Write On Sports LLC - "In the Grips of the Ghost" by Zach Rocha

In the Grips of the Ghost

2007-05-23 11:20:37 | By: Zach Rocha

Let’s just chalk up another day to the ghost. To what it is that continues to haunt Celtics Nation.

The Red Sox had to wait 86 years for Babe Ruth to exonerate them. How long will the Len Bias era go on for?

He may have never played a game in green, but make no mistake about it, this is still his time.

We are less than a month away from several prolific 21-year anniversaries. It’s 17 days from when the Boston Celtics claimed their last NBA Championship, 26 days from the selection of Maryland superstar Len Bias by the Celtics at No. 2 in the Draft, and 28 days from the promising power forward’s death to a cocaine overdose.

When it was announced last night that the Celtics had “won” the rights to the No.5 pick in next month’s Draft, we all knew that we were, again, losers.

As lucky as we were to get Paul Pierce at No. 10 in 1998, the Draft has been anything but a joyous occasion in every other year since June 17, 1986.

There was the selection of Reggie Lewis in 1987 – who himself died tragically as he approached the apex of his career in 1993. There was Brian Shaw in 1988, who held out his second season and played in Italy instead. There were the back-to-back first round selections of Acie Earl and Eric Montross in 1993 and 1994.

There was the Rick Pitino generation that brought us Jerome Moiso (2000), Kedrick Brown (2001), and Joseph Forte (2001) and traded away current All-Stars Chauncey Billups (1997) and Joe Johnson (2001) in their rookie seasons.

There was last year’s draft day trade for Sebastian “Trigger Finger” Telfair.

And, of course, there was the Draft Lottery of 1997, when the ping-pong ball of the San Antonio Spurs popped out instead of ours.

We’ve gone through this before. Last time, it produced the player of the decade – three NBA championships, three Finals MVP’s, 10 All-NBA teams … you don’t need the added pain of me writing his name.

This time, we’re seeing the most impactful one-two punch to enter the League since Shaq and Zo in ‘92. Even if we didn’t get Greg Oden, we were more than happy to get Kevin Durant, right?

Well, what we got is No. 5 and a big ol’ question mark? There is no exclamation point to be found. But we can point the blame to one particular person.

It didn’t matter that we sent a guy who bleeds green in Tommy Heinsohn to the Lottery. There was someone from the great beyond who was really affecting the Celtics’ fate. And it wasn’t the cigar-puffing old man who passed away before the season opener. It was Leonard Kevin Bias.

Unlike Ruth, we have no reason to believe that the Calvin Johnson of his time had any ill feelings towards the leprechauns. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t have been happier to be joining “The Big Three,” who had just won their third championship together in five years.

“My first dream was just to play in the NBA. To get drafted by the world champions is an extra one,” Bias said the night he was selected.

Forty-eight hours later, though, the dream became a nightmare. And it’s been just that for the people watching the players on the parquet ever since.

Boston was the home of 16 championship teams in the League’s first 40 years of existence, winning at least two championships in every decade. But in the 1990’s, there were four (quick) trips to the playoffs, and in the 2000’s, one first-round sweep and a run to the Eastern Conference Finals when the East was as strong as club soda.

The last few years, the Danny Ainge-built Celtics have begun to collect pieces for the puzzle. The trio of 2004, Al Jefferson, Delonte West, and Tony Allen, have all shown spurts of promise – albeit sandwiched around stints on the disabled list – and the pick-ups of players who fell in 2005, Gerald Green and Ryan Gomes, have also been nice additions, as well as Rajon Rondo last year, even if, technically, he came through a trade.

What Boston needs, however, is the center piece. The big one to build around. In Oden, the Celtics would have got that player. In Durant, they would have gotten a smaller, but equally as exciting chunk.

Now, they’re relegated to picking up another young, supporting part or settling for a trade for a veteran who will help get them back to the playoffs but not to title No. 17, while that enormous hole in the middle continues to mock the organization and its true fans.

While we continue to remain in the grips of that ghost.