign that took them to the Eastern Conference Finals. At the same time in the city where the Celtics once dominated sports headlines, the Patriots have become the franchise of the decade in the NFL (winning three Super Bowls) and the Red Sox have been one of the best teams in baseball during this time span, highlighted by their 2004 World Series victory.

The combination of Celtic futility and Patriot/Red Sox success has resulted in much less attention being paid to the franchise than in previous decades. While some of this fan ignorance is a result of the lack of success of the franchise, much of it also stems from the various heartbreaks Celtics fans have endured since the franchise's last championship seventeen years ago.

The five key moments in recent Celtic history detailed below demonstrate just how difficult it has been for the franchise since its last championship in 1986.

- June 19, 1986 – Celtics number two overall draft pick Lenny Bias dies from a cocaine overdose the night he is drafted. Many people believe that Bias was the best player to ever come out of the ACC, a conference that Michael Jordan played in with North Carolina.

- July 27, 1993 – Team captain Reggie Lewis dies of a heart attack during an off-season practice in Massachusetts. Lewis had just finished his first season as the Celtics' team captain (taking over for Larry Bird) and led the team to the 1993 NBA Playoffs before collapsing from the same heart condition during Game One of the playoffs against the Charlotte Hornets. At the time the franchise considered Lewis to be the next great Celtic.

- May 8, 1997 – Rick Pitino is hired as the team's President, Front Office Manager, and Head Coach. During Pitino's three-and-a-half-year reign as Celtics demigod, he managed to alienate Celtics' legend Red Auerbach, make numerous player decisions that decimated the Celtics' roster (releasing veterans David Wesley and Rick Fox; trading future Final MVP Chauncey Billups for Kenny Anderson and Walter McCarty) and delivered the famous, "Larry Bird is not walking through that door, Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, Robert Parrish is not walking through that door" speech that exemplified the dire straits that the franchise was in throughout his tenure.

- May 18, 1997 – San Antonio wins the 1997 NBA Draft Lottery, even thought the Celtics statistically had the best chance to win the lottery out of any team. Tim Duncan was drafted first overall by the Spurs and has since led the franchise to four championships. Meanwhile, the Celtics drafted Chauncey Billups with the third pick (see above).

- May 22 – The Celtics receive the fifth selection in the 2007 NBA Draft Lottery, even though they statistically were favored to get the second pick (which would have given them the rights to Kevin Durant).

The five monumental moments listed above are likely the five most memorable Celtics moments since the franchise's last championship in 1986. In addition, each moment has made it more and more difficult for Bostonians to be passionate about the franchise. In order to reverse – or at least mix-up – this bad karma, change was needed. The franchise needs to become relevant again, and the trades this summer for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett have made the Celtics relevant.

Did Celtics management mortgage the franchise's future by trading away half of its roster and several draft picks? It is quite possible that they did, but with the state of the Celtics as of the end of the regular season, the future was not too bright to begin with. Paul Pierce was the team's lone superstar, and he is entering the twilight of his career. In order to embrace his desire to compete for a championship the Celtics needed to make these major moves. Had Allen and Garnett trades not been made, the biggest trade of the summer for the Celtics might have been fulfilling a disgruntled Paul Pierce's request to be traded away.

In addition, the last couple decades of drafts for the Celtics have been an abomination. Three of the four best players that the franchise drafted either died (Bias, Lewis) or been traded (Billups) before they entered the peak years of their careers. The franchise has tried to embrace the draft to solve its problems over the last decade. Going in the opposite direction – trading draft picks for certified talent – was clearly the only move to make this off-season.

At the beginning of this piece I highlighted the Felipe Lopez/Sports Illustrated headline that helped make the Big East relevant again across the college basketball landscape. While Lopez ended up being a huge flop, the fact that he garnered so much attention made his long-term impact positive for the Big East. Along the same line, the Ray Allen/Kevin Garnett/Boston Celtics marriage may not win the Celtics a championship. For all anyone knows, the three players may not be able to play cohesively, or the rest of the team will be too fragmented and talent-less to support the Allen-Garnett-Pierce trio, or an injury could decimate the franchise yet again. However, these possibilities are all moot points. The only thing that matters to the Celtics' organization and its fans is that the franchise is once again making news for something positive: basketball.

Ten years from now this summer's escapades may be considered gigantic blunders. Ten minutes from now people across the league will still be talking about the Celtics more than the Spurs or the Lakers or the Suns. The Celtics have needed to salvage the aura and legend of their franchise for almost two decades now. Finally, salvation has arrived. Finally, in the minds of Celtics and basketball fans alike, the Boston Celtics are back.

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