Blog

Michael McClellan, founder of this blog, has been making some changes to make the site more informative and easier to navigate.  I consider them improvements and hope you do also.  Some I was aware of, others came as pleasant surprises.  Yesterday I found he has put up a new category called Villains under the drop down menu Mystique on the main page.  I was intrigued and had already followed several riffs of thought even before I sampled the selections.  I have a number of ideas for characters in the Celtics’ history that I find particularly villainous, but today I would like to explore one of the positive thoughts that washed over me.

Dateline: August 29, 2012––32 days until the start of training camp!

Great stories are often “made” by the antagonists.  That holds true for film, books, and indeed, basketball.  David didn’t become an Israelite hero by downing a Philistine dwarf, D’Artagnan and the Musketeers weren’t pitted against the Vienna Choir Boys, Joe Willie Namath wasn’t guaranteeing victory over a 0 and 14 Colts team, and George Custer wasn’t leading the 7^th Cavalry up against just any old rag-tag group of Indians.  Truly epic struggles demand a potent adversary.  From this perspective the Celtics have been fortunate indeed for they have decades of strife against some of the most famous players, and some of the most powerful and well regarded teams in the NBA.

Wilt, man mountain, and Hal Greer with the 76ers against the Russell Celtics; Wilt and fellow Hall of Famer’s Elgin Baylor and NBA Logo West with the Lakers against the Russell and Havlicek Celtics; Dr. J, Chocolate Thunder, Maurice Cheeks, and Andrew Toney with the 76ers against the Bird Celtics; and the ultimate slugfest of first Big Three against the Showtime Lakers.  Could Bird’s legacy have shown so brightly without Magic?  Would Russell’s greatness have been so luminescent without Wilt’s legendary feats to foil?

I’d like to leave you with two thoughts.  Those Magic Showtime Lakers played good basketball.  In the same way that Bird and Magic had a grudging appreciation for one another, many Celtic fans appreciated the opportunistic, uber-talented, and relentless attack of Pat Riley’s denizens of the West, even as they urged the locals to decimate them.  That reluctant admiration reinforced the fact that if you overcame the Purple and Gold, you had “earned” a World Championship.

Contrast that with the feelings that would accompany a Championship this year.  While it would be immensely satisfying to crush the bully-boys of the East and West warm clime Glitteratzi, downing the Miami 3egos and the Dwightmare Lakers just won’t have that feeling of overcoming teams playing great basketball.  It is always fun to take out the schoolyard bully but I, at least, won’t feel like we have beaten one (or two) of the teams playing the Naismith game at its finest.  What the heck, let’s do it anyway!